Category: Soccer (Page 6 of 6)

Save the Victory and myfootballclub.co.uk

September 22, 2007 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

The idea of fan owned team has vexed sports fans (me specifically). When I get into a discussion about sports in a meta sense, what’s wrong with them and how they’re set in the U.S. leads fans into a set-up of disappointment someone always points to the Packers.

The Packers are the one really fan-owned team in the United States. That they are fan-owned is the one reason they haven’t moved to Milwaukee. The Mariners wanted to move to Tampa Bay: “man, wouldn’t it be great if we could buy them and they’d never leave?”

That idea is pretty much impossible in the United States, since the four major leagues make any sort of non-profit or corporate ownership impossible through their operating rules.

The one sport in the U.S. (and a possible third or fourth major sport if hockey continues to fall) is soccer and as far as I can tell, there are not limitations in the MLS or the USL to either non-profit, fan owned corporations owning teams. And, the idea of a truly fan owned teams in English soccer can be pointed to with Cambridge United, FC United and now myfootballclub.

And now, if it all works out, we might have our own fan-owned soccer team here on the west coast. The owners of the first year California Victory of the USL 1st Division have been pretty flaky. They’ve been kicked out of the ownership of their Spanish team, and there is a lot of speculation that they’re going to give up on their American side as well.

So, this is where Save the Victory comes in. They aren’t trying to necessarily find “local” ownership for the club, like some dot-com millionaire angel that will operate the team at a loss just to keep them in town. Rather, they’re looking for up to 20,000 owners who will invest $100 to buy the team. You can buy up to 1,000 shares.

I think this is an exciting idea. I’m a bit disappointed that this effort has been going on for a few weeks and there has been no coverage of it yet of this effort. It would be interesting to see if something like this could ever happen over here.

Supporter clubs, uncovered

August 15, 2007 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

Pitch Invasion notes that media are beginning to wander into MLS stadiums, drawn by Beckham. But, they seem to be noticing, you guessed it, supporter clubs:

Meet the Empire Supporters Club. Though they appear to fill roughly 3 percent of the seats in Giants Stadium on any given game day, they are arguably responsible for the majority of the atmosphere and alcohol consumption. Members include students, construction workers and at least one manager at a Fortune 50 company. Drawing from a huge variety of ethnic soccer traditions, their fandom is a hybrid unlike any found in New York sports: the scarves, banners and cleverly insulting chants of Europe; the tireless dancing, chanting and smoke bombs of South America.

From the comments of the above story:

…the ESC makes a Red Bulls game the best sports ticket in town dollar for dollar.

The ESC is the heart and soul of the Red Bulls, without them, the games would be boring.

This Washington Post article that PI links to show the beautiful diversity that can happen between different supporter clubs like Barra Brava and Screaming Eagles. While Barra Brava is certainly the more raucous and free-wheeling, Screaming Eagles has a board of directors, assigned seating, ect. Honestly, I’d probably be more attracted to the SE model, but I greatly appreciate there being a BB around.

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

August 6, 2007 / Emmett O'Connell / 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 / Emmett O'Connell / 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 / Emmett O'Connell / 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 ..

Blogging other places recently

July 19, 2007 / Emmett O'Connell / 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.

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

June 28, 2007 / Emmett O'Connell / 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 / Emmett O'Connell / 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.

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

June 28, 2007 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

I recently bitched too early over at Washblog about losing the USL-1 Sounders to an MLS expansion team in a couple of years. Now I think its a pretty good idea, but there have been some concerns about whether its possible to build a new soccer specific stadium in Washington, or whether given the crash and burn effort of the Sonics to get a new arena is poisoning the well for public financing of sports arenas.

Here:

“Renton is a very interesting site because of the demographics and the growth that I have seen around that area and the land that is available,” James Keston said. “And based on what has happened with the Sonics, they’ve already gone through the first stages of this: the making sure that the community and the city at least have an interest in a potential stadium there.”

The Sonics issue is their failure to gain public money for a new home even with the threat of relocation.

And, more directly, here:

The only real hangup there is a stadium. The Sonics are having major problems trying to get something built and I doubt after footing the bill for both Safeco and Qwest that the taxpayers there will go for something new for the Sonics, much less an MLS team. No stadium=no team as far as MLS is concerned.

Instead of looking at the Sonics for the future of the MLS in Seattle, we should pay closer attention to the efforts of hockey teams, horse people and community theaters. While the efforts of the Sonics to gain public funding for a new stadium went down in flames, a hockey arena in Kent, a horse dome in Lewis County and two community theaters are going to be built with public money allocated in the last legislative session.

Also, while the Sonics arena would have cost King County taxpayers about $300 million average public contribution to each of these smaller projects was much less. The new Amiga Center at Kent will cost the state just more that $30 million of the total $67 million cost.

And, the MLS stadiums being built around the country today are right in line with the projects the state funded this year. Even if you look at the most expensive stadium in Salt Lake, $150 million for the entire project is not out of line. I could see someone making and argument for a state contribution of $30+ million to an $80+ million park along the lines of Pizza Hut Park ~~in Houston~~ near Dallas (thanks Blue Lightning). Heck, the stadium in Toronto only cost $62 million.

Suddenly I’m so into Soccer again

June 13, 2007 / Emmett O'Connell / 0 Comments

It all started with this book, but now I’m writing posts about the Sounders at Washblog, doing an open soccer league wiki and recording Gold Cup games on Univision.

I played soccer until I moved back out to Washington. I tried pretty lamely to get plugged into the soccer scene here, but my team was sucked up into several other teams before we even played a game. Then I stopped even following it until I realized how easy it is to follow, you just have to look around a bit.

Tacoma Tides
Yellow Fans
Seattle Sounders
Goal Seattle (and blog)