https://deadspin.com/the-usmnt-got-e...ved-1819355441
Haisley's article regarding last night is even dumber than you thought it was going to be.
Oh god, do I want to click on that?
So Yankee Stadium may not be available and thus the Pigeon's have to move their last game to..where the Mets play.
https://www.nycfc.com/post/2017/10/1...regular-season
And they may need to move a playoff game should they be in the knockout round too (World Series may extend all the way to November 1, knockout round and first leg of conference semis - Oct. 25/26 through 30/31)
Toronto FC,#CMNT & #CWNT, Scotland, Heart of Midlothian FC, Tottenham Hotspur FC
"The Harder the Struggle, The Greater the Reward" - @OsoJ92AWAY DAYS - CHICAGO August 2017, MONTREAL March 2018
Saw an article today talking about the MLS MVP award. Each team submitted their 3 choices from their respective squad to be considered for the award. Toronto went with Bradley Giovonco and Vazquez...
no real surprises
http://www.dispatch.com/sports/20171...o-austin-texas
Columbus Crew might move to Austin, Texas
“Years have gone by and I’ve finally learned to accept myself for who I am: a beggar for good football.
I go about the world, hand outstretched, and in the stadiums I plead: ‘A pretty move, for the love of God.’
And when good football happens, I give thanks for the miracle and I don’t give a damn which team or country performs it.”
-Eduardo Galeano
Move them to Cincinnati. If that city has a dedicated passionate fanbase that everyone claims they do, then they should have no problems inserting themselves there. And what's left of the Crew's fans can take the trip down to Southern Ohio for home matches.
TORONTO FC, 2017 MLS CHAMPIONS!!! (Still the greatest in league history!)
“Years have gone by and I’ve finally learned to accept myself for who I am: a beggar for good football.
I go about the world, hand outstretched, and in the stadiums I plead: ‘A pretty move, for the love of God.’
And when good football happens, I give thanks for the miracle and I don’t give a damn which team or country performs it.”
-Eduardo Galeano
Columbus, wow.
What is this downtown stadium thing? That situation is not remotely like Chicago or Dallas. That stadium is only a couple of miles from “downtown”, and you can drive from one end of town to the other in 15 minutes.
That has to be a total ruse, they must be already gone.
The timing is unreal. It's almost as though the owner is tryng to sandbag his team, because winning MLS Cup would interfere with his plans to move!
“What the world needs is more geniuses with humility; there are so few of us left.”
There's also an ESPN article about it:
http://www.espnfc.com/columbus-crew-...n-to-austin-txESPNFC.com has learned that Precourt intends to explore concurrent paths toward a stadium in each market. Precourt has been frustrated at the team's inability to increase revenue streams in terms of overall attendance, sponsorship and season tickets. With one week to go in the regular season, the Crew's attendance ranks 20th out of 22 teams.
I guess you can't expect the team to keep putting on games if no one is going. There has to be a way to pay the players and if no one is attending you don't get those ticket $$. It looks like ownership is blaming the team though, they should use our model and start with getting quality to put on the pitch. Build it and they will come (or in our case, come back).
Road Games:
2013 - Montréal , 2014 - Orlando (Disney Classic), Montréal
2015 - Columbus, New England, Montréal
2016 - NYCFC (Leg 2 Conference Semis), Montréal (Leg 1 Conference Final)
2017 - Ottawa (Leg 1 Canadian Championship Semi), DCU, Red Bulls (Leg 1 Conference Final), Columbus (Leg 2 Conference Final)
2019 - Montréal, NYCFC (Eastern Conference Semi @ Citi Field), Seattle (MLS Cup Final)
Scumbag move.
Renovate Crew Stadium. Try to make the area around it more attractive for fans to get to and hang out. Picking up your ball for another city is bs.
That's just window dressing. Precourt is on the expansion committee. He knows darn well he can't get enough revenue if Cincy gets a team.
They are a dead man walking team next season.
“I will say this: We need to have the confidence in the marketplace in order to build a word-class, state of the art, soccer-specific stadium,” Precourt said. “Stadiums are a significant investment these days and so we’re going to have to have confidence in the corporate support for premium seating and tickets and for the stadium to come to life.”
Honestly, I get it. If i'm an owner; and I have the ability to take my attendance average from 15 k to 25 k; i'm strongly exploring those options.
Columbus has some good fans for sure; but the reality is; from a T.V viewership perspective; they are not as enjoyable as say a game vs Seattle or Orlando. MLS wants every game to appear like a Portland Timbers, Sporting KC, Seattle, Orlando or Atlanta United match. If i'm Columbus, Dallas or Colorado I would be very nervous. Everyone else should be safe. The revs should be safe because they actually average 19 k attendance, and they will probably figure out there stadium issues eventually. I think New England could be a great market once they get a stadium
Last edited by Defoe; 10-17-2017 at 03:38 PM.
I think Colorado is safe, because it fills a huge hole in the geographic landscape. otoh, Columbus will be squeezed between Detroit and Cincinnati when they come online.
Biello and co relieved of duties with the Impact
Nesta watch starts now I guess...
New playoff format likely for 18 or 19.
Longer season running into November. Then its a cup approach. Done in 3 weeks.
https://www.fourfourtwo.com/us/featu..._medium=social
Good, a change should be made. But can't see it working out as proposed in the article - for the same reason the article points out...$$$. Smaller clubs would really miss that extra cash from hosting a playoff game. Sure, it should push them to invest and really compete to finish high in the table by seasons end - but that's unlikely. Some clubs will always just spend the minimum of what they need to spend to be reasonably competitive. And the owners of those clubs are the ones that will shoot down this proposed change because they might miss out on that extra income. Not entirely sure how else to do it though but the December finish is pretty late and the international window is a disruption for sure. Would be tough to start the season earlier due to Winter in a lot of cities and definitely can't push the season any later. Only solution I see is playing more midweek games through regular season to shorten it week-wise (however, midweek games don't do as well for ticket sales so some owners might not approve that) - but looking back on the TFC schedule, there are definitely some weeks where you can fit a mid-week game. Have a couple more 2 game weeks, start the season 1-2 weeks earlier, and possibly have MLS Cup wrapped up prior to the break while leaving the playoff format as is. But as expansion continues, the playoff system is bound to see a number of tweaks.
I thought this part was flat out wrong:
Not because there's no home field advantage specifically in a two leg series - but that because home field advantage is believed to be a thing at all...In the current format, the higher seeds don’t have a tremendous advantage in the conference semifinals or conference championships. That’s particularly true in the conference championships, when both participants are well rested and are guaranteed a home game. Since the league first adopted a knockout round in the 2011 playoffs, lower seeds have won eight of 12 conference championship series’.
Over the same period, 4 of 6 Cup winners have also been the away team. That's exactly the same ratio.
One could argue the opposite - if you want fairer results, you need *more* playoff games, not less.
That strikes me as preparing to increase the League to more than 28 teams. If they go to a 38 game schedule to make up for the loss of playoff games, then 4 conferences of 8 teams each, with home-and-away games against in-conference opponents and a single game against every other team in the league will work. They'll need 4 weeks to complete the cup though, with Wild Card -> QF -> SF -> Final.
The talk is of a 16 team ranked cup played across the league.