Why do potential owners shun MLS?

Does anyone know if Robert Kraft owns the new stadium? I was wondering if it was possible the Revs could make money a profit playing there.

 

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Call them up and ask them their what they project their third quarter closings at. oh, they wont say...okay.

 

Re: Re: Re: Why do potential owners shun MLS?

How many NFL teams HAVE to have Pepsi or Snickers on the back of their jerseys? What other league in the world wont allow their teams to negotiate a shirt sponsor? And what the hell is your concept of contract negotiation if all you can negotiate is how much you make and not who actually controls your rights? When was the last time you saw an MLS game on a non-disney owned tv station (lamar hunt doesnt count)? And the "really really small" amount of people that want to know about the operations of the league are all the potential i/o's that wont budge untill they see some real numbers. that's who cares. Re: your nfl comments, they're bogus since NFL teams control their own merchandising rights and profit sharing actually exists since there IS A PROFIT, something that MLS has yet to produce (or at least that we know of...), not to mention that profit sharing between 30 seperate companies is real and profit sharing between 3 different people is more like divying up the booty.

 

A few possible reasons are:

1. Buying into MLS doesn't buy you much. The league is not well established and there are no lucrative broadcast and merchandising deals to share in. Given that why not buy an A League franchise, it is a lot cheaper and you have more control.
2. Part of the attraction of buying a team is that it makes you a player (not literally). I know all the Washington area owners by name and many others around the country. Buying a MLS team is not going to get you that type of attention and notoriety. Having your franchise win the MLS Cup does not rate against a Super Bowl, World Series, or even a Triple Crown Race.
3. The economic environment sucks right now. I think MLS is close to getting its sea legs and I think we would see some interest if so many people hadn't had their heads handed to them in the markets. I think ownership interest in the Big 4 leagues is probably down as well at the moment.

 

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True. True.

 

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The majority of MLS games are broadcast on non-Mickey Mouse owned TV stations.

 

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Why would they post their projected earnings? They are not a publicly-traded entity.

 

Are you a troll or just ignorant of the facts?

Andy

 

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High profile, non public companies still share an absurdly higher amount of finance info than MLS does. Look at MLB, for instance, their lossing money but not ashamed to admitt it. I think MLS losses are SOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooo high that the little boys club would look like the idiot-millionares club if they admitted how much they've sunk into MLS.

 

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My point is that even with ten teams, the MLS isnt splitting the money between 10 different groups since there arent ten i/o's. So why would anyone buy into a company where they will be automatically a minority instead of an equal?

 

Your point may be valid (I don't know), but this is the wrong example to use. MLB owners have been criticized for NOT opening their books. The fact that they 'admit' to losing money is not the same as the public disclosure of specific financial information. A lot of people feel that their public proclamations of poverty are a gross exaggeration, if not an outright lie.

As someone else pointed out, any prospective investor would certainly be provided with access to MLS' finances. For our purposes, it's pretty well known that, in the players' lawsuit against MLS, sworn testimony was given that MLS lost 250 mllion dollars in its first five years. There, it was in the investors' interest to make the losses seem as great as possible; many people feel the actual losses were somewhat less.

 

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Dude, what color is the sky in your world?

Google "Selig" and "Congress" and see how forthcoming MLB is. Esp. note how Selig refuses several times to allow Fehr to publicly disclose what he knows.

This is sort of like, Enron is a hugely successful company, and they're not ashamed to admit it.

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Why do potential owners shun MLS?

Your statement is incorrect. MLB is not forthcoming about finances. Wait until Congress drags MLB kicking and screaming into hearings (holding their antitrust exemption over their head). And MLS has been forthcoming about losses, be they real or imagined because of the players' lawsuit.

High profile, non-public conpanies are just like anyone else. They have no need to disclose every dollar of their financial audits to the general public because it does not further their cause at all.

 

I am struggling to figure out why you would highlight this part of my argument. Did you even read it?

Fine, the Crew make no money. This only serves to strengthen my argument.

So now we have the only "team" in MLS with a stadium "of their own" not making money. And you still wonder why people aren't investing in MLS?

Why are there not more MLS investors? 'Cause there aren't enough billionare american soccer fans. Some of us should get off the internet and get back to work on the off-chance we might be able to change that.

Lamar Hunt has been losing money on soccer since the dark ages. Lamar Hunt isn't stupid, he just happens to like the sport.

 

Investors are coy to invest in MLS because it does not have a good lliklihood of a positive return in the shortterm. Every investor has so far spent a l-o-t of money (lost/invested depending upon how you look at it). The Fusion's owner reckons to have lost at least $25 million, and with no sight of getting it back, he quit and folded the team (the slimy weasel!). Prospects will have seen how the league was forced to cut 2 teams and many players taking a paycut (40 was the last number I heard, but not officially).

The cost of entry is very high: not only do you need to stump up $20 million, you must be prepared to lose that much again over the next five years. They also put other barriers such as specific stadia, etc. For all this, you will not own the team, but be a board member of the MLS, so to some degree the ability to manage your business is hampered.

In a nutshell, I think MLS ownership is presently only viable to people with lots of money who absolutely love soccer and are prepared to lose money to see the game they love. I do not think that is a big group.

 

I think to answer this question, you need to look at the original hopes and timelines stated by the original investors. It was accepted by all that years 1-5 would be years of losses; look at the press the "yeah, we know we are going to lose money" comes off the newsprint almost like a casual shrug. The problem though IMO, is that after this period, the I/O's began to see a longer, harder, road that might not be worth the fight. Washington Soccer, L.P., Ken Horowitz, Metromedia, Kraft in San Jose-I don't think it's a coincidence that all of this stuff took place when it did. I think it's fits within the timeline these folks set in terms of evaluating the potential of the league. I also think it was a view held by potential investors: let's see if years 6-7 show signs of potential. Folding two teams did not help, not to mention the current economic climate.

Perhaps what will see first is baby-steps-say with the MetroStars, where another group comes into a partnership with AEG-especially if they can ever get their stadium issue resolved.

 

i really think that if you come with a stadium.... well you have spended like a 100 millions (more or less).... but if you have fan support (it vary from city to city) you can make money from the very beggining....

thats why i think that the stadium is a must....

if i had 100 million lying around i would spend it in St Luis, i think it is a sure bet putting a team-stadium there....

 

Back in 1999...

This was from an interview w/Shep Messing after the whole Ramos-Gulati dustup. How much do you read into this-how much do you place in the strong arguments for single-entity or that maybe some of these investors were in the end bad for MLS, as they may have been here today, gone tomorrow types? Don't know, but I think it is fair to say that single-entity has turned people away. Whether that is a good thing, I guess we'll just have to see.

 

ummm...it's a really poor investment?

 

ding,ding,ding,ding,ding....

The only ones invested in it are billionare soccer fans.