Saturday, December 29, 2018

Messi's holiday in Rosario again fuels hope of a return home to play for Newell's Old Boys

(by Tom Marshall espn.go.com 12-28-18)

There's only one place Lionel Messi and his family go to spend Christmas, and it isn't Ibiza, Los Angeles or Monte Carlo.

The Argentine might have lived in Barcelona since he was 13 years old, but every Christmas, he and his family return to their native city of Rosario. This year was no exception.

http://www.espn.com/soccer/club/argentina/202/blog/post/3737632/messis-holiday-in-rosario-again-fuels-hope-of-a-return-home-to-play-for-newells-old-boys

Friday, December 14, 2018

The Greatest Game Never Played

When Boca Juniors and River Plate were set to meet in Argentina's most important match ever, Buenos Aires lost its mind.

(by Wright Thompson espn.com 12-7-18)

http://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/25391799/boca-juniors-vs-river-plate-greatest-game-never-played

Tuesday, November 13, 2018

Friday, October 19, 2018

A bold burb, weighed down by a debt-ridden stadium, seeks a fresh deal


(by Danny Ecker chicagobusiness.com 3-31-17)

The village of Bridgeview is taking steps to make money from naming rights to Toyota Park after more than a year of letting the automaker put its name on the venue for free.

Fifteen months after the southwest suburb's branding deal for the 20,000-seat soccer stadium expired, village officials have hired Chicago sponsorship sales and marketing firm W Partners to sell naming rights to the stadium as well as other developments going up around it.

Toyota logos still adorn the 11-year-old home of the Chicago Fire, but the hundreds of thousands of dollars the village pulled in annually from stadium naming rights have stopped, putting a greater burden on local taxpayers to pay off a mountain of debt from financing construction of the facility.

The sea of empty lots that surrounds the stadium has seen little change in the dozen years since Bridgeview officials predicted that a new soccer stadium would transform into an economic engine for the area and pay for itself. That lack of development has forced the village to borrow furiously and raise property taxes drastically to meet its annual debt obligations. Property taxes for its 16,000-plus residents doubled between 2009 and 2013. And S&P has downgraded the village's credit rating for the second time in less than two years, this one by four notches to BB–.

After ten bond sales since 2003—most recently one in 2015 for $16 million to resolve debt shortfalls from previous bond sales—Bridgeview taxpayers are on the hook for $241.2 million in long-term debt that the village plans to pay off by 2045.

But that plan relies on robust stadium revenue to avoid refinancing the debt again or continuing to lean on property tax revenue. Which is why Bridgeview residents need W Partners, led by former Chicago Cubs marketing chief Wally Hayward, to strike it big with sponsors.

Every dollar it pulls in from naming rights is one it doesn't have to pull from its own coffers to pay off the debt, says Dan Denys, the village's financial adviser. "And if it takes us 40 years rather than 30 years, that's better than trying to jam all the shortfalls down taxpayer throats," he says.

The stadium generated $3.6 million in revenue in 2015, the final year of Toyota's deal. Sponsorship revenue accounted for 24 percent of that, mostly from Toyota but with other stadium sponsors in the mix as well.

Denys projects a new naming rights partner could bring in a seven-figure annual sum, significantly more than the Toyota agreement, which started at $760,000 per year with annual 3 percent escalations, according to the contract. Under the Fire's 30-year stadium lease, the village keeps 70 percent of the naming rights fee and the Fire get the rest if the stadium meets certain financial goals.
But it hasn't in any year since it opened. As a result, the village has taken half of the Fire's share, collecting 85 percent of the annual fee.

The village's confidence in getting a higher fee from a new partner stems from developments going up around the stadium. Bridgeview is spending close to $4 million to build a 90,000-square-foot indoor turf field dome just north of the stadium, set to open this spring. The venue will host year-round recreational soccer leagues and have an adjacent clubhouse with concessions, locker rooms and offices.

