On the MLS collective bargaining negotiations

You wouldn't think there'd be much to say other than it's probably a good sign both sides have been talking and the deadline to negotiate the new collective bargaining agreement has been extended. On the other hand, I'd really like to see this get done before February 12th. It shouldn't drag out much longer than next week, if that long.

I mentioned on twitter how after the draft the tone of the players totally changed, and now it appears the two sides are very close (Via Beau). The players are still trying to present themselves as reasonable, fair minded individuals just working for the betterment of the league and inalienable rights.

However, as mentioned by BA Duane, the ultimate goal is still to dismantle the business structure of MLS. The goal in this round of collective bargaining is to introduce enough stress fractures to bring the whole thing down at some point in the future:

In spite of all the pro-ownership rhetoric that is out there, I’ve yet to talk to a single player that actually thinks the core of single ownership and cost controls is going to be stripped away in this CBA. Nor, have I heard any player suggest that they are fighting for that. What I do hear is that they want to start down a path that may one day lead to it. Other than a geeky enjoyment of the nuts and bolts of analysing a cap system, I can’t for the life of me understand why any fan of this league wouldn’t want that too. The football sure as hell isn’t going to improve without a change in the business model.

First of all, I posed this to Martek in the comments of another post: how is it clear that the level of play won't improve without a change in the MLS business model? It already has improved, and we've got more teams now. With a string of well-supported new teams coming online and money from Soccer United Marketing, there is very little incentive for the owners to change the business model.

Second, being that I like coaching in an American first division, I'm perfectly happy to maintain the status quo in certain respects. Don't confuse an appreciation for the mechanics with mental masturbation. It's about having a job.

Duane likes to say that the soccer landscape has changed dramatically. While there's a grain of truth in that, it hasn't changed enough to prevent a high-profile, winning, relatively well attended women's team in a large market, bankrolled by one of the wealthiest corporations in America, with the biggest star in the game, in a league with free agency, from going under. Steve Davis is precisely on point when he talks about the lessons the Sol's demise has for MLS's business entity model and the future growth of the league:

Here’s a prominent “for instance:” So many well-intentioned fans want MLS to spend more lavishly on salaries. Great. I’d love to see Thierry Henry or Rutgerus Johannes Martinus van Nistelrooij (you know him as Ruud van Nistelrooy) in an MLS uniform. But spending willy-nilly doomed another men’s pro soccer league at another time.

That’s just one example of many.

This is chess, not checkers. In fact, it’s chess played with a bunch of Rubik’s Cubes. It’s tough stuff with lots of moving parts.

When we all start hollering about how MLS should do this, or how MLS should spend for that or how MLS has it all wrong, we should all remember H.L. Mencken’s wise words: “For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat … and wrong.”

Short of that, we can just think about the L.A. Sol.

The whole thing is a great read. Like Steve says in his first sentence, I also don't want to come across as a MLS apologist. But for me the goal of improving the league does not necessarily demand acceptance of certain ends the players are working towards, especially when one takes the long view.

Ultimately, the players and owners have a shared interest in making sure this season gets played. I think in the end we'll get 30 games out of it, and we won't have to wait long beyond Feb. 12 - if that long.

-FS

Ads on Fake Sigi

You'll notice that I dropped Adsense last week. In general, I was unhappy with the user experience, and I don't consider what I was earning to really be in the ballpark of this site's potential. Going forward, I'm going to experiment with a new ad scheme for the site:

1 ad per week will run on all the site's pages, in the style of The Deck - a non-animated image 120 pixels wide by 90 pixels tall, with 80 characters of text to go along with it, running somewhere above the non-existant fold. New ads will appear on Sundays. Also, during the week I will make a short post thanking the sponsor and mentioning what is being promoted. Think NPR-style sponsorship notices for the style of the post. These posts will be titled and tagged as sponsored posts and archived on the site like other posts. Crucially, they will also appear in the RSS feed. No other ads will appear on the site.

As for price, I've gone back and forth. There's certainly an intent on my part to earn a living wage from the web, and I'm very tempted to set the ad price at the level needed to make the site "my job" in addition to coaching the Sounders. I think such a pricing strategy places appropriate value on the work produced, and reassures sponsors of my commitment to post good work and generate page views. However, I'd also like to encourage participation in the new program and price it in the neighborhood of what my (currently exploding) traffic will justify.

Traffic is currently averaging around 250+ visitors and 600+page views per day, along with approximately 135 RSS subscribers. This month traffic and RSS subscriptions have doubled over the previous month, and with the American seasons approaching, more viewers discovering the blog every day, and some planned promotional efforts taking shape, I anticipate traffic to continue to grow at a nice solid rate.

So with that taken into account, the price for an ad will be $350 a week during the months of February and March. I feel that this amount is very small in the world of advertising buys, but big enough to make it worth my time to take on the ads. I feel it also appropriately reflects the exclusive nature of the sponsorship opportunity. While I'll analyze advertiser response and current site traffic in a couple months, I anticipate the weekly ad rate becoming a better value in CPM terms as site traffic grows.

I'm going to be somewhat picky about the ads I accept. I'm more than happy to let an ad slot sit open as opposed to filling it with something misleading, offensive or irrelevant to my readers. I'm also going to give extra scrutiny to ads that might get placed by organizations who are frequent topics of my blog, for example MLS, WPS, or even Puma or adidas.

As for the ethical considerations, I think this guide is a good place to start. While I'm not a reporter, and don't even qualify as a "citizen journalist," I'm going to base my editorial relationship to advertisers around those points. Even if things like separating myself from preparing advertisements is going to be impossible, I can at least work to ensure that ads are appropriate, not confused with content, and that the editorial direction of the site isn't improperly influenced by advertisers.

While it's not necessarily the reader's responsibility to police this blog's behaviors, I ask you to let me know if you feel I've stepped out of line.

Feel free to post further questions in the comments. If you want to buy an ad, contact me via e-mail at fakesigi@gmail.com.

-FS

Sales of Steve Sirk's A Massive Season through February 2 support Doctors without Borders in Haiti

Buy it. Read about me.

-FS

Through the contributions of Steve Sirk, his employer and the Crew Soccer Foundation, every copy of Sirk’s book, “A Massive Season,” sold via the Crew Gear store and TheCrew.com between today and Feb. 2 at 5 p.m. will generate a $22 donation to the international medical aid organization Doctors Without Borders for relief efforts in Haiti.

On the demise of the Los Angeles Sol

This isn't the way I wanted to get back to blogging about WPS, not at all. I get sick to my stomach when I see this:



"WPS 2009 Regular Season Champions - WPS discontinues operations of Los Angeles Sol - Dispersal draft scheduled for next week."

There's a lot of shock and outrage in the blogosphere, from Dan's screed, to Bill's comment in Andy Meade's post (which is somewhat hopefully in itself). Jennifer Doyle hasn't weighed in yet, but I expect she'll have something to say.

At any rate, here's the WPS statement:

“While it’s regrettable to lose the Los Angeles market as part of our WPS footprint, we are pleased to have two new teams coming into the league in 2010,” said WPS Commissioner Tonya Antonucci. “The league and our ownership committee worked incredibly hard over the past month to complete the transaction. In the end, we ran out of time and came up short of where we needed to be funding-wise for the Sol in 2010.”

And quite frankly, I think this statement is pure lunacy:

"I think the eight committed markets and eight committed owners, they're only stronger as a result of losing L.A.," Antonucci said. "Those owners feel very good about the foundation they built in 2009. They're all committed to it, they're committed to the long-term."

The big question is, what caused AEG to back out of owning the team in the first place? AEG was announced as an investor way back in 2007 and certainly implied that it was in for the long haul:

"AEG is strongly committed to professional women's soccer," [AEG Sports President Shawn] Hunter explained. "We believe that the combination of experience and resources the initial partnership group brings to the league, along with the dedicated fan base that exists for professional women's soccer, will create not only a successful launch but a league that will be financially viable and extremely popular."

And yet by May, AEG President and CEO Tim Leiweke was indicating that AEG had never planned to stay around:

"We've made it clear that our job is to get it started, and then we're going to let others step in here and continue this. But we felt we owed it to the women's game to give them a shot.

"We were never intent on being here forever. Our plate is full. We're very, very focused -- despite what people think -- on the Galaxy and on the Kings. Those are our highest priorities."

