The fact that Manning still has his job is totally on the MLSE Board, which is utterly useless and incompetent. It tells you how much they value TFC. As long as MLSE owns the club I expect more of the same.
The fact that Manning still has his job is totally on the MLSE Board, which is utterly useless and incompetent. It tells you how much they value TFC. As long as MLSE owns the club I expect more of the same.
Maybe he could do it part time?
Check out this tweet at [COLOR=#000000]https://twitter.com/CP24/status/1720161354835808491?s=20[/COLOR]
It’s sad that we are getting the World Cup at BMO but all we are getting is temporary fucken stands and after the World Cup is done back to the mistake by the lake stadium we have now . If not even the World Cup can stimulate any kind of a proper renovation to BMO nothing will unfortunately and we are stuck with this 1960 era CFL stadium with two grandstands facing each other and two open end end zones . However , private money is being put into that arena in Hamilton to renovate it even though they don’t even have a major tenant.Originally Posted by Bushmancan
Manning just lost his lifeline … Argos lost today! #ManningOut
Can't wait until somebody tells Manning that there's a Football Manager and we get our new Technical Director.
https://x.com/nocontextfm1/status/17...275233442?s=20
Can someone remind me how we got Manning…
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/spor...ticle36755716/
Awesome quote…..
“I mean, isn't it easy to buy a team? That's what he did. That's what people say.Well, no easier than winning a draft lottery at exactly the right time.
It also elides the fact that Toronto FC had been a buyer before Bezbatchenko got here. He was just the first person to spend the money wisely.”
Cathal Kelly?
Look, I get the love for Bez but don't quote that guy as anything capable in terms of journalism
Ol’ Catheter Kelly
I hear you... was less focused on the quoter and more on the context of the quote, which was pretty bang on 6 years later. Manning continues to flounder and Bez is going for another.
After watching the final, I don't know how the MLSE board cannot realize the mistakes they've made with this club by keeping the wrong people. What do you think would have happened if they moved Manning to the Argos full-time and gave the TFC presidency to Bez? I wonder if the issue was guilt by association with Tim Lieweke.
The MLSE Board is made up of 8 people. Three execs from Roger's, three from Bell, a lawyer, and Larry T. There is no one on that board that knows anything about professional sports management. That board is about as useless as it gets.
The best Xmas present for TFC fans is to have MLSE sell the club. Right about now I would take my chances with any new owner.
I would point out that that lawyer is Dale Lastman and he & Larry T have been on the board for over a decade including the years of Raptor & TFC ascendancy - those 2 have some clue - they are the ones with institutional memories on that board.
The Bell / Rogers revolving door is what you get when you are owned by a couple of corporations.
Again...a good board isn't going to save any pro team. - it is a particular Toronto belief, based on years of OTPP & then Bell/Rogers ownership that the board of the teams are useful.
Columbus didn't win twice in 4 years because of its board - it won because the principal owner family was told and followed the good consultant advice of "You need a vision to build this back up - find & listen to the guy who provides you with the best one" and then they chose wisely.
But they also as an ownership family made a VERY VERY stupid decision out the gate to follow bad consultant advice & change the team name & logo & it cost them support they had to build back. There best decision beyond Bez was to stick to a 20K stadium - they sell it out most games now.
From what I can see, the individual units within MLSE are run well or not by the teams of people who run those units.
The Leafs frankly will never win because too many people make $ from ensuring everything done or around them is seen as a crisis worth discussing on Sportsnet & TSN
The Raps are the best run unit of them all but the people who make up their product hate the city & don't want to play here - that & now the enfant terrible of the Rogers clan thinks he knows better because once his family had a team where a guy flipped a bat
The Argos are run well but nobody watches them
TFC - bad management hires and thinking stuck in 2015-2018 glory days & good old boy networks - that held sway until 2023 - we shall see if that will change
I am on record that Manning should leave - he's not the right person to fix this, in my opinion.
He isn't leaving unless TFC doesn't make the playoffs.
Last edited by OgtheDim; 12-09-2023 at 08:35 PM.
^they have little hope for playoffs right now. 9 open slots (new faces), 2 very disruptive players. Herdman is very good but this is a rebuild. It will take 4 months before they start playing like a team. DO NOT LET MANNING ORCHESTRATE IT! #firemanningNOW
A proper board has members who have expertise in the business in which the company operates. A proper board oversees senior management and holds them accountable. A proper board hires the CEO. The MLSE Board is 0 for 3 in these areas. A proper board makes a difference. MLSE is not a proper board.