The village also reached a deal last fall with Rosemont-based hotel developer First Hospitality Group, which is planning a 109-room Hampton Inn & Suites on a lot near Toyota Park's northeast corner, slated to open next year. And a venture of Glendale Heights-based Heidner Properties is building a structure that will house two restaurants just east of the stadium along Harlem Avenue.

Hayward will leverage those developments to sell brands on a vision for the whole area. He likens it to Wrigley Field, where he signed sponsorship deals on behalf of the Chicago Cubs that include rights to a brick-and-mortar presence near the stadium. Hayward structured such deals with brands including Wintrust and Anheuser-Busch InBev.

"It's really about trying to find a partner that wants to transform this area and create an epicenter for soccer," he says.

The Fire are far from the only user of the venue, which this year will host 75 major event nights including Chicago Red Stars professional women's soccer matches and concerts.

But Hayward may be handicapped in his sale by the fact that the village is selling naming rights independent of the Fire. That's different from the Toyota agreement, which regional dealers for the car brand struck with the Fire's former owner, Los Angeles-based Anschutz Entertainment Group and included branding with the team.

The Fire decline to comment on the matter, but there is nothing contractually preventing the team from signing a sponsorship deal with a direct competitor of a brand that buys naming rights to the stadium.

Selling naming rights to a venue without a marketing rights deal with its anchor tenant, which is the only entity that regularly puts the venue on national television, "makes the negotiation tougher in the end" for a brand, says Darren Marshall of Chicago-based sports marketing firm Revolution.

Hayward says he has had discussions with Fire executives about incorporating a team sponsorship agreement into a stadium naming rights deal, noting that it would help raise the value of such a deal for both the team and the village.

"It's in the village's best interest to bring all the parties together and create a winning partnership across the board," he says.

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https://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20170331/ISSUE01/170339990/bridgeview-seeks-to-rename-its-debt-ridden-soccer-stadium-toyota-park

Wednesday, October 17, 2018

Karma





(from the Save the Crew Facebook page)

Scott Calhoun - They are not even going to get an MLS team. The USL already set and ready to start over there, giving MLS time to see how that level fares. Pool has more leverage and firepower to force reconsideration of how to use McKalla. San Antonio and others could and may sue if MLS awards a BS expansion to Austin, after it never even submitted a formal bid. Precourt didn't want to do it from scratch and now he would have to. And it will be very costly for him.

I think the jerks in Austin just got their karma kicked up their arses.


Drew Jones - By the sound of it, Haslem's money will not be going to Precourt, rather to MLS. Precourt would be on the hook for every cost beyond the $150 million expansion fee. Basically Precourt gets to keep his MLS shares which results in the control of a team in Austin and Haslem buys into MLS by paying a $150 million expansion fee to begin control of Columbus.


Save The Crew: How A Seemingly Impossible Mission Now Seems Very Possible For The Columbus Crew

 

Sunday, October 14, 2018

The new Crew, same as the old Crew

(by Dan Loney bigsoccer.com 10-12-18)

Literally as I type this, rumors have tsunamied that the evil men who want to convert the First Team into Austin FC have been thwarted. As you may or may not care, I believe that the soul of the league is at stake here, but also the wiser business path. I consider the franchise blackmail game that the NFL plays to be sinister and ultimately self-destructive.

As Terry Pratchett reminded us, evil contains the seeds of its own destruction. Unless that was Neal Gaiman's line. It was in "Good Omens." Maybe they got it from somewhere else. I should look it up someday.

The math that drives franchise relocation is that casual fans watching television, and ads, are more valuable than fans who attend games. I think that's sloppy math, but I also think the NFL believes it wholeheartedly. So as long as nationwide interest stays constant, and the individual owners can sucker cities into competing against each other – well, why not move.