On that I call bull shit, as Tonya Antonucci's semi-vague response to Leiweke's comments implied that she expected them to work out whatever issues they were having and stick around:

“We have a committed ownership group . . . I have not yet spoken to Tim Leiweke," said Antonucci. “AEG has some very big investments in sports and they are committed to our team. As they evaluate things and in this economy in particular, I don’t think anyone is going to be making any decision in the middle of the season. Everything has to be evaluated on a regular basis.”
. . ..
“We’ll work with AEG and Blue Star,” said Antonucci. “If we need to adjust things and bring in more partners to the LA Sol ownership group to either raise more capital or to bring in owners who are as focused as necessary to grow the business, then we’ll do that.”

That looks like a swipe at Blue Star, LLC, a group fronted by local real estate developers and soccer advocates, who were 50% owners of the Sol. They've been curiously absent from any discussion today, and one wonders if they just dried up and blew away.

Why? Well, for all the talk about financial restraint in WPS, with total operations budgets for teams projected to be in the range of $1.9-2.8 million a year, it came out that the Sol had lost upward of $2 million. Now that's not a lot by MLS or AEG standards, but it's a considerable sum when that was supposed to be the projected budget for whole teams, and AEG already had the Home Depot Center to play games in.

My guess is that Blue Star LLC couldn't make the cash calls, and maybe even the WPS league office started asking AEG to bankroll more and more of the league as losses mounted. Keep in mind, that's pure speculation on my part, not substantiated in anything except the thought that something must have royally pissed off AEG for them to not only bail on the Sol, but for them to leave the question open as to whether or not the team would play in the Home Depot Center under new ownership. For AEG to just say "Fuck you, and take your team with you," some serious shit had to have gone down.

[EDIT: Beau Dure has a post where Antonucci claims everything was totally hunky-dory with AEG. Color me extremely skeptical. ]

Now without AEG, could the league have continued operating the Sol without threat to the other teams? I sincerely doubt it. Given the kind of losses the Sol were sustaining under AEG, it's probably best that absent an owner group, the team dissolve. Still doesn't make it a good thing, though.

Of course what's really interesting in this is that Marta, whose massive guaranteed contract probably played a role in killing the Sol, had said this when she came to WPS:

"I didn't want to invest everything in something that wasn't going to last. After five years of success and living in Sweden, I really did need to be convinced this was something serious. If it wasn't going to be a true thing, I wasn't going to pack up and leave everything behind."

So now it's all gone pear shaped and she's ending up somewhere else. Bet she's a happy camper right now.

As for what this means for the remaining WPS teams, they're in major damage control mode at the moment. More concerning for me is that losses across the board last year were $1-2 million a team. Some of that is undoubtedly startup costs, but another year like that and you've got to wonder about the long term viability. [EDIT: In Beau's post above, Antonucci claims the other teams have business plans that aren't nightmares like the one in LA was. While things may be better, it's not at all clear things are good with all the other teams.]

I hate to be doom and gloom, because WPS games were routinely among the most enjoyable that I watched last year. But what also concerns me is the departure of Peter Wilt from the Chicago organization. While Peter's said he planned to move on after a year or two, and there's undoubtedly some nostalgic connection for him to go back to the indoor Milwaukee Wave, Wilt was a prime mover behind the effort to get the Chicago Red Stars into WPS. While he's stayed on as a consultant, and is doing his best to paint his move as being in everyone's best interests, I personally regard it as a bad thing for WPS to lose his full time efforts in that market.

So between AEG and Peter, you've got a lot of soccer knowledge jumping ship right away, and it's resulted in the death of at least one team. Whatever the reasons, justifications or spin for the respective departures, it's not good for the league.

I'm also going to question WPS marketing efforts right here, right now. Longtime readers know I've been unimpressed with WPS executives dismissing marketing to young girls and women. While it's not appropriate to go into a long discussion of the issues here, the collapse of the Sol only heightens the pressure on the rest of the league to get their shit together in regard to reaching their strongest demographic.

So while the disintegration of the Sol won't necessarily be a death blow to WPS, it introduces needless instability at a crucial time, and makes it that much harder to win over fans, media, and investors.

I'm rooting for the league. I want it to be around for many, many years. I love it very, very much. And let's not forget the sort of ride MLS was in the early years. But I can't say WPS is inspiring me with a lot of confidence at the moment. I just hope the other investors have deep enough pockets to see this one though.

Fake Sigi out.

Followup on the Portland Stadium

A brief followup on yesterday's Portland post before I get to everything that happened today. Andrew Guest and an anonymous commenter added their perspective in various comment threads on the issue. Guest over at Pitch Invasion:

In regard to the Portland stuff, I’m not an expert in stadium finance and it seems fair for Fake Sigi to point out the potentially sketchy aspects of the stadium deal. But as a Portlander I’m not sure about the conclusion that the core issue is a failure in “public relations.” It seems to me that the contentiousness around the deal is probably an inevitable result of trying to have an MLS facility in a downtown stadium that has a long history in a city where there are lots of people paying close attention to politics (which also means lots of frustrating self-righteousness on both sides–something not unfamiliar to either soccer blogs or, maybe, democracy).

If Portland had gone the more traditional MLS route of building a stadium/shopping mall/county fair/whatever complex on vacant land in deep suburbs there would indeed likely be less contentiousness. But that would be a lot less interesting. As a Portlander I’m glad people are paying attention. I think the anti-stadium crowd has agitated enough to get some valuable concessions from the Paulsons (such as their personal guarantee on any cost-overruns). And the pro-stadium crowd has been vocal enough to make it likely that the city will get a pretty cool soccer set-up that could well be part of a healthy urban core. Again–I don’t want to defend all aspects of the deal, and don’t think it’s been done perfectly. And maybe I’m blinded by my desire to have the Timbers in the MLS. But it strikes me that the contention around this could be more about healthy (though occasionally cloying and contentious) engagement rather than (just) bad “public relations.”

Second, a friendly anonymous commenter accused me of being rather lazy, and concluded with this bit of perspective:

But your post was pretty much all rehashing of a negative opinion on the stadium without any balance. I've been (obviously) following this as well; there's been a lot of negative things said about the PGE Park renovation plans. You've got the obligatory newspaper commentators, typically xenophobes who don't understand anything about soccer or its role in the Portland community. Then you have the independent journalists whose "journalism" is usually outspoken commentary against the Timbers, the renovation, Merritt Paulson and his family, et cetera. There were also a lot of people who probably don't disagree with bringing the Timbers here but who didn't want to see a baseball park where their apparently crappy park is now, and some architects who didn't want to see the old arena demolished. Oh, and the handful of baseball fans. That's been going on for over a year now, since Portland was I think the first to announce the MLS bid, and it's been in the news so much because of all these moving parts. The fact this deal got done at all is fairly impressive. A lot of work went into it.

I urge you to read the whole comment thread if you haven't already. I plan to have more on public financing and MLS stadiums at some point in the future.

-FS

Seattle Sounders season ticket holders - not just a hot single by Young Weezy

So I'm guessing you've all seen the numbers. We have 32,000 season ticket holders. And we could have more, but we capped it.

Now, I know that I've busted hard on no less than Creepy Jose for talking attendance smack, but you know what? Fuck it. I'm so drunk on power and money right now that I don't care. When you ball as hard as I do, and you sip the sizzurp like I do, you can do whatever you want. Case in point:




So think about this. We have almost as many season ticket holders as Kansas City, Colorado, and FC Dallas had in average announced attendance last year. COMBINED. We'll draw nearly as many fans on our own as Houston and Toronto combined drew last year. The only other team that can reasonably hope to draw 2/3 of what we draw is LA.

So read it and weep fuckers. Remember when David Falk was worried about our popularity fading? Not this year. And ya'll in Toronto and DC who are calling for the spending limits to be taken off, teams pay their own way? You don't want none of this.

Besides, we can't hear you, we're too busy putting posts on our official blog with smug-ass titles like, Sounders FC announce plans to break MLS record in 2010.

So since we can't spend our money on player salaries, we're just fucking off and frittering all the money away like Jon Rubinstein did back in the day when he was at Apple:

“Hey, I bought a hippo!” an excited Rubinstein could be heard yelling into random rooms as he walked down a hallway at One Infinite Loop.

“Yeah, he gets here on Saturday! I’m gonna have a whole water park built for him! You’re all invited to a party when it’s done! It’s gonna be so cool!”