I agree that's what they should be
&
Board governance of major corporations in this country is usually not that
The root cause isn’t the “board”. That is just the symptom.
The root cause is focus. The root cause is that we are owned by someone for whom we are a small, unimportant add-on.
(No way would or could Masai or Shanahan do what Manning has done - and still be here.)
“What the world needs is more geniuses with humility; there are so few of us left.”
MLSEs biggest issue is being asleep at the switch, however they have proven two things 1) though maybe no more, they are willing to throw money into a black hole for this team and 2) therefore with a competent GM they can be part of a winning formula, as they proved the one and only time we had a GM even remotely qualified for the role in the job
I think hoping the team gets sold is a be careful what you wish for scenario. Yes keeping Manning around is absolutely egregious, but, I doubt there's owners in this league who have lost more money on the operating costs of a team than MLSE. I look at other owners in this league and while it could be better it could be a whole lot worse, a team with as pathetically poor a return on investment as us is not one with owners lining up to throw money at it, theres a chance any new owners invest a fraction of the money into the team that MLSE have, and then even a great GM won't be able to turn us around
I absolutely agree with the criticism of MLSE for allowing the absurd number of awful decisions we've made go on and on with no oversight. But I put it like this, if we could somehow get a GM worth a shit again, I think our prospects would be better with MLSE and that person than with rolling the dice of potential owners who range from the cheap to the insane (hello our Quebec neighbours...)
Basically we can, and have, won with MLSE in charge and they need to be given credit for treating this team like some kind of charity case. I don't think people here always understand realize how insane the money they've spent on us is, how much of an outlier we are in MLS for just absolutely throwing money at the team with no return. That isn't a given, there is nothing special about us that means new owners would come close to even a fraction of that spend. But they absolutely, 100%, need to fire Manning ASAP and pray they can find a Bez level GM somewhere they can get on board
Last edited by JoesphNdo; 12-10-2023 at 10:13 AM.
Maybe if the Leafs finished last 3 years in a row. Shanahan has been president since 2014 and during his tenure the Leafs have won 1 playoff round. This is hardly successful in a league where only playoffs matter. If Shanahan were with a team where winning was the primary goal he would be long gone.
This take on Shanahan is very common - and is not right.
The Leafs haven’t had the requisite level of luck, is all you can say. Hockey is an 8-10 team crap shoot, every year. The Leafs have been one of those teams, for most of the last few years.
“What the world needs is more geniuses with humility; there are so few of us left.”
You can’t expect a crazy person in your life to stop being crazy in this one way, and keep being crazy in this other, attractive way.
You get all the crazy, you can’t cherry pick.
To my point about luck above, we got all of it in 2017, and it colours the view of everything. If BWP or Kamara had scored easy chances in the 2017 playoffs, this would be a very different conversation about MLSE.
“What the world needs is more geniuses with humility; there are so few of us left.”
We don't need miracles, all we need is them to get a good GM in, that's it, they've proven they'll otherwise let them do their job, much to our detriment. Beyond that their job is writing cheques and they are far and away the best (Most illogical and insane, perhaps) front office at that, or were, anyway. Noody in the history of the league has thrown money down a pit in the name of a team more than ours, that doesn't make them perfect, but we can't brush past that or ignore the reality that no other potential owner of this team is liable to do the same. I think most people here want the attractive, crazy of spending an insane sum of money on this team but you just won't get that with any other owners, that's almost certain
And I don't agree with the 2017 argument, winning a cup is luck based, yes, but we were the best team with the best roster in the league in 2017 regardless of whether we won the cup or not. Their job is to write the cheques and give us a gm that can assemble a roster, in 2017, that was an A+ grade even if we did get knocked out and that is what MLSEs money and a good GM can do. We just need them to do one thing - get us that GM. I think that's a far more realistic path to succes than get new owners in who, chances are, will immediately cut spending in half and never ever again invest in the roster like we have in the past
Last edited by JoesphNdo; 12-10-2023 at 01:42 PM.
