Ok, I've hardly posted ANYTHING since the team has been moved. I'm so angry, I can hardly work up the energy to come on Big Soccer anymore. So here's my question. What were MLS' reasons for locating a franchise in San Jose as one of the "original" teams? From day one, I heard the stadium deal was a "bad one" for MLS. They didn't have an owner, so why would they decide to locate here? Because of geography? Previous history in NASL? The "youth" market looked so tempting? Sure, the fans wanted a team here, but what did MLS expect to happen? Did they think that someone would leverage their dot com company and buy the team? That they could strong arm Spartan shops into giving them a better deal? It just seemed like MLS threw up a prayer pass into a packed secondary hoping that someone would jump up and make the catch. Even if the fans would have some out in serious numbers when the team sucked, how would that have changed things? Would that have made the city decide to build a stadium? No.....Kraft and AEG might of lost less money, but they still would have lost money. I would just like to understand the logic of MLS' move.
I think when MLS started they were looking for markets with fan support and decent stadiums, not ones with a good profit situation. If you have the first things, they hoped to bring in owners would create the last thing. But you can't stay place forever. San Jose, as it is, cannot be the location of a good profit situation, and it's been to long since the beginning of the league to fool possible owners with ideas of future growth. Thus San Jose is no longer an inticing location for prospective owners. It could have all been prevented 5-10 years ago, but hindsight is .. well, you know.
San Jose have been binned because the league model has changed. It's all public/private partnerships and stadium building. If your owner doesn't think they can make money out of non-footballing activities in your stadium, they don't want to know.
No team in MLS has a remote chance of being profitable strictly from soccer operations (at least not in the forseeable future). Every team is losing money on soccer, so I fail to see how San Jose is really much different than anywhere else. Suggesting that the Bay Area is somehow different than the LA basin or the New York metro area is incorrect. These areas all have the same issues. The league has changed it's method of operations since 1996. If they had not, MLS would be a memory by now. Of course, in making those changes, they have sold their soul to the devil (otherwise known as AEG and others). It may work out in the long run, but who can say? At some point in time, to be taken seriously, MLS is going to have to address the issue of playing soccer. This is a league that currently has a game that is a secondary consideration.
Here's a very interesting article from October 1992 that kind of lays out the philosophy that Alan Rothenberg was looking at in the run-up to the foundation of MLS: http://www.iht.com/articles/1992/10/07/worc_1.php The idea was to get the corporate sponsors who were ploughing money into the 1994 World Cup to likewise plough money into a professional soccer league based around the single-entity concept. But what we actually ended up with eventually with the "investor-operator" thing was something that was a halfway house between the original single-entity idea and the traditional sports ownership model... not what Rotherberg et al. originally envisioned. The article is also notable for the contemptible but unsurprising anti-soccer comments by Frank Deford, quite possibly the most vile editor/journalist in American sports during the past 30 years. It's worth a laugh for his hysterical ranting about the game.
You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to sj_oldtimer again. San Jose was one of the MLS inaugural teams because of Dan Van Voorhis. He was to be the franchise's investor-operator until circumstances outside of the league forced him out (helped along with the league's buyout of rights to the market). San Jose wasn't chosen "by accident" - the league didn't just "throw up a prayer" putting a team here. And attracting new blood in ownership takes time and effort. Heck, Dallas was also one of the inaugural teams yet was bought by an existing MLS investor who already owned two other MLS teams. Any accusations that San Jose has been a bad market for MLS is bulls***... heck, 4th in real attendance last season with all the off-field crap going on? Hot damn! And AEG's moving of the team doesn't mean that this was a bad market - it means that AEG knew that no one here would give them operational rights to a new stadium, especially not entertainment-competitor SVS&E. Whether Lew Wolff (assuming he buys the rights to the new San Jose Earthquakes) will give that SSS operational-control to his old buddy Philip Anchutz remains to be seen and is probably a topic better discussed elsewhere, but that was no doubt the true bottom line as far as AEG was concerned. GO SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES!!! -G
I remember seeing Dan Van Voorhis' picture in the Mercury when San Jose was awarded a franchise just before the 1994 World Cup. He was just gleaming with joy! I think he and former NASL Whitecaps & Quakes GM were bucking hard to get a team here. I remember the two didn't like each other much but all credit lied with those two guys on why SJ was chosen. I talked to Terry Fisher a few years ago and he said Dan lost millions with the Blackhawks. Either thru law suits or what have you. He made it all back when the stocks went up, however. All he got for all the money he spent was a free lifetime booth at Spartan Stadium. Too bad he and the franchise have recently died. I remember the local amateur PSL team the, San Jose Oaks sued him for trying to prevent a CONCACAF game with a Mexican team played at Spartan. I was at the game but I forget who it was against I just remember the Oaks lost 4-1. I think the MLS was looking at NASL cities but then again, LA,Denver,Kansas City never really drew all that well with their NASL teams. Well LA drew ok for a few years when they had Johann Cruyff. KC & Columbus came into the league because of Lamar Hunt. Actually the Houston Hurricane only averaged 5,900 fans for their 3 years in the NASL at a time (1978-1980)when soccer and the NASL were in their BOOM years. To tell you the truth, among many former NASL cities, I think San Jose had the most consistent attendance in their 11 years in the league. NY drew horribly before Pele. Even when the Quakes played lousy back from 1978-1982, the Quakes never averaged less than 11,000 a game. I think SJSU worked better with those Quakes than with the current Quakes. Maybe it was just a different time period when the Silicon Valley didn't really exist yet and everything in the area was cheaper. When MLS decided to make their own stadiums however, I always knew sooner or later, San Jose would either lose their team or relocate somewhere else across the Bay. When the city made a lot of noise about getting a stadium last month and prior, I never really believed we would get a stadium. I still seriously doubt we'll ever get one. I don't foresee taxpayers voting for it nor do I see it being built anywhere. I hope I'm 100% wrong, but I'll believe it when I see it!