The premise is, of course, that hardcore fan attendance is not by itself a driver of casual fan interest. There's a reason pro teams put city names on the shirts in the first place – to tap into civic loyalty. Whether the NFL is correct in its devilish calculations, though, is not quite the point. Nobody really thinks MLS is popular enough to alienate thousands of fans at a time. Especially thousands of fans who were fairly instrumental in helping the league last this long.

Maybe, for the NFL, adding more teams won't increase revenue enough to justify reducing payouts from 1/32 to 1/36 or whatever. I do not believe that's true for MLS, not by a long shot, now while the sort of cities NFL holds hostage are the ones most enthusiastic for MLS. Atlanta, to pick a painfully obvious example, brought in enough revenue to justify the extra piece of the pie. So will Cincinnati. So will Nashville.

And so will Austin, one day. I say this as the crank who sees forty teams as workable (not counting Liga MX teams), but of course put teams in Austin and San Antonio, Sacramento and St. Louis, wherever. Sports is not a zero-sum game off the field.

Well, Miki Turner is running with the story, and he's a damn bright guy who is in the know about such things. If this IS a hoax, then pre-emptive congratulations, you got a LOT of dolphins in that tuna net.

"What I’ve been told is that the deal to keep the team in Columbus is “largely done.” Precourt will be awarded a team in Austin. The Columbus Crew will remain where they are under new ownership. What wasn’t quite clear was how this will be effected. The information I was told is that the Columbus will get an “expansion” team, but will keep their name, players and identity and will play in 2019. Which doesn’t sound like an expansion team, but we’ll have to wait for an update."

Leave it to MLS to try the "Shakespeare's plays were not written by Shakespeare, but by somebody else with the same name" joke in real life.

Or as Pete Townshend would have put it, "Meet the new Crew! Same as the old Crew!"

The "same team, better owner" slogans write themselves. Or would, if the new owner wasn't the corporate criminal who made the Cleveland Browns what they are today. But if you didn't want to support corporate criminals, why are you a sports fan in the first place?

The other reason to revel in the Crew being saved, even if you did buy Austin FC season tickets, is the Modell Law. Take tax money? Then you can’t leave without trying to find a local buyer first. Your state should pass one. Pass two, in case the first one runs out of batteries. We'll never know if a Modell Law would have saved the original Cleveland Browns or the Brooklyn Dodgers or the original Baltimore Orioles (who ended up becoming the Yankees, and have been changing the world in hellish ways ever since). We do know it saved the Crew. It won't save a team that doesn't have a considerable amount of local support, but teams that don't have that shouldn't be saved.

The #SaveTheCrew movement showed the Modell Law could stop both league and owner, and give power back to fans. This is Рwhat's the clich̩ I'm after Рa game-changer.

Well, it's more of a game-keeper. Oh, that word means something else.

#SaveTheCrew might have changed the direction of pro sports. No more, or at least much fewer, shakedowns of gullible cities and counties. No more exploitation, no more ripoffs, no more Los Angeles Chargers.

Real-time update – to me, not you, by the time you read this you will know everything that's happened, which says something about modern communication that would make Marshall McLuhan sound like Marshall Mathers – announcement coming at 5:00 Eastern, just under an hour away. Paul Kennedy of Soccer America says done deal. Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine posted a clip of Toto's "Africa" with the Save the Crew hashtag. Still not voting for him, but thumbs up for not using Weezer.

I'm not going to lie, folks. I thought it was over for me and MLS, and I thought the USMNT was going to be a tedious slog. I have more hope today than I've had for almost exactly a year. I love American soccer. Thank you so much, #SaveTheCrew.

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http://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/us-soccer-lets-gaze-inward-at-the-meaning-of-holy-stop-crap-the-presses-the-crew-are-saved.2087943/

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Bill Archer - If the expansion team thing confuses anyone, then do what you always do with grifters and thieves:

Follow the money.

Having Precourt "sell" the Crew to the local investors would have meant that they paid Precourt something in the neighborhood of $150 million.

Selling the local investors an expansion team means - yes, you're way ahead of me here - MLS gets the check.