In the last seven days, Rubinstein has also purchased ten high performance sports cars, paid for the construction of an in-house aviary which he filled with exotic birds, and spent thirty minutes throwing ten-dollar bills off a Cupertino overpass, causing several accidents and nearly inciting a riot.

“Good thing I also bought a personal cadre of hired goons!” Rubinstein said, his fingers glittering with gold rings from beneath the cuffs of a silk smoking jacket.

Anyway, it's kind of like that around here. Drew Carey filled the Open Cup with 18th century wine and then just drank a Miller Lite instead. Kasey Keller got a new coffin to sleep in. And of course, since it's my coaching and attractive soccer that's kept bringing the fans in, I'm getting a bonus. I wanted a Gulfstream jet so I wouldn't have to plane pool any more from Manhattan Beach, but we don't have that much money yet, so I settled for a solid gold bratwurst incubator. And Joe Roth and Paul Allen are just like "Eh, amateurs."

Face it, Sounders FC is the best thing that ever happened to this league. We should probably have our own league, but it would be really awkward to have games against ourselves. So I guess we'll stay in MLS a little while longer. While the rest of you fuckers are trying to scratch around for a couple forwards to rub together to keep warm, we'll just keep commissioning artwork to legitimize our greatness.



Why the hell is Keller front and center and not me on that? God damn it.

Anyway, bow down. We're coming for you in 2010.

Fake Sigi out.

Nick Green - Still cutting and pasting AP articles into his blog posts

You're still doing it wrong.

Edit: Ok, it did have some World Cup coverage information in there. I also had a link to someone else complaining about that piece, but it seems to have vanished for the moment.

Elliott at Futfanatico on Donovan's goal today

I couldn't have said it better myself:

When Donovan clinched his fist and shrieked after the goal, it was if to say – “I am only doing this to draw attention to the flawed values and discourse pervasive in this societal undertaking. Look at yourselves – what have you done today?”

Kasey Keller, older than me

I mean, the dude hasn't been young for a long time:

Then while at Tottenham, a teenaged Ledley King caught Keller in a quiet moment in the locker room. “When I was a kid I used to watch you at Millwall,” King said in Keller’s laughing recollection.

“That’s when I knew I started to make that transition into the mature veteran,” he said.

Anyway, I love the pictures from back in the day. The guy really did have a mullet.



Can't say I'm really surprised.

Anyway, we had a nice little party for him when he turned 40. I had to go, again. Like I said, living in the castle in Germany warped his brain, so he thinks he's a vampire and will play forever. And guys are kind of afraid of him, so they're playing to it. Riley got him a new cape. Montero bought him a copy of Interview with the Vampire. Taylor Graham got him an Evanescence album.

Me? I got him some garlic, an oak stake, and a retro copy of Castlevania 2. Yeah, it was awkward, but totally worth it.

-FS

Portland City Council doing sketchy things to get Paulson's soccer stadium built

I love how Portland always gets held up as this shining example of civic virtue. Look, we have trees! And trains! And a progressive utopia free of all that is bad! We have accomplished this with enlightened democracy!

Except that when it comes to building soccer stadiums, the Portland city council turns out to be downright sketchy. Via Field of Schemes, the outspoken Jack Bogdanski points out that the city of Portland is going to use a temporary line of credit to finance its share of stadium construction, putting off the selling of bonds until after the stadium is built:

In other words, Portland taxpayers won't get to see (or pass on) the terms of the mortgage until after the stadium project is finished. All we will know when the city forks over the construction costs is that the final mortgage is apparently going to be some sort of subprime "zero coupon" bond deal, and the Paulson family will be finding us some of their pals who will buy the bonds (i.e., make the permanent mortgage loan). In the meantime, the city's putting $11 million on the equivalent of a credit card.
. . .
How much leverage will the city have when the time comes to sell the bonds, which are likely to be far below prime? None -- less than none. The taxpayers will no doubt be taking it in the shorts -- the soccer shorts.

Furthermore, a commenter claims that

. . . MLS would be given the authority to waive all design requirements, which means that the project would go ahead despite the fact that MLS, Paulson, and the city know that PGE Park will never be able to meet the current minimum MLS requirements for restrooms, food stands, and seating dimensions that are necessary for PGE Park to serve as a fully-functional venue.

Which would certainly be failtastic if true. Here's the redevelopment agreement, and here's the relevant section:

21.2.12 MLS shall have confirmed in writing to the City that it has reviewed and approved the 100% Schematic Drawings, the 50% Design Development Documents and the 100% Design Development Documents and that, provided the Project Improvements are constructed in accordance with such Design Documents, the Stadium is approved as the home stadium of the Team.

What's clear is that there's plenty of opposition to getting this deal done, and while by all accounts the stadium deal will get pushed through, it's not at all obvious the community is happy with the arrangement. Nothing against Portland and their fans, but MLS expansion in the Pacific Northwest beyond Seattle hasn't been a shining example of public relations.

And by the way, Bogdanski's hosting a version of what purports to be the MLS Venue Design Guide. A document I'm sure we can all have fun with and should probably use to ask serious questions. I'll have a follow-up post on it unless someone else gets to it first.

-FS

Rapids official blog takes a turn for the boring

Rapids defender Scott Palguta apparently was bored or bothering someone or something, so they've handed him a netbook and told him to go do some promotion. As if Rapids fans didn't have enough reasons to start cutting:

I know it’s been a long off-season, so just in case I’ve escaped anyone’s memory, I’m Scott Palguta. That’s right, Palguta (#29, center back). NOT Ty Harden (#5, center back). While Ty and I are both defenders with All-American boy looks, we are, in fact, two entirely different people. You’d be surprised how often people mistake the two of us.

Wow, a face not even Rapids fans can remember. I'm on the edge of my seat.

Look for topics ranging from game recaps to road trips to.........some utterly useless facts. For instance: Do you ever wonder how many push-ups Matt Pickens can do in a minute? Are you eager to know if Nick LaBrocca cuts his hair more than once a year? Want to know what Omar reallllly thinks about Kosuke’s pet rabbit?

Actually, I want to know how many more strip clubs Rapids players will be able to frequent with the increased salary cap and per diem under the new collective bargaining agreement. I want to know how Gary Smith still has a job. I want to know if your team will stop being the nice guy no one else cares about and use its ridiculous altitude advantage to make the playoffs and crush some dreams, or maybe make an effort in the Open Cup. I want to know if the Rapids plan on not choking on their own vomit again this year. I want to see you conduct some semi-scandalous industrial espionage on this little promotional tour and then taunt RSL fans and players on the official team blog.

These are the things I want to know. Not how many pushups Matt Pickens can do. Anyway, good luck Ty.

-FS

First day of Sounders FC preseason camp - and I'll bet you're all wondering about Ljungberg

Can you believe we're already back at it? For a 30 game season, two months off seems like entirely too short a break. But, whatever, they want us to do the preseason thing for two full months before we play a real game, that's fine with me. Gives Tyson Wahl something to do besides stare at the wall. Ha. Too soon?

And by the way, this is the second straight year we open against an expansion team at home. Erm, or opened as one. Or New York played like one. Or something. Anyway, more easy scheduling from the MLS main office. We bring the fans, you give us ultimate victory. That's how it works. Actually, I'm kind of getting used to being the biggest deal MLS has ever seen.

So practice today. It was fine. Fine. Why do you ask? Did we significantly improve or something over the offseason? So we've got some draftees in camp, and a couple bizarro players. Dude from the Israeli league. A keeper who was just in Belgium who can step in when I kill Helen Keller back there.

But yeah. You guys really think Mike Seamon is an upgrade over Freddie Ljungberg? Who wasn't there today? Who's off snowboarding in Sweden and making doe eyes at absolutely anybody in Europe who will entertain the notion of signing his old-ass self away from us?

To be totally honest, I've been in contact with Freddie. I know he wants the fuck out, and I'm sort of cool with that, except Montero wants out too, and while time's running short on the transfer window, you never know. So I'm like, Freddie, do what you've got to do. And he's like Sigi, will we be better next year? And I said, yeah, of course. MLS is a total joke, really, the way you get better is just by hanging out together and practicing more. Ljungberg's like, really? I'm like, yeah, look at the Crew. So this year we'll win the Cup, since we've practiced a lot more.

Which is total BS, but I say it to him anyway. Like I said, I don't care that he's not here, because I didn't want to be here either. I wanted to fire up the animatronic Sigi-bot, but no, I had to be there to answer questions from moron reporters. So officially we're fining him. But unofficially, I could give a fuck, and he knows that. Otherwise, he'd be here.

