1. An agreement between MLS and USL to not compete is illegal. It is literally anti-competitive to block off markets just because a competitor already has a team there. 2. Given 1, if the USL team is not interested, or not able to join MLS, why should MLS not accept a competing bid? If the USL team's support is strong enough and if support for soccer is strong enough, then the USL team should be able to survive, shouldn't it? That's on Detriot fans, not MLS. So far, every time a MLS team moves into a city, the USL team folds without even trying to compete. Seems to me that says something about the amount of support for soccer in a city. MLS already killed an ownership bid that tried to put the city into Ford Field. It was the one that was going to build a stadium on the former prison. After MLS spent a lot of money and political capital to get them to be the winning bid for the prison land, the ownership group said "F**k that. We're moving to Ford Field." MLS wasn't exactly happy about that as the ownership group kept the land and gave them the boot. https://www.freep.com/story/sports/2018/05/29/detroit-mls-expansion-don-garber/650275002/ DCFC's ownership group is vehemently opposed to MLS. It's also partially community owned and the fans that own shares are even more opposed to MLS than the majority owners are. While I have no doubt that a pile of cash could resolve the majority owners' opposition to MLS, I don't see the fan owners being open to it.
Some of the dynamics with Detroit could apply to Pittsburgh expansion, as well. Purely from the vantage point of looking at the national picture, both Detroit and Pittsburgh are cities with a lot to offer. They have deep sports traditions, large Gen Z populations, good soccer culture, and established rivalries with other cities in other sports. Expansion itself is one issue. How it is done is another issue, but very important. I would love to see both Detroit and Pittsburgh join the MLS if it could be done the right way for fans and the communities.
In this situation, MLS is just Walmart building in an area because some other smaller company spent years developing that market to make it ripe for them to use their money and power to eliminate the competition.
That's why I think DCFC will survive. If you go back to the beginnings of the football league in England many teams were usurped by new teams coming into the league but many survived. Nottingham Forest are a small suburban club that somehow struggle by despite being across the river from los galacticos Notts County.
MLS Fans didn't save the Crew. Ohio laws already in place saved the Crew. If not for those laws the Crew would have moved. As the previous poster said, the city of Indianapolis asked for MLS and Indy11 was never going to be capable of MLS or Eleven Park. Ford Field was offered in a previous attempt in Detroit, but MLS wanted a soccer specific stadium. They're putting teams in top markets,as a 1st division league should do. If you start a 2nd division team in a market like San Diego, Indianapolis, or Detroit, you should expect to have 1st division competition someday. The history of the game here is that of failure of 1st division league soccer. MLS has staying power. It improves every year. Soccer fans just love to jump on the conspiracy, rebellious bandwagon all the time.
Didn't Ohio law say they had a certain time to find a new owner? They saved the Crew by finding a new owner.
Yes. Also, I guess you COULD say that the fans saved the Crew by being tax payers . https://www.policymattersohio.org/b...law, Section 9.67 of,to move and allow locals
You really can't compare an English Football over the last 100 years to the US soccer scene. Economics and competition are unbelievably different now, but most of all you have to remember that England has 72 teams in the EFL in a space the size of Ohio and the population of a little less than California and New York combined. Plus there's that little thing they do with promotion and relegation which allows clubs in lower divisions the chance at riches if they manage themselves well on and off the field while getting rid of the perpetual under achievers.
I was comparing English football in the 1880s to the US soccer scene today. There was a lot of turnover and a lot of shenanigans.
Sorry, but you really can't have any accurate comparison between sport or any business between now and 140 years ago.
USL has been around in various forms since the 1980s. The 1997 USL A and D3 leagues had over 50 teams, a few of which exist in some form today. The survivors formed the crux of the USL in the 00s but it only really survived the NASL breakaway thanks to it's partnership with MLS. Also look at USL rosters. There's a lot of washed up MLS talent, including international players. That's a potentially misleading statement. There are huge money owners in USL, depending on your definition of "huge" and there are people that are in it for the money, mainly real estate speculators. The league is privately owned by a real estate company, which takes a significant chunk of franchise fees and revenue. Many if not most of the recent expansion bids have involved real estate, or potential real estate deals. A professional sports team is a nice sweetener for a real estate deal especially if someone wants tax breaks. See MiLB. A few USL clubs are community run but the minimum wealth for a D2 primary investor is $20 million and for D3 its $10 million. So these clubs aren't exactly 'grass roots'. There's also a significant growth on the value of USL franchise. I think NuRock currently charges $20 million for a USL expansion fee. Anyone who invested in a D2 USL franchise 10 or 15 years ago looking at a huge profit. NISA tried to build a league based on the principle of franchise fee community owned. It's just not feasible in today's environment. Chattanooga FC, who once drew over 20,000 to a game against Cosmos B, are now in MLS Next Pro. No but you can point out that the vagaries of establishing long-term professional leagues are not unique to the US. The principles are similar if not the same. NFL started with primarily Green Bay style community owned clubs. Within ten years all but two franchises were privately owned.