So faced with a) allowing Precourt to walk away with a huge pile of dough and b) pocketing a pile of dough themselves, MLS chose b.

Precourt's problem now is making Austin happen in the face of increasing local resistance, with indifference being the primary emotion.

Right now, as we speak, bars on Columbus are packed with delirious drunks, dancing, singing, crying, euphoric. Wall to wall TV coverage. The city is going nuts. It's insane. Truly something to see.

In Austin, they're still having to promise free swag, free food and free beer to get the same100 people to show up to events.

Fortunately MLS has their money. If Precourt fails, as he very well may, it doesn't cost them a dime.

Somehow, incredibly, Don Garber comes out a winner.



Cavan9 - Agreed, Bill. The other MLS owners just took a ne'er-do-well incompetent trust fund douche to the cleaners. Never thought I'd ever see major league pro sports owners evicerate one of their own so dramatically and so publicly (well at least to those who know corporate finance and can read between the lines on that front). Precourt is probably too dumb to get what just happened. The other owners didn't even think enough of him to bother buying him out! Maybe they'll do that after he fails to field a team in Austin.

I hope Precourt just learned that he needs to learn actual business before humiliating 22 other groups of rich men and women who retain far better financial advisers and legal counsel than he. Probably not. There is still plenty of money to lose in Austin. Watch the city move the goalposts on McKalla Place a few times more.

Personally, I can't wait to watch Columbus-Cincinnati games. From what you Crew fans say, it'll stack up well with the Atlantic Cup, California Clasico, Cascadia Cup, 405 Derby, Rocky Mountain Cup, El Trafico, Hudson River Derby, Texas Derby, whatever Atlanta-Orlando calls itself etc. That's a good thing!

Cleveland Browns owners in negotiations with MLS to buy Columbus Crew SC


(by Jeff Carlisle espn.com 10-12-18)

The bid to keep the Columbus Crew in Ohio's capital has taken a significant step forward, as an investor group that includes the Haslam family -- owners of the NFL's Cleveland Browns -- and the Columbus-based Edwards family has entered into negotiations with MLS to purchase the team.

MLS, the Columbus Partnership and the proposed investor group announced the news in a joint statement.

"Major League Soccer and the Columbus Partnership have been working together for several months on a plan to keep the Crew in Columbus and we have made significant progress," MLS said in a prepared statement.

"MLS, the Columbus Partnership and the investor group all agree that for the Club to be successful, it requires strong local owners, long-term corporate support, a strong season ticket base and long-term plans for a stadium, practice facilities and associated sites. MLS is committed to keeping the Crew in Columbus should we continue to make progress on these critical components and agree to key terms with the investor group."

A deal to purchase the team hasn't been finalized, but the process is far enough along to be made public by the investor group .

In a joint statement, the Columbus Partnership, Jimmy Haslam and Dr. Pete Edwards, the Crew's team doctor, stated: "While there are many details to be worked out, our alliance is working diligently and collaboratively with [MLS] to keep the Crew in its community. We are very excited about the quiet but deliberate progress that has been made to date and will keep the community updated as this process moves forward."

Columbus Partnership CEO Alex Fischer added, "I am energized by the willingness of MLS to collaborate with us over the past several months. I appreciate Commissioner [Don] Garber's personal involvement with the Columbus Partnership, the Haslams and the Edwards. Having community-oriented owners ready to purchase the team is a significant step forward in achieving our goal to keep Crew SC in Columbus."

A source with knowledge of the situation indicated that the plan is for the investor group to buy an equity stake in the league in which it will acquire the rights to the Crew. Current owner Anthony Precourt, meanwhile, will relocate his rights to Austin, Texas. The source added that the goal of the new investor group is to keep the existing Crew players, technical staff and front-office staff in Columbus. The source wouldn't divulge how much the investor group will have to pay to acquire the ownership rights to the Crew, only that talks were at an advanced stage.

