I really have STRONG FEELS about the Crew. I really don’t care about how the team actually performs, but when something is Not Right (and extremely damaging to the game in our country, not that MLS commissioner Don Garber gives one half of one fuck), it is Not Right. First of all Anthony Precourt looks like this:
That’s the “this is a photo my employees took and is as good as I can possibly look.” Verily, we live in the age of the #failson. Anyway, now that I’ve gotten the immature rips on his appearance out of the way, let’s make fun of him for being a walking, talking dumpster!
“As attendance league-wide continues to grow [at] a record-setting pace, and markets across the country seek to join MLS, Columbus’ situation is particularly concerning. Despite [Precourt’s] significant investments and improvements on and off the field, Columbus Crew SC is near the bottom of the league in all business metrics and the club’s stadium is no longer competitive with other venues across MLS.”
That’s Garber himself, criticizing the fans and municipality of Columbus for not taking care of Crew Stadium. I can’t believe those evil owner-operators of the stadium are doing the tenant so wrong! What’s that you say? Soccer’s FailSon is the owner-operator of the stadium? Since that’s the case (and it’s worth noting his stadium lives rent-free on the Ohio Fairgrounds), what is Garber’s – and by extension FailSon’s – argument here?
“I did a bad job protecting my investment, so the local government should give me a new investment. And if not, a different local government will buy me a toy instead YOU’RE NOT MY REAL STEPDAD ANYWAY.”
Alas, such is life in American sports, when we let Anthropomorphic Human Excrement Men own sports teams by simple virtue of having grown up rich and bored, and then move the teams when they fail to hold hostage a locale and fanbase that has supported their FailSon hobby (to a city that has already failed to support a pro soccer team, albeit at a lower level). Why does American soccer need pro/rel when owners can simply pro/rel the cities they call home? …he asked, only half-sarcastically.
Also I’m not joking in that if dude didn’t look so much like the Platonic ideal of FailSon I probably wouldn’t make fun of him so much. He’d still be garbage (acting, if not looking like said FailSon), but I would make fun of him less. Also it’s annoying that, as long as you start rich, you can be pretty bad at a lot of things and still end up president of the country or proud owner of Austin’s MLS team or whatever.
Also go back and read that whole Football Times story because it’s way better than just the pullquote I took from it.
Anyway, his Hans Gruber-ass hostage tactics are at least compelling Columbus to try to make deals that he’s roundly ignored to date. I know it’s little more than a one-way ticket to not having an MLS team, but if I were Columbus, I’d let dude take a hike and bankrupt the sporting arm of his FailSon empire. It’s repulsive (more so than his appearance, even!) that a billionaire tries to hold cities hostage just because he knows he can. What a piece of trash this dude is.
Taylor Twellman on TV ratings. Here is a video:
.@TaylorTwellman gives some insight on soccer’s TV ratings in the United States pic.twitter.com/aDuc8UfgTO
— New England Revolution (@NERevolution) November 25, 2017
A guy saying “people lie, statistics don’t” is inherently saying “don’t believe me, because I’m probably lying,” but Twellman is not. Premier League viewership in the United States over the past four seasons: 438,000, 479,000, 514,000 and 423,000. I would imagine this year’s television viewership will reach an all-time low thanks to the NBC Sports Gold deal, but if Twellman’s tablet-watching point is accurate (at least to some extent it’s not, by the way: if you watch through your cable provider’s app, they report to Nielsen), it might not be the overall viewership decline that it appears to be. His ad sales discussion is a trade secret that ESPN is not going to release any hard data on, so we’ll take him at his word for the time being.
A couple years ago, Liga MX was doing 1.1 million per broadcast, while MLS is at about 2/3s of the EPL numbers this season. It is important to note the primetime slots v. Premier League’s weekend morning airings – so the league is certainly still much more popular (which from a quality-of-play standard it should be). The most recent numbers show a timeframe that didn’t have a single MLS game played in it, but the period before that had five of 23 top-rated games coming from MLS (including the first legs that will finally be completed tonight).
One of my big picture – rather than link-oriented – story ideas relates to improving the MLS TV product and ratings, but that’s quite literally for another day.
Kyle Martino for US Soccer president? I haven’t done all the research required to know who exactly I think is best for the position (and who I’d endorse), but I like a lot of what I see from Kyle Martino’s positions:
In addition to encouraging more participation in adult soccer leagues, Martino is a huge proponent of investing money in getting good soccer facilities into as many schools and public parks as possible.
A future post I’ll be making is outlining my platform for an imaginary candidacy for the position, and there’s not a whole lot different in my ideas than what Martino’s pitching. The specifics are different in ways, of course, and the emphases are not perfectly aligned, but I like what I’m seeing so far.
Convincing clubs that youth development is worth investing their money in is a big part of Martino’s platform.
A thousand, infinity, googolplex times yes. Like, of course. Yes. As a disclaimer, this is far and away the most in-depth third-party breakdown I’ve seen with one of the candidates, so others have an opportunity to impress me. I don’t like the cornerstones of Eric Wynalda’s platform (pro-rel and changing calendar), while another candidate, Paul LaPointe, doesn’t seem to be conducting himself like a serious candidate so much as GUY on the INTERNET with OPINIONS (that’s my niche, bro!). I’ll have to listen to the US Club Soccer roundtable before forming takes on the remaining candidates.
Building a team. This profile on Nashville SC Technical Director Mike Jacobs is particularly prudent, given that his first four signings became public today. The former Assistant Technical Director of Sporting KC (where coach Peter Vermes was the Technical Director) and then top dog at Swope Park Rangers, he built a team from scratch just a couple years ago:
“Everyone in our city is excited about the prospects of a future in MLS, but we have a franchise that is going to be competing in USL and my job is to populate a roster that will help [Nashville SC coach] Gary Smith succeed,” Jacobs said. “We’re going to be as competitive as possible this next season, and we’re going to do so in a vision that is entertaining and attractive to fans. How that relates to the future of our franchise, we’ll see, but the full focus is about the 2018 season. All we can control is the season ahead.”
Vermes has made a huge impact on his philosophy – a good thing, given his success at SKC – and Jacobs seems comfortable with the potential dual role of building a USL roster at the same time he looks toward an MLS future.
Obviously front-office USL personnel are going to fly a little under the radar, but it does seem like NSC couldn’t have found a much better TD.
Etc.: Michelle Akers has some takes on soccer development, and while one of them is pretty clearly “I don’t care; leave me alone,” her emphasis on kids just having opportunities to play is important. Official MLS release on expansion finalists. I’m with Alexi Lalas (ducks): Michael Bradley deserves criticism for captaining the first U.S. team to miss the World Cup since the year I was born, but that also doesn’t erase the positives he had in more than a decade with USMNT, either.
(I do disagree heartily with these somber thinkpieces on how fans aren’t doing anything by booing him and Toronto FC: they’re being drunk and having fun, with an easy target. Reading anything more into it than that is seriously reaching).
Club and Country 