You apparently hit 'quote' within 15 seconds of my last post because I quickly updated it to what is actually posted. What you have quoted is my midnight thoughts which I didn't really agree with by the time I got done with them. So I deleted the text, but as you may know BigSoccer will keep your draft even if you delete all the text (it's a pretty big bug really) and if you don't notice it will just append it to your next reply. So discuss if you like, but I won't. It would make more sense if that reply and this one are deleted together.
I did something similar. Drafted it, went off to do other things and it was still there so I posted it. But my point is the MLS is evil, USL is good narrative, like many things on social media, is nothing like reality. I'm not aiming this comment at you. A lot of the MLS is destroying USL criticism is probably coming from people who read the headlines and don't have a clue about how either league is structured or for instance, the specifics of what is happening in Indianapolis. And MLS does a shitty PR job. You can't launch a pro league in a saturated sports market and succeed without a lot of money. The fact that the investors are now making money on paper is a bonus for them.
One other thing that is hard to measure, but is true to an unknown extent is that USL is where it is today because of the MLS spending and structure. Would Indy, Sac, Phoenix, etc be as strong and large as they are today if MLS hadn't had the infusion of money to bring in talent (over the hill or not) which elevated the sport in the US and gave fans hope that there could be successful leagues here? It's not all them by any means, but USL surely benefited from them. (as much as I don't want to admit it.)
I think another reason is that MLS largely saved USL when it put its MLS2 teams into USL after NASL turned them down. One thing to remember is that prior to that point, NASL was actually the more attractive D2 league and they were positioning themselves as truly independent of MLS. Obviously the USL/MLS relationship fell apart after NASL went under, but by then, USL was already attracting teams so they were able to stand on their own after the MLS2 teams left.
I know there is practically no wind in the sails currently but I wouldn’t mind MLS opening doors to San Fran or San Antonio despite close proximity. San Fran would be basically an LA sort of derby and there is absolutely no doubt population wise the area could carry two teams. That check mark against them needs to be put to bed. It’s a simply massive metropolitan area. But…….. crickets currently. I do believe MLS would give them the time if day if they got a situation in order San Antonio is another one. I feel for that fan base and feel they got hard done with the Austin situation. That is another very large metro area that I feel could conceivably carry two teams, even with the scorpions stadium location. You simply can’t say San Antonio isn’t viable because if stadium location when austin FC landed in the very far north of the city about as far away from downtown as one could get. I’d reckon Spurs ownership would still be interested if opportunity presented itself too. But MLS isn’t even bane dropping them. Which is disappointing MLS certainly has the luxury to stand by awhile
MLS owners, like most owners in other sports, are mostly greedy, rich, narcissistic pr!cks who care a lot more about making $$$ than the sport (or city) they are in (Jerry Jones, Dan Snyder, Irsay, Precourt, Dan Gilbert, etc.). There are exceptions. But those are the folks that pick the commish. So ... I love soccer. I hate MLS/Garber.