Come on - he missed all last preseason, think that was an accident? It's just a little more inconvenient this year now that he's not a perpetual cripple. And he now realizes he wants out of this cruel, cold MLS prison. So, whatever. Good luck getting signed Freddie, I've got a spot in midfield saved for when you get back. Of course Helen Keller won't shut the fuck up about it:

“I don’t know the full story. I’m a player, I’m not in management,” said Keller. “I think when you’re under contract, you’re supposed to be for the team that holds your contract. And if something gets worked out, it has to be worked out with the club that holds your contract. You don’t as a player get your choice to say what you’re going to do and how you’re going to do it.

Another year of this. I don't know how Arena did it. No, you don't know the full story, so perhaps you should end your diatribes to the confused media a few sentences sooner.

As for Montero, I love this quote from Creepy Jose:

My thought on Montero - He asked me about the CONCACAF Champions League after being interviewed, and I got the sense that such a big time tournament and the chance to play in it is impressive to him and that it could be a factor in him staying in Seattle.

SUCH A BIG TOURNATMENT oh my God we get to play in Puerto Rico! Or maybe Vancouver! Or Toronto! The excitement. Seriously, fuck this. Our roster's barely deep enough to slog through MLS and a severely weakened US Open Cup field, you're telling me we'll be getting our asses handed to us in Central America when we're making our playoff push? Mark my words, this could get ugly. I'm going to love the look on Montero's face when we get off the plane in Panama.

So, no predictions yet, just your daily dose of doom, gloom, and good fucking lord do these players need to get in shape. Check out the Sounders web site if you want some footage of just how soft we are.

Much love Sounders fans. Another year of glory. I eagerly await your praise.

Fake Sigi out.

On tone

I figured Saturday's USMNT game would have people telling me that I didn't know what I was talking about Saturday, but instead I'm called on to defend my association with BigSoccer blogger "tone". Richard Whittall, who didn't like my praise for Aaron Stollar's hammering of Kartik Krisnaiyer, and apparently doesn't like BigSoccer, starts by lumping Dan, Bill and Stollar into the same ideological camp, praises their writing, and then accuses them of sucky rhetoric:

Chances are, if you're a big time blogger and you write about MLS, and you think there is a lot of room to improve the league, expect a forceful rebuttal from any one of the above. No, not forceful, juvenile. Noxiously, self-congratulatingly so. So much so that any actual argument gets lost amidst all the cathartic, self-serving snark.

Big time bloggers, huh? Writing about MLS? DO TELL.

For the most part, their approach isolates them from any meaningful engagement with writers with opposing views, in contrast to someone like Fake Sig who has engaged with several writers of opposing views, some more civilly than others..

Whittall then spends the rest of the post complaining about a lack of substantiation from Stollar before concluding:

Basically, Fake Sigi, it's time to write an epic post defending your association with the tone—not the opinions, the tone—of Big Soccer. These are grown up writers, presumably. Why are they not able to defend their position like grown-ups?

What? Really?

Look, I've found Loney and Archer perfectly approachable on manners of disagreement so long as you're logical and sensible. And no, logic and sensibility are not euphamisms for "agree with their point of view". I've had not one, but two instances where I've disagreed with Dan this month alone. Guess what, he still returns my phone calls - or at least comments on my blog.

As far as I'm concerned, they've both spent enough time in the online soccer community that they're allowed to suffer or wind up fools as they see fit. And Loney's piece on Krishnaiyer showed a mastery of literary form seldom displayed elsewhere in the soccer blogosphere.

In regards to Stollar, while his post wasn't a ruthless exploitation of logic and facts, he pretty much put out there what a lot of people were already thinking about Kartik Krishnaiyer. Furthermore, in the comment thread, Krishnaiyer's associate made a total mess of himself trying to defend the hiring. I wouldn't have linked to the post if I didn't think it added more to the matter than those who just said "Way to go Kartik!" And besides that, it was entertaining as hell.

When you put your writing and persona out in public, you'd better be prepared to defend it. And not every criticism is going to be neatly packaged and perfectly rational. And even if it was, where's the fun in that?

-FS

Creepy Jose Romero absconds for Arizona

So long Creepy Jose. I will miss you. Not really, since you would bizarrely video tape my players and make them uncomfortable. But it's the end of an era, you know? Check out the Creepy Jose tag and relive all the memories.

Good luck in Arizona covering golf or old people or drought or whatever you're going to do.

On USMNT players leaving MLS for Europe

Between Stuart Holden hanging around in England waiting to sign for Bolton, Landon Donovan's loan to Everton, Ricardo Clark going on loan to Eintract Frankfurt, there's been a disturbance in the soccer blogosphere. It goes something along the lines of "MLS is losing its best playerz! Teh CBA is the reason! P4n1x!!eleven!

The buzz has culminated in Dan Loney's post from last evening in which he compares the composition of the USMNT camps from 2002, 2006, and 2010. It's a post I have major problems with, and to me it's Loney's worst work in months. I found myself wondering if Dan farmed out the ghost writing responsibilities to Duane or Kartik.

Dan's major contention is that most regular USMNT players are playing or moving abroad, and therefore the talent level in MLS is becoming weaker. Not only that, the current camp roster is a collection of pathetic jokers, most of whom shouldn't bother hoping for a roster spot.

My first problem is that when Dan talks about the 2002 January camp, he suggests that MLS sent more players to the World Cup roster than it actually did.

Sixteen of the players called up in 2002 made the roster.

Except that two of those players were not based in MLS (Eddie Lewis and Frankie Hejduk), and one of the other players was one of ten alternates (Vanney) who only briefly made it onto the roster when Chris Armas got hurt, and was ultimately replaced by a European based player (Cherundolo) in the end due to injury. Furthermore, when the squad was originally announced, only 12 MLS based players were on it. So unless Dan somehow thinks that Joe Max-Moore wasn't actually playing for Everton in 2002, I have no idea who the 14th MLS player would be.

*At most* 12 MLS players out of that camp would have been on the final World Cup roster. Not 16. The final number was 11.

Regarding the 2006 squad, Dan is correct that 11 MLS-based players from the January camp made the final roster, including Chris Albright replacing the injured Frankie Hejduk. However, by the time the World Cup rolled around, John O'Brian had signed for Chivas USA in a last gasp effort to keep playing. Not only that, five other players on the roster had spent time in MLS and had been in present at the 2002 January camp. In fact, they were all in MLS at the time of that 2002 camp. So at most we're looking at a one or two player decrease, with a total increase of players on the roster with MLS experience.

Then when Dan analyzes the players not called into camp this year, he urges an asterisk placed next to Stuart Holden and Landon Donovan. So, therefore, in 2002, should we not also put an asterisk next to Brian McBride and Landon Donovan? After the Gold Cup McBride immediately was loaned to Everton and obtained a permanent move to Fulham the next winter, and Donovan was still technically a Leverkusen player. And why not asterisk Clint Mathis and Damarcus Beasley, both of whom moved to Europe in the next 18 months?

Now what's undeniable is that the 2009 Confederations Cup roster contained only 5 players based in MLS, and based on the performance in that tournament, all those players became significantly more appealing to clubs abroad. So if there are 5 MLS based players on the final World Cup roster this year, yeah, that's significant. On the other hand, almost the whole Confederations Cup squad has played in MLS at some time.

So is the level of American MLS players really getting weaker, or is it the pool of good US players increasing while continuing to MLS continues to improve? I think it's the latter. I don't think anyone can look at the 2002 MLS season, a league with 2/3s the amount of teams, and say that the level of play was better than it was in 2009. Look at the Cup Finals, for god's sake - even with the 2009 Final played on turf, it was still played at a higher level than was the 2002 edition.

Dan concludes otherwise:

Except, last summer's Gold Cup proved there was a serious and significant gap between our front-line and our understudies.

Now I have major issues with that statement. I know you're pissed about that 5-0 thrashing, but that meltdown was less than 35 minutes of soccer, and it was the result of Bradley getting out-coached (again) and three really bad decisions by players.

So what happened? First, the introduction of Carlos Vela at halftime changed that game, and Bradley had no real response - so long as the game was 0-0, he was going to see what happened. And when the first goal came, it was due to a sort-of questionable penalty, in which a dirty Jay Heaps got out-dirtied by a Mexican player. Still, I blame Heaps, and we'll see why in a moment.