"There's a lot of work to do, but the people involved wouldn't have made this announcement if there hadn't been significant progress," the source said.

Rumors of the Haslams' involvement began circulating Friday morning as the team's fans began congregating at a local brewpub. The fan group Save The Crew posted an image on its Twitter and Instagram accounts reading "Saved The Crew," hinting strongly that the push to keep the team in Columbus had been successful.

It was last year that Precourt first announced his intentions to engage in a parallel process whereby he would either relocate the team to Austin or keep it in Columbus, depending on which city first agreed to help build him a stadium. Yet from the beginning, Precourt seemed intent on moving the team to Texas, and the Austin city council agreed to a term sheet in August that would clear the way to build a $200 million, 20,000-seat stadium at McKalla Place.

Yet the effort by Precourt Sports Ventures to relocate the team to Austin had been mired in litigation. The office of Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, in conjunction with the city of Columbus, is suing PSV under the so-called Modell Law that requires sports teams that have received state funding to provide six months' notice of any intention to relocate and allow local investors the option of acquiring the team. If the deal with the new investor group is consummated, there would no longer be any underlying claim, and the litigation would cease.

MLS, for its part, is still supporting Precourt's effort to set up an MLS team in Austin, with the league statement setting a start date for the club to begin play no later than the 2021 season.

"MLS also remains very committed to PSV's plan to launch an MLS Club in Austin and is excited for Austin to become a great addition to MLS," the league said in a statement. "We will continue to work with PSV and the City of Austin on the timing around the launch of that Club."

Once Precourt made his intentions clear, the uproar among fans was vociferous. The team's fans helped mobilize the effort to keep the team in Columbus, raising awareness on social media with the #SaveTheCrew hashtag and helping to raise awareness of the team's predicament.

But throughout 2018, MLS and the Columbus Partnership have been quietly working toward finding a way to remain in Columbus. The source indicated that MLS felt it could be successful in Columbus, just not the way things were happening.

The source said the effort wasn't about the litigation or the "public uproar," but that MLS "needed to change the dynamic, particular as it relates to a new stadium, the support from the corporate community, getting local owners involved. That was the focal point. What's it going to take for it to be successful? Everything else would fall away from that."

Eventually, the Haslams and the Edwards family were brought on board, giving the effort to acquire the team the kind of financial heft needed to not only keep the team in Columbus, but also build a downtown stadium.

The news amounts to a celebratory day for the team's fans, who never gave up in their quest to keep their team in Columbus.

Save The Crew spokesperson Dave Miller recalled that he was "devastated" at the news on the day Precourt made his announcement. Friday's announcement amounts to a 180-degree turn.

"The feeling today is just overwhelming," he said via telephone. "I'm so thrilled that the league realized that the best, easiest way out of this was to keep the Crew in Columbus. We've proven that our community is strong, that an original MLS team deserves to stay strong for decades to come. Save The Crew is thrilled to work with the Haslam family and the Edwards family to insure the success of this franchise."

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http://www.espn.com/soccer/major-league-soccer/story/3667908/cleveland-browns-owners-in-negotiations-with-mls-to-buy-columbus-crew-sc

Wednesday, July 11, 2018

Austin soocer support, or lack there of

Darryl Rogers - (save the crew facebook page 7-9-18) Yesterday Austin hosted a soccer game between two well known Mexican club teams, Pachuca and Tigres, the attendance was less than impressive. It was the only professional soccer match of the year in Austin. You would think, if there are really soccer fans in this city, they would have filled this little baseball stadium called Dell Diamond, capacity 11,361....looks like about 4,000-5,000 showed up.
photo by Chris Bils


Nick Adkins -

Friday, June 29, 2018

After yesterday's vote by the Austin City Council to persue further discussions with Precourt

Scott Calhoun - Means nothing. In fact, it will only open up more local and national opposition socially, legally and emotionally speaking. The MIA scum held a rally outside the building last night and could only boast this many supporters ready to go all in after 9.5 months of this shady madness. Surely half of them are all of the usual lying and replying suspects on social media, plus their buddies and gfs, plus some lured stragglers off the streets.