That's a fine soccer tradition. It's the sort of criticism you'll hear from professional soccer fans ... everywhere. Let's go through Notts County's owners since I've been a fan. Jack Dunnett MP - used the club to for further his political career. Rebuilt the West Stand using club funds then gifted to himself before leaving the club on the verge of bankruptcy and charged rent on it for the next 15 years. Derek Pavis - bought Notts after Forest snubbed him by not voting him Chairman. Rebuilt the stadium but never admitted it was largely government funded. Tried selling the club to a known asset stripper. When we formed a Trust to stop this he called us hooligans. The asset stripper Reg Brealey had such an ego he invited to his house and told us his plans "sell the team and replace with young local talent". We created a resume of Trust members and managed get a meeting with Pavis, where we appealed to his ego explaining how selling to Brealey would ruin his legacy. Pavis relented. He bought the West Stand from Dunnet. After selling the club he fell out with the and refused to waive rent and other payments following the collapse of the ITV Digital TV deal sending the club into administration (chapter 11). And don't ask how much Pavis paid his wife as a "consultant" to redesign the stadium's interiors. Albert Scardino - very genial American journalist who's wealthy wife was editor of the Financial Times. A genuinely nice guy but clueless about soccer he appointed Peter Storrie as CEO. Storrie's philosophy of spend now worry later went on to ruin Portsmouth. After the collapse of the ITV Digital deal, the money from which he'd already spent on the likes of Darrenn Caskey and Steve Mildenhall the club was doomed. Pavis, who Scardino told me in a private should be in jail for accounting malpractice put the final knife in. Steve Thompson - really nice guy with a dodgy haircut who was a leader in the Supporter's Trust. His legal practice was going so poorly that he could volunteer to sort out the mess the previous owners had left. Unfortunately after a couple of years of working his balls off trying to save the club from bankruptcy, which involved a £3 million anonymous donation, grants from the county and city, obtaining a 99 year-old lease for £1 a year on the stadium, generous donations from Forest fans and staff, and running around stadiums with buckets collecting cash, he realized his family was starving and had to go back to work. Eric Kerry and his Buddy - Eric, a local politician and casual friend of mine, who always used to tell me how he would run the club, finally got his chance with his real estate agent buddy when they were elected by the Trust members. As the club flagged, their strategy seemed to consist of hiding the books and threatening to sue anyone who asked probing questions. This really happened. An edition of the club's fanzine was withdrawn from sale the night before publication, as it would have exposed the club as being 7 figures in debt rather than "debt free" as reported to the Trust members. Munto Finance - advertised as a sale to "Middle-Eastern" investors, who could make us the richest club in the world, and voted for enthusiastically by the Trust members, the consortium was rumored to be owned by the Al-Thani family. And indeed when forced to produce an owner Munto delivered an Al-Thani but didn't clarify he was a distant relative of the Qatari royal family who ran an auto repair shop in Pakistan. With Sven Goran-Erikssen as director of football, who was convinced he'd be competing with Man City, until he found out the milkman wasn't getting paid, the club had one of its best seasons ever on the pitch. Unfortunately no-one was getting paid, including Kasper Schmeichel. It was all a con aimed at convincing two major investment banks to loan the backers of Munto £tens of billions to exploit some dodgy mineral contracts in North Korea. Peter Trembling - former Everton executive appointed by Munto, he was so embarrassed by the whole affair that he put in £1 million of his own money just to keep the club afloat. Kudos to him. Ray Trew - real character who came in like a whirlwind talking about a 5 year plan to get us to the Championship, bragging about how much of his own money he'd invested just to put the club on an even keel, allegedly £18 million, and sat with the fans because he was one of the lads. Obviously it went south fast. The performance requirements he put in managers' contracts meant he could chop and change every few months, with each new appointee doing worse than the last. His successful business pedigree was in selling manpower not running businesses day to day and it showed as he made one bad decision after another. Eventually, he became like a Roman emporer, threatening the fans and firing managers for looking the wrong way at his wife. Eventually, after several disastrous seasons, he left, with his "investment" now a debt instrument attached to the club. Alan Hardy - poor guy is a genuine fan who never had the money or skills he needed to run the club. It ended disastrously as he accidentally tweeted a d-ck pick, and lost his business, his family and most of his money and the club lost its Football League status. The Reedtz Brothers - finally some owners that appear to understand, football and putting the long-term future of the club ahead of instant success. But we've heard this before... In short ... don't ... try ... telling ... me ... a grass roots fan ... of the oldest professional club in the world ... with a record number of promotions and relegations on its record... that MLS owners are uniquely greedy... egotistical... or bad.
--------- The mayor , the council , much like Garber have no sense of soccer history. Typical politicians. Every sports team ask for money and stadium help. Why is the Indy owner any different? All it needed to happen here was the mysterious money group that is out there to join forces. But I guess egos won't allow that. I am afraid the cool team name, logo and supporters groups will all end up in the trash and we will end up with some generic FC or United name. Sad
You haven't paid attention to the story then. Indy XI owner says: "Give me money for A and I'll pay you back using B". City says "deal". Then Indy owner says: "I can't afford B. You'll have to give my money for that too. And I'll need twice as much as you gave me for A". City says "call Don Garber".
Also, the mysterious money group wants to develop a different area of the city. Thats why they aren't going to join forces. Ego has nothing to do with it. Both groups are trying to use the soccer stadium to accomplish different goals.
What's the "mysterious money group"? All I've seen is approval for a special taxing area for a potential stadium site. Did I miss something?