Olympia Time

History, politics, people of Oly WA

Author: Emmett O'Connell (Page 119 of 177)

The anti-scalping Army (more fodder for my MLS community 2.0 theory)

August 6, 2007 / / 0 Comments

A few years back, the Mariners started fighting a war with scalpers who tried to make a few bucks on the winning record of the club. They hired off duty cops to bust scalpers, but ended up with a long legal battle from what seemed to be a straight forward case (here and here).

Anyway, imagine if an army of Mariner fans rose up and played interference for the Mariners against the scalpers. No way that would ever happen, that fans who bought their tickets fair and square would interfere with the labor of folks who are trying to make a buck on the team. I mean, I love the Mariners, but who do I care that they aren’t making all the money they can?

Well, the Red Patch boys care in Toronto:

Last week, members of the Red Patch Boys started to post links to tickets being sold on cragslist and EBay for the Galaxy match. The idea has been an attack on scalpers by making false claims on tickets and even posting on Craigslist to make it clear Beckham will not play in this game. Even now, as it has become increasing clear that if Beckham enters the game it will be short lived, scalpers are looking for upwards of $125 per ticket for what is normally a $15 seat. The scalpers have been fighting back with claims such as:

Contrary to the scare tactics that are going on on this site, LA Galaxy have confirmed that Beckham IS travelling to Toronto. He’s resting for tonight’s game, so should be revived for Sunday.Don’t believe the sour grapes of those that don’t have tickets!!!

We have no idea if these tactics are working but the Red Patch Boys are passionate about their club and the cry has been to have real fans in the stadium, not Beckham glory hunters. It’s also interesting to note that (while not to the extent of this game) this battle with scalpers has been an ongoing fixation for the Red Patch Boys. Toronto FC sold out every ticket for every game before a minute was played this season so scalpers have been out in force since April.

This is the kind of buy-in you get when you accept that there are going to be a certain percentage of fans who really really love the team you happen to own. When you allow them to be creative, take ownership of their passion, they start to actually help you out. They bring new folks into the fold and they protect the team.

MLS and community 2.0 brain dump

August 4, 2007 / / 0 Comments

I’ve been toying around with this idea for a week or so. I posted it at Big Soccer and got a bit of a response, but not really what I was looking for.

I’ve found threads of it here, here and here. But, I think I nailed it down tonight when I was mowing the lawn:

What is the most defining difference between professional sports in the United States and in the rest of the world?

It isn’t that most of the world plays soccer, while we play baseball and football. It isn’t that most of the world plays in relegation/promotion leagues while we play in closed leagues.

The defining difference is the connection to the fan and the community around the team.

In Ireland, the Cork City FC management gets together regularly with the team’s fan club. I’m not talking about a spokesperson or a giant stuffed Orca, but a real deal meeting between the chairman and manager of the soccer team and their fans. In the middle of the season.

This face to face relationship does have a parallel in American sports, but it only happens in so-called amateur ranks where college and high school coaches face their supporters in public and less than public forums. But, our professional organizations are often times distant from fans. Most coaches, manager and owners answer to their fans through the mediation of the media, sometimes.

In terms of ownership, fans have their hands in teams oversees in a manner that is not only largely unknown in the United States, but not even allowed. Cambridge United and FC United of Manchester (founded after American Malcom Glazer bought the original Manchester United) are only two of many directly fan owned teams.

The very idea of a Supporters Trust, which raises money specifically for a professional sports organization, to keep it afloat and competitive would be foreign in America. If the Mariners were going bankrupt, they would be sold and moved to Tampa Bay before a group of fans got together to raise money for them. The very concept of public funds for stadiums is a political battle that few politicians want to fight.

Even though many point to the Green Bay Packers as the best example of a fan owned team in North America, outside a handful of minor league baseball teams and Canadian football teams, the phenomena is largely unknown. In baseball its not allowed for corporations (fans would organize as a corporation) to own teams and non-profits can’t own teams in any leagues.

The one league that does allow corporate ownership, the NBA, has a few teams that actually sell stock. But, vast fan ownership of that stock and some sort of community building up from that ownership? I haven’t seen it.

So, this post is a spill over of thoughts I’ve had regarding what Major League Soccer should do differently. Screw Beckham, he’s great to get people to glance at soccer again, but to really get people connected to the sport, you have to get them connected in a way that no other league in the United States does.

So, know that I have this down, I’ll write some more later.

Why sport matters (Go Iraqi national team)

July 26, 2007 / / 0 Comments

A little while back I wrote a couple of pieces about why the Sonics should matter. My emotions pale in comparison to this explanation why the Iraqi soccer team making the finals of the AFC Asia Cup matters:

The Iraqi football team and the match bring together all the Iraqis , regardless on our religions or castes , whether they are , Arabs , Turkmen , Kurds , Muslims ( Sunnis , Shiites ) , Christians , etc ..

All the Iraqis who live outside or inside Iraq were feeling the same way ..

Our players played hard to reach the finalist level , they played while their country Is agonizing , they won to cheer their wronged people..

…

Iraqi guys were exceptionally happy , laughing and celebrating , we the needed to feel that way, we didn’t feel happy for a long time , I didn’t see many cars in the streets for a long time , but today , it was awesome & full of life in all the Iraqi cities , from the north to the south ,in the east and west..

It is a great way to unit the Iraqis.

May god help and bless the Iraqis and all the Iraqi teams ..

Sunshine..

P.S this is the first football match I watch , I am not very big fan of sport , I like to hear the result when Iraqi team is playing , but from now on , I’ll watch the Iraqi matches ..

