AAAAAHHHHH!!!!! how many times does it need to be told to people!? Euro teams that use the word "CITY" in thier names dont actually have the word in the actual town name (Manchester, Birmingham, Cardiff)!! The proper name by that format would be New York City City, which sounds no less stupid than "wiz"
That means that I think a team in NYC with the name Cosmos would be very good for the mls. That was a very popular team and still is.
The sad fact is that NYC does not have an intermediate size stadium (20-30k) anywhere in the 5 boroughs to host an MLS team. If it did, the Metros would probably have moved there once they realized they weren't going to draw more than 25k at GS while paying $200-250k per game rent. Downing Stadium on Randall's Island was a WPA facility that probably held about 25k and had a great location by the Triborough Bridge, between Manhattan, the Bronx & Queens. However, it was accessible mostly by auto, only 1 or 2 bus lines ran across the bridge from 125th St. There were elevated train tracks right next to it, but no station! http://terraserver.homeadvisor.msn.com/image.aspx?T=1&S=12&Z=18&X=738&Y=5645&W=1&qs=|bronx|new+york http://terraserver.homeadvisor.msn....10&Z=18&X=2954&Y=22581&W=1&qs=|bronx|new+york http://www.nylcv.org/Programs/WPC/blueprint/boroughs/manhattan/pages/11_randalls/ http://www.dyestat.com/armory/icahn-agreement.htm
http://gocolumbialions.collegesports.com/facilities/colm-wien.html Artificial turf, little parking, Columbia doesn't want us. http://gocolumbialions.collegesports.com/sports/m-soccer/spec-rel/070904aaa.html Grass field, one small stand, Metros played US Open Cup game there. http://terraserver.homeadvisor.msn....=18&X=2957&Y=22625&W=1&qs=|Manhattan|New+York
Anyway you look at it, it seems unbelievable to me that California has 3 teams, Texas may soon have 3 (FCD, Houston, San Antonio) and New York will only have 1, (arguably none)! MLS can do better than that! Who cares if the NY Cosmos suck for a few years after their inception?! MLS clubs continue to grow and become better as will any expansion team. They have an undeniable history in the NY metropolitan area as well as the world that should no longer be ignored. When the time is right to expand into New York, it must be the Cosmos.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/03/sports/soccer/03soccer.html?oref=login&oref=login According to this article a gentleman named Andrew Murstein is looking to invest in MLS with particular interest in a New York City team. He states, "I'm also focused on New York and a second team here. With the MetroStars moving to Harrison, when that gets done, M.L.S. will have a huge void in New York, and that should be a priority for the league." Discouragingly for Cosmos fans, it would appear that Pepe Pinton is up to his old tricks. SOB! "Murstein said he would meet with New York City officials this week and would propose building a soccer stadium near Shea Stadium in Queens. He also said he had offered more than $1 million and other incentives to purchase the Cosmos name from Peppe Pinton, who holds the rights to the recognizable team from the North American Soccer League that has not played in more than 20 years. "I like to think I made a realistic offer, but the owner of the trademark has his own idea of what it's worth," Murstein said."
The article also quotes Garber as saying the league isn't focused on putting a second team in New York. Didn't I read something something about them floating the idea of two teams in New York when they were talking to the Jets about possibly using the West Side Stadium? As long as Pinton owns the trademark, there will be no Cosmos. He's not going to get more than $1 millon for that name. Eventually interest will wane.
Yeah, I seem to recall reading about a possible 2nd NY team playing in that proposed Jets stadium as well, though Mursteins comments about finding a stadium sight in Queens seems a much more palatable alternative. Though it says Garber isn't focused on a second NY team, another aricle,(http://www.dailysouthtown.com/southtown/dssports/pro/042sd1.htm), states that MLS is looking into more intra-city rivalries like Chivas-Galaxy, namely in Chicago and New York. I also seem to recall Pinton saying he wanted 2 million for the name the last time someone, I believe it was AEG, tried to buy it from him in 2000/2001. Is 2million worth it? It is to me, but it ain't my money
Yeah, I recall reading that about the city rivalries. I don't know how I feel about that. On the one hand, derbies are fun and generate interest. On the other hand, America is a large country and there are many cities without top flight soccer. A New York derby could be really interesting and a nice counterpoint to the LA derby. But there are questions there. This new team would have to play somewhere in New York City. If the Metros move into Harrison, is it really a New York derby? The Knicks and the Nets aren't exactly a sizzling rivalry. I know the sport is different but you see what I'm getting at. This new expansion club would have to get some serious buzz to promote the rivalry in the media because honestly I don't think the Metros have enough profile to pull it off.