Now Bradley's response was to throw gasoline on the fire by replacing Logan Pause with Santino Quaranta. The move further exposed his defense, which was already struggling under the weight of having to lug around Heath Pearce and Heaps. But before that change got made, someone called "Clarence Goodson" (not an MLS player, incidentally) wasn't paying attention and because of his laziness, Mexico scored again. On this video, at 28 seconds, you can clearly see Goodson standing around with his arms up, not paying attention, AS THE BALL IS DELIVERED OVER HIS HEAD TO VELA. The result is Chad Marshall not being able to pick a man because he can't tell when Goodson is going to mess up again (he does) and Mexico scores. And where's Jay Heaps? Woefully out of position, pushed way too far upfield.

Now with the bad change made, on the third goal we see an again out-of-position Heaps get schooled by Vela. Then on the fourth goal Heath Pearce (not an MLS player at the time) literally watches Castro take the ball from Vela and run past him and his teammates for an uncontested goal. I don't know where Heaps is, but I'm guessing he's the guy laying on the field as Vela gets the ball. The last Mexico goal by Franco was really nice, wasn't it? Not much you can do about that.

Anyway, the thing that struck me was that Chad Marshall looked pretty bad on most of the goals, but in almost every instance he's trying to cope with major mistakes made by those around him. I really can't blame him for not stepping as aggressively as he could have on that last goal in the dying moments of the match when the US was down a player. I'd be pissed too.

For me it takes a lot of ignorance to make a blanket condemnation of the talent of current and future American MLS players based on 35 minutes of play in which Jay Heaps (now retired) played as though he'd never been on a soccer field before in his life, two players from Europe royally messed up on two goals, and Bob Bradley was woefully out-coached. The better conclusion is to ask serious questions about just what the fuck Bob Bradley thought he was doing tactically, and why the shitty performance of Heaps wasn't dealt with until Heaps himself got sent off.

So based on Dan's reasoning, it's not at all conclusive that the level of American players in MLS is actually declining. Sure, there are players moving abroad, in part because they played well in South Africa, and in part because of the collective bargaining negotiations. But when Dan says this:

I happen to be of the opinion that a strong MLS helps the US national team - after all, look how many of those Yanks Abroad (hey, that's a good name for a website) did time in the Major League. That's probably going to continue. But if MLS can't make a go of marketing future and former stars, then whence the next generation?

It makes no sense. Most of the USMNT players have played in MLS; MLS is on strong financial footing; the level of play continues to increase. I understand that MLS will have less USMNT players around to promote itself, but is that really necessary at this point? Even so, I do expect Donovan to return to MLS after the World Cup, and let's be frank, other guys will too. Not only that, the USMNT has *always* relied on European players to form the hard core. With the exception of a couple guys, the ones playing in Europe have almost always been better. And yet this:

Or, Europe will siphon off good American players faster than MLS can produce them, and we'll be back to where we were in the early to mid-90's, where Bora Miltunivoic didn't even want to count games where European-based players didn't play.

Is so laughable, I don't know where to begin.

I think players moving abroad will make it easier for MLS to bring along the next generation. And as the talent pool has increased, what we see now is an inevitable occurrence. I don't think it's a stretch to say MLS is better than it was, and so is the men's national team. If the best players are now perceived as good enough to play abroad, then that's great. At some point MLS will have the financial power to bring back some of those guys. Maybe not this year.

Let me also say that, yeah, in the short term, the best American players playing abroad could hurt MLS. But I don't think it's at all clear at the moment that will be the case. Let's wait and see how the level of play in 2010 is (I think it will be good) and how World Cup goes (we could easily crash out) before we bemoan the loss of our former "stars."

-FS

Aaron Stollar rises to the occasion

Krishnaiyer's new gig is just bringing out the best in everyone today:

He was a voice of utter banality and stupidity on nearly every subject he approached in American soccer. With Kartik, no conspiracy theory was ever left unturned, no mindless rant against Sunil Gulati ever eschewed. He was a hack of the highest order, leading his merry band of basement-dwelling, almost-definitely-unsexed readers into caves of nonsense and paranoia like the Pied Piper of piffle that he was and will always remain. If I could have back all the time I've spent explaining to fans here and in person why the USSF, while flawed, isn't responsible for 95% of what people like Kartik accuse of, I'd be 12 years old. Kartik provided ammo and credibility to those who needed to concoct excuses and conspiracies to explain why a country that has only really bothered with soccer for 16 years hasn't yet won the World Cup.

NSR: Blog for Choice Day

I do very few NSR posts on this site, but reproductive health is something that's important to me, so I'm going to take a moment to address the topic since it's "Blog for Choice" day.

In general, I feel that women are not granted adequate control over their own reproductive health. While abortion is a part of that, the issue also goes to how pregnant women are treated by doctors and hospitals during term and delivery, and adequate access to contraception, both regular and emergency. Most visibly, women are also routinely pressured and coerced not to exercise their legal right to get abortions, and there have also been recent efforts to severely restrict health coverage for the procedure.

This blog is neither the place nor the forum for exploring all the associated issues with the topic. But I urge you to educate yourself on the many challenges women face in being able to have their voice heard when it comes to the very personal matter of choosing appropriate reproductive health care.

-FS

On NASL's new Communications Director

I've been a bit facepalm since I read the NASL press release stating they hired "renowned soccer journalist and blogger" Kartik Krishnaiyer to be their director of communications. My first reaction was, man, I hope he stops blogging and podcasting, and thankfully, that appears to be the case.

Personally, I've read very little of his work, but I wasn't all that impressed with what I did read. Since Krishnaiyer doesn't have much to say that's relevant, working for the NASL is probably the best place for him to be. There he can let cockamamy ideas like "the USSF is holding back the NASL to protect MLS" run wild and free without the worry of them being taken too seriously. So while I'm sympathetic to Dan Loney's magnum opus of pain (an early candidate for post of the year), I think this new arrangement works out well for all parties involved.

Duane seems to think reactions like Dan's are down to jealousy, but I'm not jealous at all. And while I highly disagree with Duane's contention that Kartik has captured the "blogging Holy Grail", I think it's great when low watt, high energy writers can get themselves in to low-visibility, low-impact positions in corporate America. When they also leave the blogosphere, we all win.

I know what you're thinking - Fake Sigi, would you ever write for the man? Now, of course there have been moments when I've considered it. There may have even been moments when I've held myself out as open to the possibility. There may have even been moments when I actually did. But let's be frank - I've got a good gig here in terms of editorial flexibility, and that's not something I'm eager to curtail. The situation would have to be a good fit.

For Krishnaiyer, it looks like it was. Here's hoping he stays at the NASL for a long time.

-FS

On being fake

I've been thinking for a while about that fake band that ESPN's ad agency invented for the World Cup draw. You know, the Group of Death. For what it's worth, I wasn't the only one who thought it sucked. Richard Whittall was even like, word, this sort of marketing is ass.

"Oh, but using an intelligent approach means we won't reach the lowest common denominator," says the marketing man. But perhaps you don't want the LCD, because you can't market high-end products to the LCD, and the LCD is unlikely to like soccer no matter how Heavy Metal your "marketing concept" is. Just a thought, really.

But what I really want to get to is a statement one of the ad agency guys left in my comments explaining why they went ahead with the fake band:

It was created off a brief to do something (hopefully) fun, interesting and authentic to the sport/event around The Draw.

I hope I'm not the only one who finds it odd that Wieden+Kennedy's idea of creating something "authentic" was a fake hair-metal band. Back in the day, hair-metal was the 80's equivalent of the Backstreet Boys or Daughtry, particularly derivative acts like Poison, Firehouse, or Slaughter. So to me if you're going for something "authentic," hair metal is probably a bad place to start. I mean, even the Dead Schembechlers had the sense to use punk rock as their jumping off point.

Perhaps in marketing land, this sort of disconnect comes with the territory. Either most people don't notice it, or the marketers imagine we don't notice. I'd argue that both situations happen more than occasionally. Maybe they hoped a fake band in a genre where bands were already fake for the most part would double back on itself and somehow become authentic. It sounds absurd on it's face, doesn't it?

On the other hand, who is "Fake Sigi" to criticize a fake band? He's fake, right, he even says he's fake! He doesn't even do "Fake Sigi" stuff anymore, he's just faking an already fake persona!