In my view there is a direct link between the quality of the board and the quality of management hires. A board that has industry knowledge, oversees management performance, and holds management accountable is more likely to hire the right people, and will pivot to correct their mistakes when the wrong hire is made. Because the MLSE board has none of the above is why it continues to hire the wrong people and allows them to stay in their roles even after they have proven themselves to be incapable. A competent board would have fired Manning in 2021, yet he is still here.
Looking back at the history of this club there have been a lot more bad hires then good ones. I think we have to acknowledge that 2015 to 2018 was a fluke, an outlier. Even a blind squirrel finds the occasional nut. In Tim Lieweke MLSE had a bold visionary as a CEO, but someone who the board could not control, which is why his tenure was very short. Its no accident that after Lieweke they hired a bean counter as a CEO, and after the bean counter left they hired no one. I am willing to wager that even though Manning is useless as a president, he is brilliant in the boardroom. Says all the right things, gets along, does what he is told, and is easily controllable. A sycophant yes man, which is what the board wants. This is why there will never be another Lieweke type hire. Besides, which proven sports executive with a pedigree would want to be part of this gong show?
As for a change in ownership, give me someone who knows what they are doing but operates under a small budget vs. clueless management with deep pockets. In MLS you don't have spend large to succeed you just have to spend smart.
Last edited by NK Toronto; 12-10-2023 at 08:19 PM.
^ Agreed. And even the best people need guidance and support from somewhere. They don’t just come up with all their decisions alone.
At least some of the other teams (for example the raptors) have senior advisors to the board that try to bridge the gap of their lack of direct experience in the industry. Have never heard of anyone who fulfills this function for TFC.
Oh.....I agree.
&
We live in Ontario where quality of work isn't considered necessary by most boards, or high tier management levels of government or institutional bureaucracies in general, both for profit & not for profit. We've got a serious case of 2nd-4th generation people coasting on the work & principles set by people who ran things after WWII through about 1980.
There are exceptions, mostly found in small entrepreneur situations.
I don't expect quality from any board where the talent pool is shared with the upper tiers of this society.
The situations where ownership does well in MLS in the US have been where they made the right overseer hire and got out of the way - usually that was based on a consultant telling them exactly what they needed and that owner following the advice. In some cases, Atlanta for example, the owner didn't seek out advice on the second hire in those positions and things went pear shaped - they have Lagerway now so lets see how that goes.
^I mostly agree, but as a caution MLSE went with a consultant in the past. That's how we got the Aron Winter era. A consultant can be useful but you have to get the right consultant.
I agree with most of this, but we should also remember that MLSE bought TFC for $10 million. Now valued at about $700 million. Where it counts most, TFC has brought MLSE huge value probably more than any in the league, and should be spent on. TFC is not a charity case.
For sure, but sadly that isn't how they'd look at it, though, since that appreciation would have happened even if they didn't flush money down the toilet. They've made money on TFC, no doubt, but they've lost a fortune on their investment in the playing squad (Since, again, the appreciation would have happened anyway) and other owners, as we've seen in the league, would be more likely to pocket the appreciation and not invest in the team. There's some exceptions to that, but we have to acknowledge that MLSE are the absolute top owners in the league in terms of their willingness to throw money at the first team without ROI, that isn't nothing and is not something we could just expect any other owners to replicate
It's like if your house tripled in value because you bought it in a rapidly appreciating neighbourhood but you spent a fortune installing a gold toilet that doesn't work. You're up on the investment overall, but you threw money away on that gold toilet and you'd look at it as such
TFC is not worth anywhere near $700M, those valuations are nonsense.
They got $500 mil in franchise fees for San Diego. I would think, Toronto being a larger market (vs the area SD realistically draws from) we’d get a bit more than that.
Maybe not all the way to $700 but probably not far off either.
The franchise fee to get a new team in MLS is currently $500m usd, as paid by the San Diego team. that's the fee to just join the league, and then you have to pay for everything else that comes on top of that yourself (Ands price in the risk that nobody shows up to your stadium), so it's that + quite alot of $$. That's what the market values that at, whether you think it's worth it or not (I'd be skeptical, too) we know what the market values it at since we have buyers at that price. Throw in the fact we have a stadium + training facilities (This is a substantial cost savings in any major metro area), are in the biggest uncontested market in the US/Canada and have a fanbase established already that has proven resilient and it's not hard to get to an extra $200m in value adds. Maybe closer to $600m, but it's alot closer to that number than you think
Last edited by JoesphNdo; 12-11-2023 at 09:45 AM.
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