Civic republicanism and 2008 (part 2)

July 25, 2007 / / 0 Comments

After Democrats trot out the language, if not the actions, so says Gov. Mitt Romney:

“Hillary Clinton just gave a speech the other day about her view on the economy. She said we have been an on-your-own society. She said it’s time to get rid of that and replace that with shared responsibility and we’re-in-it-together society,” Romney told the crowd. “That’s out with Adam Smith and in with Karl Marx.”

I have to admit, for someone who has been blogging about one candidate in particular, I’ve paid very little attention to what’s been going on on the other side of the aisle in terms of rhetoric (short of the Ron Paul/Gualani dust-up). My impression had been that of any of the GOP candidates, that Romney was the one that would seem to stand out as a… pragmatist. Someone not willing to say really harsh things to win votes.

So, I was surprised that he basically said “Yes, we really are in this by ourselves. You can’t trust your neighbor, you can’t trust your government, you can’t trust anyone.”

For a republican, not very civic republican.

Lakefair, ships and the “polarization in American communities”

July 19, 2007 / / 0 Comments

The last week or so a small debate has been happening over email and blog in Oly (here, here and here) about the invitation last summer of some Canadian and American ships to Lakefair. Basically a cultural clash between different sides of Olympia, its been focussed on the ships.

I tried to write my homage to Lakefair this morning on Olyblog, but I ended up shutting down the comments because, well, I didn’t like where they were going, and I didn’t want to turn my post into a open thread on why Lakefair sucks and why the Navy sucks as well.

Anyway, I’ve been bummed about the specific controversy, I’ve also been bummed about how things like this usually get handled in Olympia, with the different groups talking past each other. Its true that we’re a very engaged community, but at the same time I wish we would be more engaged with each other and not so much choosing up sides.

Peter Levine has a very appropriate post that I’ll clip some text out of. Read the entire thing though, he’s good and worth the read:

…why are public discussions so polarized and dominated by hot-button issues? The questioner came from Kansas, and she specifically mentioned local discussions of education.

…

First of all, we have actual disagreements that split us into groups, and we sometimes have to deal with these issues. But they seem over-represented in our public life.

This is partly because most of us lack practical experience in mobilizing people except when issues are polarized. From countless news stories and movies, we know the “script” for angry, adversarial politics. We know how to organize our allies when we are angry at another group: we can call for a march or a rally, put up flyers, alert the media. There are also techniques for organizing people around less contentious issues–ways literally to get citizens out to meetings and then to achieve social change without relying on polarization. These techniques include the “one-on-one” interviews popular in community organizing; Study Circles and other deliberative forums; and volunteering opportunities that are connected to discussion and reflection. But such techniques are not widely reported or described in fiction; even less are they taught in schools.

Blogging other places recently

July 19, 2007 / / 0 Comments

Over at WesternDemocrat wondering why a Dem couldn’t win the West in 2008

Over at Washblog, just a couple of things on the AWB and Luke Esser and pointing folks to a Goldmark post out east.

Olyblog, various things.

Some soccer stuff, one wondering if Vancouver BC will steal the MLS and another at BigSoccer pointing out that the USL is dominating the so-called major league MLS in the Open Cup.

I really should have a couple of posts here this weekend, one long MLS/Soccer/Fan thought and a short addition to the Archie Binns project.

EWU: The Cal-State Chico of the Northwest

July 5, 2007 / / 1 Comment

To Ryan, the top contract demands of Eastern Washington University faculty:

  • No school on October 13, the first day of the modern firearm deer season.
  • Tenure to be determined on cow herding skills.
  • Professional training on the correct spelling of regional, yet unfamiliar, fauna. Especially the geoduck clam, which is neither spelled goeduck or gooeyduck.
  • Cowboy boots, mullets and dickies to be approved attire.
  • Pleasepleaseplease put regular floors throughout campus buildings. We’re tired of the dirt floors, this isn’t one big barn.
  • “Schlitz: the official beer of EWU.”

Can we build a home for an MLS team? Yes, we have the space

June 28, 2007 / / 0 Comments

Here are two shots of a model of BMO Field (home of Toronto FC) placed in the north end of the Starfire Sports complex. Assuming we can find some public funding for one of the cheaper recent MLS stadiums and put it among the largest soccer complexes in Puget Sound, building an MLS stadium sounds feasible.

Here is an article from the Seattle Business Journal (thanks Goal Seattle) about a plan to build a stadium on the location in the shots below.

From the north:


From the southeast:


Why the Seattlest was wrong about the Seattle and the MLS

June 28, 2007 / / 0 Comments

Don’t look too closely at initiative election results in Seattle. The light will blind you.

This is going to sound a lot like the post below, but I don’t feel just like updating an old post. Back in November Dan at the Seattlest wrote “Why Major League Soccer Is Never Coming To Seattle,” which pretty much tries to make the same point that Goldy made back in April.

I-91 was incredibly popular so don’t even try to ask Seattle folks for any more money for sports stadiums. Case closed. Go away. We mean it. Seriously.

Here is my response to Goldy, in which I point out two things:

1) No one fought I-91, so its not a very fair representation of how a contested election, with a less easy to hate enemy, would end up.

2) King County residents voted in high numbers for the Seahawks Stadium, basically pushing the initiative over the line.

And, then my post below. Soccer stadiums are a lot cheaper than multi-purpose basketball stadiums (public contribution ~$40 million compared to $300 million). And, the legislature passed public support legislation for two sports facilities (including a new hockey arena in King County) and no one raised a fuss.

If the MLS doesn’t succeed in King County, it won’t be because the political environment isn’t supportive.

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