So after a while of thinking about why exactly the Group of Death (hopefully never to be seen again, by the way) sucked and why Fake Sigi seems to work regardless, I stumbled upon Chuck Klosterman's essay "The Passion of the Garth" from his latest book, Eating the Dinosaur. Let me say up front that I have mixed feelings on Klosterman. I love his review of Chinese Democracy, and he's obviously more talented than myself as a lyricist. But then why do I feel dead inside and overly marketed to after I spend a lot of time reading his stuff?

Anyway, in The Passion of the Garth, Klosterman is talking about authenticity in music, in particular, what happened when Garth Brooks attempted to become Chris Gaines. He leads off with five points about authenticity in music, this one in particular:

The most telling moment for any celebrity is when he or she attempts to be inauthentic on purpose, and particularly when that attempt fails.

Klosterman continues:

If you want to adopt an unnatural persona, that persona needs to be an extension of the person you secretly feel like. You have to be "authentically pretending". You have to be the only person who could have become the character you embody. This is why Ziggy Stardust never seemed like a Halloween costume. It's also why Chris Gaines felt like marketing, even if that hadn't been the intention. He was crazy, but he wasn't singularly crazy. He wasn't crazy enough.
. . .
In the life of Chris Gaines was done exclusively for other people, which is why no one noticed.

Much like Chris Gaines, the Group of Death is an amalgamation of signifiers that are supposed to appeal to a certain audience without any kind of authentic vision behind it. Anyone can be "The Group of Death," and this is in large part why it fails.

In regards to Fake Sigi, the fakeness is disclosed up front, and there's clearly a person behind the curtain who's "authentically pretending". At least, that's how I like to imagine the perception of this site. A couple people have accused me of "hiding," but guess what guys, this is art, pretentious fucking art. And to take what Klosterman's saying about music and apply it to the soccer blogosphere, we're all acting to a certain extent. It's why some sites leave you dead inside after you read them, some sites don't, and everyone knows which sites are which. And it's why fake interviews like this, well - with apologies to the Gaffer, who's just got his hustle on - are not all that good.

-FS

Puma and adidas release 2010 WPS and MLS Uniforms

Puma is totally embarrassing adidas this year. The WPS uniforms are pure class, each and every one of them, and the MLS uniforms look like they were designed by a sadistic killer clown or an 8 year old who scribbled on the design tables. The only MLS teams that get away with looking decent are Philadelphia and Seattle.

For Seattle's first pick in the 2010 Superdraft

I'm probably going to take a midfielder. Maybe even a defender. This is Sigi-ball, remember? Besides, I'm not sure if we can get an impact forward at our spot.

Anyway, unless we can swing a trade (unlikely), don't expect a miracle today. Ok?

Check out ProPlayer Pipeline for their final pre-draft rankings.

Schelotto re-signs with the Crew

This post is probably longer than it should be. If you want the cliffnotes, head over here. We're going in a little more depth on the crazy train today.

So, even though there's not a contract in hand, it looks like the general consensus from people who know what they're talking about (congratulations on graduating to that category, Sean Michelle, you dirty hippy you) is that Guillermo Barros Schelotto has re-signed with the Crew for 2010. Schelotto apparently told Michelle "See you soon," which would seem to be a pretty concrete admission of his return.

I mean, unless Will Hesmer hacked Schelotto's e-mail account or something.

You know.

To fuck with everyone.

But there's quotes from the agent, too, so the teammate troll scenario can probably be ruled out:

"It's a good deal, a fair deal," said Peter Smith, Schelotto's U.S.-based agent. "It will be a good deal again if he comes back for another season."

Smith praised the negotiating efforts of Crew general manager Mark McCullers and technical director Brian Bliss after the Crew made an initial offer that would have cut Schelotto's salary by $400,000. Schelotto made $650,000 as a designated player in 2009.

"They really figured out a way to come back and make it happen," Smith said. "Guillermo always wanted to come back. It would have been a shame if he didn't under those circumstances."

But, wait, I thought MLS LLC negotiated all player contracts, not employees of the teams? Anyways, there's a few awesome things about this deal, the first being the way it's structured. If you go from the quotes in the paper, nobody actually knows how much money Schelotto gets or where it's coming from, and if they do they're not talking. From the first link:

Much as his contracts were structured in 2007 and 2008, Schelotto will be paid more than the figure that will be published by the players union in the spring under the terms of what one source called "a very, very complicated contract."
. . .
[Crew Technical Director Brian] Bliss said he did not yet know how much of Schelotto's salary would count against the Crew's cap.

That's . . . that's awesome.

This contract is really Landon Donovan v. 2.0. All of you who were pissed that the league shoveled Donovan a hunk of money but didn't classify him as a designated player? I give you Guillermo Barros Schelotto. In Michelle's blog post with the agent quotes, he points out that under the current collective bargaining agreement, Schelotto's cap number can not exceed $335,000 - which is stunningly close to the cap number I pegged him at in my first post on the topic. I hate to say I was right and all, but I was right. Ok, not yet pending the new collective bargaining agreement.

So where's the money coming from? I don't see any allocations hanging around for the Crew. . . nope, not here . . .nope, not here either. Did the league just drop off a big bag of money on the Crew Stadium front porch, knock on the door, and drive off before anyone answered? Did Brian Bliss come to the door and say, oh hey! Look at this! We can sign Schelotto. And fuck that salary cap thing . . . why bother calculating the impact, 'cause no one has to know, right? Right.

I'm serious, this could actually be what happened. From Fraser:

For example, to balance talent among teams, [MLS] decides, with the non-binding input of team operators, where certain of the league's "marquee" players will play.

Remember when those "Come see Schelotto in 2010" ads started showing up a while ago on MLSNet? Like, weeks before any kind of deal was announced? It appears the league office decided a while ago where a certain marquee player would play.

Anyway, the resolution of the deal allows for some entertaining reading of those who over-reacted or were wrong back in November. The best is a subtly titled post by Ginge, It's Time for the Hunt Sports Group to Leave MLS. There's also Duane, who I wouldn't mention but for his forceful defense in this blog's comments of his initial claim that the contract crisis showed how cheap, pathetic, and harmful to MLS the Crew front office was:

Let's examine how Columbus' inability to make money impacts fans in Columbus. It isn't good.
. . .
The truth is that even at 36, Guillermo Barros Schelotto is worth DP money. And, if there were more people in Columbus that really cared about the Crew, he'd be far more likely to be getting DP money there.
. . .
If the business people in the Crew's front office were at all competent then one could maybe make a feasible argument for [the offer]. However, as it stands, the move just comes off as being cheap.

Justify the move if you want Crew fans, but you'll only be deluding yourselves. You deserve butter better.

And so does the rest of MLS.

At this point I've got nothing to prove by making hay with Duane, and I already went over in my comment response how limited I feel his analysis is. What I will say is that the Crew managed to save cap space, compensate Guille to his satisfaction, and give themselves roster flexibility by going the route that they did. In other words, it's all win for them. And besides, Duane already ate his hat over the news anyway:

My opinion on the Crew front office is well established. There is no sense rehashing it now. Today's news is that he'll be back. That's good and it's good that the Crew FO figured out a way to make it happen.

Yeah, I can see why you wouldn't want to go back over what you said about the Crew front office considering they not only got the deal done, but there's a bunch of praise for Bliss and Mark McCullers from Schelotto's agent all over the local papers.

Duane also says that the Crew have convinced Schelotto to accept a lowball offer, but that's not necessarily true given what we know. It's very possible that Schelotto is getting "DP money' they're just not calling it "DP money". For me it raises the question as to why the Crew bothered making Schelotto a designated player last year, the *only* year out of four or five that he will be classified as such. Maybe it was balance sheet gymnastics, maybe it was money, maybe it was something else. I have no idea.

To be honest my main beef isn't with Ginge or Duane, it's with Steven Goff. Why, you ask? Well, Goff kicked all this off when he led the very first post from anywhere on the negotiations with wondering whether Schelotto would be gone, despite having no official confirmation that was the case:

Have we seen the last of Argentine maestro Guillermo Barros Schelotto in Columbus?

In a meeting this week, the Crew told the 2008 MLS most valuable player that, in order to remain with the club, he would have to agree to a salary cut of more than 50 percent, the Insider has learned. The decision was apparently made by upper management.

I am awaiting comment from the Crew.

