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Canuck82
12-16-2011, 10:59 AM
A very good article by Grant Wahl at SI on how committed each MLS ownership group is to both winning and growing its brand....

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/grant_wahl/12/15/mls.teams.ambition/index.html

Can't disagree with Toronto at #5, nor New England in dead last....

McBrace
12-16-2011, 11:01 AM
My favorite part was Vancouver Aiming to be top 25 in the world...ha ha ha...

Shakes McQueen
12-16-2011, 11:21 AM
My favorite part was Vancouver Aiming to be top 25 in the world...ha ha ha...

Maybe 50 years from now, if MLS becomes a powerful league. But yeah, otherwise it's pretty hilarious.

It's nice to get some outside perspective on our team, and where we stand in the pantheon of teams, instead of reading the same gripes from the same places over and over.

- Scott

Carts
12-16-2011, 11:31 AM
I gotta say - the paragraph on TFC is 100% spot on...

MLS's first Canadian club isn't afraid to drop cash; witness the league's third-highest payroll (including DPs Torsten Frings, Danny Koevermans and Julian de Guzman), expensive coach Aron Winter and a $20 million investment in MLS' most ambitious youth development academy. TFC has a terrific group of hardcore fans, but the buzz has worn off as the team has continued to fail to reach the MLS playoffs. It remains to be seen how the sale of 75 percent of owner Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment to Bell Media and Rogers Communications will affect the team's ambitions moving forward.

Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/grant_wahl/12/15/mls.teams.ambition/index.html#ixzz1giS1SYDR

TOBOR !
12-16-2011, 11:33 AM
there it is again :


2. SEATTLE

...This week David Stern called the Sounders the most successful expansion franchise in the history of American sports, and he's probably right: Seattle's ownership has done nearly everything right from the start, and fans have responded, on occasion competing for the largest soccer crowd in the world for regular league games. Majority owner Joe Roth may not be local, but he's a highly visible leader (along with minority owners Drew Carey and Adrian Hanauer) who exults in success (three straight U.S. Open Cup titles) and seems truly pained by failure (exiting the '11 MLS Cup playoffs).


Sure, if you overlook 35 years of building the brand. Not a true definition of 'expansion' in the way it's typically understood.

TFC/Everton
12-16-2011, 11:49 AM
I would agree with most of the rankings if ambition is only attributed to money.

If money wasn't the only factor, I would reverse Toronto's #5 position with New York's #3 position.

Redcoe15
12-16-2011, 11:50 AM
^^Yeah, I'm sure the people of Seattle appreciate what Weasel Stern has to say. :rolleyes:

TFC/Everton
12-16-2011, 11:50 AM
Maybe 50 years from now, if MLS becomes a powerful league. But yeah, otherwise it's pretty hilarious.

It's nice to get some outside perspective on our team, and where we stand in the pantheon of teams, instead of reading the same gripes from the same places over and over.

- Scott

I would argue that the 2011 LA Galaxy are top 50 in the world. no?

Canary10
12-16-2011, 11:55 AM
It's a pretty interesting article. I think we're only at number 5 because we don't really have the results yet to go with the ambition. What I like about it is that people around the league are starting to take TFC seriously, probably more so than even we are as fans at this point.