Do not fret.



Brock Robertson - Why does that idiot have a megaphone?? Does he not know how to speak up?

I have given trainings to larger audiences than this without the need for any assistance..


What a moron..


Scott Calhoun -  If you look closely just to the left of the megaphone you see someone wearing a Trump mask. Weird shit.

Maggie Finn O'Brien - That's a rally? They're all sitting down and most of them look bored. Doesn't look like a rabidly enthusiastic crowd to me. Maybe it's the heat.

Gary Hadley - And it looks like 5 persons are already getting up and leaving.

Friday, May 11, 2018

Momentum may be turning in Columbus’ favor to Save the Crew

The #SavetheCrew movement received a boost after a recent ruling in the lawsuit.

(by Matt Yoder thecomback.com 5-9-18)

The fight to keep the Columbus Crew in Columbus is unprecedented because of the existence of Ohio’s Modell Law. The law was put on the books after Art Modell moved the Cleveland Browns to Baltimore in the late ’90s and basically says that any professional sports franchise receiving public funds can’t relocate unless they give the local government six months notice and provide an opportunity for local buyers to purchase the team.

The city of Columbus and the state of Ohio filed a lawsuit against owner Anthony Precourt and Major League Soccer to prevent the Crew’s proposed relocation to Austin, Texas under the Modell Law. Over the last several weeks, the two sides have traded court motions and filings back and forth. Although in the process, it’s become confusing what to actually call Precourt. MLS is arguing that Precourt doesn’t actually own the team, he’s an “operator/investor” under MLS’s single entity structure. That may be technically true, but Precourt sheepishly got caught changing his social media profile from “owner/chairman” to “investor/operator and chairman.” MLS’s own lobbyist trying to move the team to Austin can’t even answer questions from residents there about who actually owns the team.

Precourt’s changing status is just one of many absurdities that continues to make MLS look out-of-touch with reality. The league and Precourt have even tried to argue that the Crew don’t actually exist in Columbus, but in Delaware (!!!) in an attempt to get the lawsuit thrown out on a technicality.

While the #SavetheCrew movement moves deeper and deeper into the legal jungle, Tuesday represented a significant moment in the case. The city of Columbus and state of Ohio were delivered a serious victory in a judge’s ruling.

First, the plaintiffs saw their request granted to have a 90-day toll on the six-month Modell Law window to extend the relevant time period. Second, and most significantly, a judge ruled that purchasers can submit offers for the potential sale of the team and that PSV/MLS have to make financial information about the team available to them. And there is a mention of the two sides potentially working towards a settlement.

(for the rest of the article click the link)

http://thecomeback.com/soccer/momentum-may-be-turning-in-columbus-favor-to-save-the-crew.html

Saturday, February 24, 2018

Coach Cassar fashion

Coach Cassar headed to Deer Valley ski lodge after the game

Coach Cassar's wife didn't have time to iron his new shirt before the game

Tuesday, February 13, 2018

Step right up! Step right up!


artwork from the Save the Crew Facebook page

Saturday, January 20, 2018

We all know about the Highlanders


Before Uncle Dave revealed the name of the team he was asked in a Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce meeting (at least if I remember correctly it was a SL Chamber of Commerce meeting) what the name of the team was going to be.


He threw out 4 names:


Salt Lake Glory
Salt Lake Highlanders
Salt Lake Alliance
Real Salt Lake


Of course everyone went bonkers on BigSoccer.


Nobody, and I mean nobody, liked Real Salt Lake. But everyone loved Salt Lake Highlanders.


Well, the rest is history, but it looks like a fan went as far as to come up with a logo for the Highlanders.

Sunday, January 7, 2018

From the archives



Beckerman enjoying the rain in Mexico City back in 2010's duel with Cruz Azul.