That was never gonna happen, or it would've happened already. If there's a slight chance that voters would approve a new SSS in San Jose, there's an even slighter chance that it would happen in Oakland and no chance that it would happen in SF (*coughGiantscough*). Though there are ways of getting an SSS deal in the South Bay without needing public voter approval - namely, at the Fairgrounds in San Jose and in Santa Clara. Things should be more clear by mid-late this month. GO SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES!!! -G
They could have had full stadiums and it wouldn't have mattered. The Quakes had a very high rent and very low ticket prices. They never would have made a cent in Spartan ever. And there is simply no good place to build a stadium in the San Jose/South Peninsula area that wouldn't be better served by other types of development. If the Bay Area was not a bad market for soccer, MLS never would have left.
Yeah, there are so many other better soccer markets than the Bay Area. Like Dallas, for example. Why, when I was in Dallas, I just yelled "DJRIBIL CISSE!" in the street, and people were coming up to me with opinions on his form. In Dallas!
"The last World Cup, however, following a scoreless draw whose subtleties could be enjoyed only by the purest of fans, was decided in West Germany's favor by penalty kicks." Wow, even then the media sucked.
What was the general feeling on whether or not Rafael Benitez will offload him to Olympique Marseille during the January transfer window? Actually, although I take your point, I doubt whether there are that many amongst the general public in San Jose who would have any idea who Djibril Cisse is. The unfortunate reality is that a lot of "people on the street" probably wouldn't even know who Dwayne DeRosario is and he played for the local club for several years. Sad but true.
Yes - after all, there are probably other types of development that could've served the Guadalupe River Park area better than a hockey arena, yet people voted for the arena nonetheless. The truth is that without a venue here that AEG could have full control of, the Bay Area is a bad market for AEG, not for MLS or soccer in general, as was stated here. Having operational control of the stadium would mean either no or minimal rent, along with a % of the stadium revenue. San Jose is a great market for soccer if the effort is put forth by the owners and/or organizers, not just for MLS games, but for various exhibitions as well. The Sharks successfully found this out about hockey here when it entered the fledgling (as far as hockey goes) Bay Area market, and any new owner of the San Jose Earthquakes would do the same for soccer. GO SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES!!! -G
My point being only on planet stupid do you see Houston as a better soccer market, and the reality is that with the Astros and the Texans there, that won't change. Yeah, they're sooooooooooo going to be putting Houston Toros articles on page 1 above the fold when the Astros are in 1st place and Reggie Bush is in training camp. Yep.
That's due to lack of marketing/promoting, not because San Jose is a bad market. After all, almost everyone in San Jose has at least heard of Evgeni Nabokov, and ice hockey isn't any more natural a sport in California than soccer is. But that was probably your point all along. GO SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES!!! -G
Exactly. And I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that a city the size of San Jose, with excellent weather, should have at least one modern outdoor stadium facility. And if it's relatively small capacity and cheaper to build (relative to larger stadiums for baseball or football, for example), and suitable for multiple types of events, it makes even more sense.
Why? Much depends on what level of involvement the Houston Chronicle has with the team. The Dallas Morning News has been a sponsor of the Burn and FC Dallas since the beginning and not coincidentally, the DaMN's coverage of the team has usually been very good, with FCD game stories during the season usually on page 1 of the sports section. So far, however, the Chronicle has done a good job covering the team. And they appear to have partnered with MLS Houston on the "name the team" contest.
I had season tickets for the last couple of years and managed to organize groups of more than 30 on 5 occasions. Yet I have no idea who Djibril Cisse or the other guy are, and I don't feel bad about it one bit. (I don't think too many Englishmen know who Brian Ching is, but it doesn't bother me too much.)
San Jose will support a properly managed Earthquakes team. Soccer in the US does not require 50,000 people in a stadium to be considered "successful" (less than half that amount would be fine). There are a million people in this town, literally, and another three or four million next door.....plenty of numbers for support. Proper management, along with more than a passing glance by the local politicians and media outlets, would do wonders for an MLS franchise in San Jose. There are local people who can do the job. That being said, God help us if we settle for "out of towners" ever again. We are better off without a team than letting that happen.