Agreed, and I wrote in to Sean Wheelock about that very point. Chivas-Galaxy seems to work as an intra-city rivalry because both teams have established fan bases, even the expansion team has one to draw from. If the LA derby had been LA Galaxy vs. LA Surfers, would it have been as electric? Probably not. Now, that's not to say that more intra-city rivalries in MLS wouldn't work unless the other team has a ready-built fanbase. A Cosmos-MetroStars derby would certainly be an interesting test to see if the derby idea would work in another market. Just by itself, MLS has got to be thinking they screwed the pooch in that market and would love another opportunity to go at it again. I don't think it would end up like Knicks-Nets games, just because the league is so much smaller. I was trying to think of good intra-city rivalries in the US and, frankly, I'm stuggling. Is this something that is unique to soccer? The closest I can think of is White Sox-Cubs, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that it was electric. What are the other rivalries? Jets-Giants, Lakers-Clippers, Rams-Raiders(I guess that didn't pan out), Mets-Yankees, Rangers-Islanders-Devils. I guess Rangers-Devils games are pretty good, but is that an intra-city rivalry? I can't seem to find any good US examples.
Well, i can tell u that Yankees-Mets is the biggest in Ny and probably in the country, since there aren't that many. I mean, even if ur not a sport fan u have to pick a side on that one. Its like a law. You might be suprised to know that Rangers-Islanders is a little bigger than Giants-Jets, probably because Giants and Jets barley play each other. Knicks-Nets is pretty pathetic. Nobody really cares because no matter how good the Nets are, the Knicks will always be the only NY b-ball team
Rangers v Islanders isn't a intra-city derby (The Islanders play in Uniondale, NY). The Giants and Jets are the East Rutherford derby (that's sounds odd, but it's true) but hardly ever play in the regular season (they do each year in pre-season, but that doesn't count). No one cares about Nets v Knicks because the Nets always win and the Knicks are terrible. Unfortunately this might become a intra-city derby because of the Nets planned move to Brooklyn. There aren't many great examples because in the NFL and MLB, intra-city games are rare because of the AFC/NFC and AL/NL format. There's only one intra-city match in the NBA (Lakers/Clippers), and none in the NHL (unless you consider the NYC market as one area, then you can, or I suppose Kings v Ducks can count as well).
I think it may have to do with geography (big country w/many major markets) and that US native sports lack soccer's brand of passion among fans. Devils-Rangers-Isles is about as hot as it gets domestically... though not truly in the same city... and that's not gonna happen again anytime soon. The intra-city baseball rivalries seem sporadic at best (rarely play each other). Probably the best baseball "derby" was before most of us were around: Dodgers-Giants (Dodgers-Yanks post-season through the early 50s, too). before they chased the smell of the Left Coast. Toronto had a good soccer derby for a brief time in history (early '60s): Italia Falcons-Toronto City. Their matches brought some large and somewhat rowdy crowds to Varsity, I'm told. There were the Chicago Bears & Cardinals, Canadiens and Maroons in Montreal, but no great shakes in either case. Chivas-Galaxy could set the new standard. But would a successful new Cosmos franchise work against MetroStars at this time? Not as if the Metros are getting a lot of NYC press as is. Still no English broadcasts?
I think its a combination of geography and a side-effect of a tradition of top-down rather than bottom-up league structures - I've spoken to some really obsessively passionate fans of american sports (and understood absolutely zero about what they were on about).
I guess you could add SF Giants-Oakland Athletics to the mix since they're right across the Bay from each other, but my take on that rivalry is that it is much like Yankees-Mets. In both those cases, neither intra-city team is the others main rival. Nor is that the case with a Cubs-Sox game. Cubs-Cards, Giants-Dodgers, Yanks-BoSox are the main rivalries there. But does that matter? I guess what I'm beginning to realize is that intra-city rivals don't have to be heated in the sense of Everton-Liverpool or Tottenham-Arsenal, because there will likely always be other fish out there to develop other rivalries with. The important thing is to make people in those markets choose sides It's sales 101. For example, when trying to close for an appointment, you don't ask, "How does 2:00 sound to you?", because you open yourself up for a flat out "no". Rather, you ask, "Which works better for you, 2:00, or 4:00." By being given an option, people are more likely to choose one of the two than choose nothing at all. Perhaps with soccer in a dual team market, people will be forced to choose one team or the other, thus creating more pie for soccer.