I understand that speculating on player movements is is what fuels lazy, idle writers in search of page views off-season sports reporting. But given the better researched, more balanced Michelle piece that came out the next day (in which both Schelotto and McCullers are quoted as saying they're going to try to get a deal done despite their differences), to say nothing of how the negotiations actually turned out, Goff's characterization of Schelotto's situation was sloppy at best, reckless at worst. Speculation is fine, but it was done in maybe the most irresponsible way possible. It's surprising to see that lack of care come from a recognized journalist who prides himself on his ethics and objectivity.

As for Ives Galarcep, how about an acknowledgment that he was wrong for inventing the notion that Schelotto was done in Columbus and the team would have to trade him?

With all signs pointing to Guillermo Barros Schelotto's days in Columbus being numbered, it is time to start thinking about what may be next for the 2008 MLS MVP.

Sources tell SBI that Schelotto is already looking into potential destinations within MLS, and Columbus may have no choice but to deal the Argentine star if it can't reach an agreement on a new contract. A deal seems unlikely given the Crew's lowball offer.

Yesterday at Soccer by Ives someone named Travis "The Wonderdog" Clark just posted that Schelotto signed the contract, without any sort of indication that Galarcep had been wrong. Like nobody would remember what the blog said earlier. And no, Galarcep doesn't get out of jail free because he tried to be as weaselly as he could in the first post. Galarcep claimed he was sourced and followed the quoted statement with actual, poorly-thought-out speculation on which teams could obtain Schelotto in a trade. Like Willy Wonka says, you lose.

So the Schelotto saga is over. As is this blog post. Seriously, I need a freaking donut after all that.

-FS

The limitations of MLS single entity

The last time out I sang the praises of the MLS single entity structure. But let's talk now about the limitations of that structure.

To start I'd like to clarify what exactly investor-operators own and how they come to own it. I originally said:

. . . MLS contracts with owners to operate the teams it owns. These contractors retain a portion of ticket sales and other revenue, and must pay a portion of operation expenses. Contractors have a right to operate the teams they contract for and can sell a percentage of that right to other investors who may not be investors in MLS LLC.

But that's not the whole story, and I started thinking about the precise arrangement once I read Kenn Tomasch's response to my post. If you want to know the whole thought process, you can read that and the comments, but it's sort of convoluted. Here, to the best of my knowledge, is how MLS's ownership structure works:

MLS, LLC, the "single entity" has three classes of shares, A, B, and C. If you own class B or C shares, you share in the losses and profits of MLS, but you are not contracted to operate a team, nor do you incur costs or receive a larger share of local revenue like the operator investors do. However, if you buy a class A share, called a unit, you own a percent of MLS LLC, and you also have the right to contract with MLS to operate a team.

To illustrate, an investor puts up a certain amount of money - startup cash for the original owners, expansion fee for the new ones - to obtain that class A unit. This initial money goes to MLS LLC and is part of the balance sheet. As for the A unit, let's assume for simplicity's sake that it’s just a nondivisible share in MLS, equal in size to all other A units, that flexes in percentage as operator investors come and go.

Now, investors can hold that A unit however they want. I suspect most A units are owned through a corporation or LLC. In that instance, investors can then sell various shares in the entity that owns the A unit to other investors while still maintaining control of that entity. This is how you have local investors that own shares in the operation of a team, but do not take part in the overall governance of MLS.

Maybe the entities that own the A units operate the team through yet another entity, maybe not. But whatever entity holds that A unit gets the right to share in the profits and losses of MLS LLC (which owns all the teams, intellectual property, revenues, etc.) in addition to the profits and losses that are the direct result of operating a team in their home territory, in addition to being able to bring on “local” investors in that entity. And if an investor decides to sell their interest in an A Unit, the new owner of that unit will pay the owner, not MLS, for that share of the LLC.

Let's apply it to a ready example. In regards to DC United, William Chang lead a group that paid AEG ca. $33mm for the A unit investment in MLS that gave them the right to operate DC United. Only AEG and anyone else who might have had an interest in that A unit, either directly or via a holding entity, would have taken a cut. Later on, Chang then bought out the other investors who had shares in the entity they used to purchase the A unit, so he became the sole owner of the entity that owned the A unit.

So with that in mind, let's talk about the limitations of single entity. When we talk about the limitations of single entity, we're talking about the ways in which the local operation of teams impacts MLS LLC in a way that might not be expected from a centrally run entity. One such limitation is in regards to stadia. If you have access to lexis, you can take a look at 4 Marq. Sports L. Rev. 551, which discusses how although the overall MLS strategy is for smaller, more intimate venues, even Lamar Hunt made allowances for the presence of larger stadia. The piece is written with an eye toward breaking the single entity anti-trust exemption of MLS, which I think is speculative as a theory at best, but what it does in fact show is how broad the stadium requirement has been in MLS.

What's very interesting is that 1) All the first stadiums built around the turn of the millennium for MLS - Crew Stadium, Home Depot Center, Gilette Stadium - were privately financed, and 2) MLS was fine with New England Revs owner Robert Kraft building Gillette Stadium, because it gave the league access to a venue that could be used to host larger competitions like the World Cup, Gold Cup, Hexagonal and international friendlies. It also allowed the combining of resources with the Patriots to streamline operations. Lamar Hunt, famed builder of Crew Stadium, used the Kraft model in Kansas City when he operated the Wizards (or Wiz, depending on how old school we want to get).

It's worth noting that Kraft's approach has been almost wholly appropriated by Seattle Sounders FC, right down to the artificial turf (which for New England didn't come in until 2006), but with the exception of shaking down taxpayers to build the stadium. Why one team is the toast of MLS despite not winning a playoff game and the other doesn't draw dick despite making the playoffs year in and out is a topic for another post. But the point is that for as much Bill has very valid issues in regards to "soccer-specific stadium" being a "building you control with default dimensions for soccer," it's clear that from early on, larger buildings were permitted if they were controlled by the owners, there was operational overlap with other tenants, and the building could be used to generate revenue from other competitions.

Another limitation of the MLS single entity structure is on revenue. In Fraser, the appeals court stated:

In return for the services of the operator/investors, MLS pays each of them a "management fee" that corresponds (in large part) to the performance of their respective team. The management fee equals the sum of one-half of local ticket receipts and concessions; the first $1,125,000 of local broadcast revenues, increasing annually by a percentage rate, plus a 30% share (declining to 10% by 2006) of any amount above the base amount; all revenues from overseas tours; a share of one-half the net revenues from the MLS Championship Game and a share of revenues from other exhibition games.

Keep in mind that the teams were not responsible for salaries of league personnel, player salaries and benefits, game related travel expenses, half the stadium lease, and other costs. So in theory a profit can be turned from operating a team, aside from what the owner investor receives from MLS LLC itself. At a symposium discussion memorialized at 12 Fordham Intell. Prop. Media & Ent. L.J. 413 attorney Jeffrey Kessler compared this to the revenue sharing arrangement in the NFL. He also characterized it very much as a hybrid arrangement:

No sports entrepreneur really wants to invest in such a [pure single entity] league, so an internal struggle develops among the Major League Soccer entrepreneurs. "Do we really have to give up all this control? Can't we operate our teams separately? Can't we have separate franchise values? Do we really have to share all of our profits?" And a compromise is reached that keeps shifting, and that is what the record facts in the Fraser case show.

The context of the statement is Kessler arguing that MLS in not in fact a single entity, which I won't touch on but I think his point on the revenue is very much illustrated by the most tangible evidence of a breakdown in single-entity: the designated player. The designated player rule essentially says that the various investor-operators can use their own funds to finance one or two marquee players outside the salary cap, with of course the caveat that doing so will deal a potentially crippling blow to your salary structure.

On its face it seems to indicate a level of profitability in the MLS arrangement, and in particular at the local operator level. The theory being that if a team can turn a profit locally, then it can reinvest that money in one or two high caliber players. Or what seems to be a more frequent occurrence, teams can gamble that spending more on players will allow the team to be successful on the field, and in turn, profitable.

However, Soccer United Marketing, a shared investment among the owners, obviously plays a huge role in how profitable the league is, and if the main money to be made is at the local level, then what incentive is there for non-operator investors to have a stake in the league? And in order to finance Beckham, the LA Galaxy, one of the best supported clubs in one of the largest markets, in a jewel of a soccer specific stadium, with the deepest pocketed owners, played a lot of overseas friendliess, which if you'll note, are competitions AEG were allowed to keep all the revenues from.

Nevertheless, it's here, at this point, where people like BA Duane start their attack on single entity: if our team is flush with local money, then it should be allowed to leverage that money by reinvesting it in new players. Likewise, teams that don't have this local money shouldn't be allowed to compete at the same level because it holds back the teams with more revenues.

It's precisely this type of arrangement that single entity was designed to thwart, for the very concrete reason that higher revenue teams spent the NASL to its death back in the 80's. A league is only as viable as its weakest teams, and if the league does not look after those teams, then it runs the very real risk of becoming uninteresting to the point of having a to implement a plinko-esque playoff system (with apologies to Mgoblog for ripping off that analogy) to relieve the boredom.

On the other hand, I suppose you could make the argument that MLS is already there in regards to the playoff plinko. Besides, in pro soccer, that's really the best case scenario. The worst case is death, and the threat has been very real until *maybe* the last three or four years.

Anyway, in the piece that got me thinking about all this, Steve Davis does an excellent analysis about the very debatable impact of the designated player, and posits that changes to the rule would be more in line with getting teams to take a chance on a designated player as opposed to adding more slots:

So, for instance, if the salary-cap impact is reduced to $200,000 per DP, owners might be more willing to take the plunge. In that scenario, the percentage of salary cap tied up in a club's first DP is theoretically lowered from about 18 percent to less than 9 percent.

Again, those numbers stand to be adjusted by the multilayered, ongoing CBA negotiations.

He then wondered aloud what the impact on the league parity band if the designated player restrictions were loosened:

The well-bankrolled L.A. Galaxys and Red Bull New Yorks, etc., can afford the lavish salaries that DPs will command. Sources tell me ownership in L.A., Seattle, New York and D.C. United are driving the charge to add a second DP asset per club.

The bullish big spenders can afford to take the risk, paying grande on the front end and betting that they’ll spin gold on the back end. Meanwhile, the smaller and the spendthrift will be left to purchase economically.

Personally, I find it outrageous that DC United is pushing for a second DP slot when they aren't profitable and won't be until they get at minimum an-as-of-now non-existant new stadium. And as Davis points out, it's really hard to show a positive impact on the bottom line in DP instances other than Beckham (although without Schelotto, the Crew don't win MLS Cup 2008 or two straight Supporters Shields).

The designated player rule represents the biggest challenge to single entity, but it's also wholly dependent upon the single entity structure for its existence. If the league itself determines that expanding the rule is for the good of the league, it will expand it. If the league as a whole starts bleeding too much cash because of it, or ownership groups start to totter, the rule will be reigned back in. I'd like to think the parity argument plays some role here, but I think the main consideration really is economics. As it currently stands, the rule was a limited experiment. Now that we've seen some of the impact of it, how can the league as a whole tweak it to improve the standard of play without totally trashing its parity model? Despite what others want to see, I think that's the extent of the discussion.

A league in total control of itself as a collective interest is maybe the biggest limitation of all in single entity. But in the eyes of this writer, it's also the best.

-FS

Blair Gavin on entering MLS as a Generation adidas player

From MLSNet, Gavin discussed making the jump with his brother Michael, who played briefly for LA:

Michael, the fourth overall pick in the 2008 Supplemental Draft, spent one season with Los Angeles after a distinguished career at the University of Portland. Michael played in two games for the Galaxy in 2008 before he was released in early 2009.

"He's my big brother," Gavin said. "I've always looked up to him. I talked to him about his time (with the Galaxy) and how things went for him. He had a really tough go of it, but he learned a lot. He explained that to me and he helped me out."

Translation: Get yourself a Generation adidas contract if you have the chance so you're not part of the salary structure and therefore immune from getting cut before you have a chance to develop or getting wages that would make you envious of a Walmart greeter.

Sound advice.

If soccer is so popular in North America, how do we get leads like this?

A glitch in the matrix from the Cleveland Plain Dealer:

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- In Mike Holmgren, Randy Lerner might have finally found his Martin O'Neill for the Browns.

Huh? Who?

O'Neill is manager of Lerner's English soccer team, Aston Villa. In rough NFL terms, the manager is a combination general manager and head coach, deciding which players to buy and sell and directing strategy from the sidelines.

The rest of the article is an interesting comparison about how Lerner has restored some of Villa's former glory while shitting all over the once proud history of the Cleveland Browns, both while managing to not talk to anyone or be seen. It also holds the hand of the casual Northeast Ohio reader who hasn't seen a soccer ball since Hector Marinaro hung up his cleats.

Pew Research Study on Teen Content Creation

According to the study, a larger percent of teen girls online blog and post photos than do online boys:

Girls continue to dominate most elements of content creation. Some 35% of all teen girls blog, compared with 20% of online boys, and 54% of wired girls post photos online compared with 40% of online boys. Boys, however, do dominate one area – posting of video content online. Online teen boys are nearly twice as likely as online girls (19% vs. 10%) to have posted a video online somewhere where someone else could see it.

Maybe this partly explains the success WPS has had in the social media arena.

MLS work stoppage implications - CONCACAF Champions League

Arguably the side with the most riding on a potential MLS work stoppage this spring are the Columbus Crew, who have a CONCACAF Champions League match scheduled on March 9 against Toluca. Let me first repeat that I expect any work stoppage, if it comes, to be relatively short. But let's say it's not. What then?

How long a stoppage would it take for the Crew to miss the game? I'm guessing it would need to go right through the week of game. Yes, I'd be amazed if the players union let the Crew practice so they could play the games, and yes that means the Crew would get crushed more than they're already planning on. But I think the organizers would probably move the game to the end of the week if they had to, and the game would get played if there was any way it could be.

But let's say the lights are dark at Obetz through March 13. The CONCACAF Champions League Regulations say that failure of a side to participate in a game may be considered as withdrawal from the event. If a team withdraws, it can be subject to all sorts of penalties (up to a $20,000 fine in this case), although in the case of an unforeseen event (like a strike), those penalties can be waived. The CONCACAF executive committee could provide for an alternate team to take the Crew's place, but I'm not sure how realistic an option that is.

Section 3.12 outlines what I think is the most likely scenario:

In the event that a team, in the view of the CONCACAF Executive Committee, fails to report properly for, to commence, or to complete, any game in the CCL, then the opponent of that team shall be deemed to have won 3-0 (or more in the case of an abandoned match where the other team has already reached a higher score at the time their opponent abandoned the game) regardless of whether the non-playing team is subsequently deemed to have withdrawn from the event.

If the Crew had to absorb a 3-0 defeat at a game scheduled in Crew Stadium without taking the field, you could pretty much write off the whole thing and not even play the return leg. They may lose by that much anyway. But no matter how you slice it, a prolonged stoppage would be very bad for the Crew, and would severely impact their ability to advance in the tournament.

Again, it would take a lot for it to come to this, and I think we're a little early on the speculation. If you've got a scenario in your mind that's different from what I've cobbled together here, or you're just a Crew fan who wants to pre-emptively gnash their teeth and tear their garments in sorrow, let's take it to the comments.

-FS

Peter Vermes on playing in Hungary in the 80's

Via Pitch Invasion, an interesting ESPN piece on Americans who played in Central Europe in the 80's:

"I was taking away someone's livelihood if they signed me, so no one would pass me the ball," said Vermes, a forward. "I had to go bump a guy on my team off the ball and steal it from him. Then I went on a dribbling spree and took a shot. After that, they started passing it to me."

Also of interest, Vermes's father played for Honved in the 50's. Yes, the Honved that had Ferenc Puskas on it for the first half of that decade. So I think it's safe to say his dad was probably pretty good. Peter played for a year in Gyor, a small town near the Austrian border which was undoubtedly less glamourous.

And I'll bet you forgot the Sounders offered Vermes the head coach job before they offered it to me:

And that is why, despite offers from the Los Angeles Galaxy to become their general manager and from the Seattle Sounders to serve as their first MLS head coach, Vermes decided to stay put in K.C. His decisions to snub the league’s highest-profile club and one of its most exciting newcomers left many confused, but that suits the MLS’ most wanted man just fine.

“Any time you are offered something, you are flattered,” Vermes said in a telephone interview with Yahoo! Sports. “It reflects well on me and especially well on what we are doing at Kansas City Wizards.”

Wouldn't that have been different. By the way, good luck with that awesome roster you have in KC.

-FS