Just for the record... Someone here in Akron refreshed my dimming memory about one of this country's most notable "derby" situations... though it was before most of our lifetimes and it was not soccer, baseball, football, or hockey. Between the 1920s and WW II, Akron sported two professional basketball teams (as professional as basketball got before the NBA), the Akron Firestone Non-Skids and the Akron Goodyear Wingfoots. Overflow crowds were the norm at their small arenas. It was war on hardwood, and loyalties ran deep amongst families & friends employed at one place or the other. Like Duke vs. UNC. Both teams became the foundation of the National Basketball League, one of the NBA forerunners. They, along with fellow NBL clubs, eastern teams, and indies like the NY Rens and Harlem Globetrotters, would annually vie for the national championship at an invitational tournament in Chicago. It was the pro basketball big-time back then. So, I thought I'd mention the derby in my own backyard, almost forgotten. Too bad the rubber companies (and their sports enterprises) are gone. Goodyear, BTW, sponsored soccer's national amateur Cup winners one year during the 1930s.
I voted "later." There's no infrastructure on the scene right now to make me believe this is feasible anytime soon (plus, it seems like Pinton keeps raising his price to just beyond what anyone will actually pay), but people, even people with a whole lot of money, just won't stop talking about it. That makes 'never' an unreasonable answer, too, in my book.
Actually I did not mean it as a "nick name" but as a part of the "town name", so it would be NEW YORK CITY COSMOPOLITANS. This way the team represents NYC not NYS (New York State). Duhhhhh
You even mentioned it in you post and still you missed what is unquestionably the biggest derby rivalry in the US; Duke vs. Carolina (in that order). It's got everything: proximity, passion, history, and championships on both sides.
Ummm, pardon me, but I think any NYC team that didn't have cosmos would be named Chelsea Football Club (if they played in the Westside stadium) or Queens Park Rangers if they played in Queens at the 15,000 seat park stadium.
Look, guys... I'm all for giving soccer fans worldwide credit for being passionate about the "beautiful game" and their favorite sides. However, we just make ourselves look foolish when we resort to elevating soccer's passion by spouting blatantly inaccurate statements like this one. You think fans in Boston lack passion when it comes to supporting "Red Sox Nation"... particularly during a series against the hated Yankees? You think all of those costumed crazies occupying the "Black Hole" at Oakland Raiders' games are wanting for passion? Ever witnessed the passion on display at a Duke vs. North Carolina college hoops clash at Cameron Indoor Stadium? You want to talk passionate rivalries? How about Chiefs vs. Raiders, Cowboys vs. Redskins, Browns vs. Steelers, Bears vs. Packers, Dodgers vs. Giants, Cubs vs. Cardinals Ohio State vs. Michigan, Alabama vs. Auburn, Florida vs. Georgia, Oklahoma vs. Texas, USC vs. Notre Dame, Nebraska vs. Oklahoma? Bottom line? It's one thing to be justifiably proud of the passion that infuses soccer internationally. It's quite another thing to inaccurately deem "US native sports" as lacking passion equal to that of soccer. One need not spuriously denigrate American sports in order to trumpet the positive aspects of soccer.
Sorry for my ignorance, but I dont know much about NYC. Are you saying there is currently a 15000 seat stadium in Queens park? If so why the heck arent the Metros playing there? I know you could have been talking about in the future but your post sounds like there is currently a stadium there.
We're talking derby passion, Brian. I almost included Browns-Steelers myself before revising. No doubting the Sox Nation and their passionate hatred for all thing pinstriped. but they never showed that in the form of derby passion when the Braves were in Beantown, did they? Well, at least US fans haven't consistently reached Hooligan/Ultra/Barra Brava levels as of yet. You & annapolis have it nail-on-head, college-wise. Hard-pressed to find pro-inner-city rivalry in US with any juice today. Residents of Firestone Park never set foot in Goodyear Heights if they didn't have to, and vice versa. A microscopic version of Dodgers-Giants or River-Boca. Think I'd better get this back on subject... with apologies... When Cosmos? Probably 60-90 days after Pinton's estate clears probate.