MLS, Crew SC have been working on Austin relocation plan for months
https://www.bizjournals.com/columbu...een-working-on-austin-relocation.html?ana=twt
https://www.bizjournals.com/columbu...een-working-on-austin-relocation.html?ana=twt
Crew SC owner considers moving team to Austin, Texas
- Thread starter ferrarinycfc
- Start date
I meant that they can't threaten anyone because nobody would give 2 shits. What politician out person is going to be threatened by the possibility of NYCFC moving?
The color scheme looks a lot like the Dallas Stars new colors... not that it means anything. Just something I noticed.
why? i mean i dont know much about hockey ownerships but just feels weird...i know there are alot of struggling NHL teams dont know if they are one of them
Note that the Dallas Stars before 1993 were the Minnesota North Stars. So maybe not the poster children for keeping a team in their original city.
Just sayin'
interesting i always assumed it was for other sports and just happen to rent it for soccer.
Oar-GANN-ick toe-MAY-toesYou two should just debate how to pronounce this:
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My dad and I attended almost every fusion game. Shit owners. Fun times. Team got great the year they announced it was the last year.
They had a good team for that era of MLS. I was a revs fan at the time and we ended up getting some solid players out of the dispersal draft. It set them up for their run of semi-dominance.
You know what, this opinion is going to be spectacularly unpopular, but it needs to be said.
Precourt should move the crew to Austin with all haste, and anyone saying that Crew fans are at all victims in this are only lying to themselves.
To start with, Columbus crew fans have voted early and often with respect to how much they value their team, and its current location. In short, the Columbus metro area could not give less of a shit about the Crew.
2017 attendance average: 15,439 (1)
2016 attendance average: 17,125 (2)
2015 attendance average: 16,513 (2)
Lets get the obvious out of the way and note that the 2017 average attendance for the Crew was god awful. In fact it was so awful it comes out as a solid 20/22 teams in the league. But even if we were to use the numbers from the heady days of from last season, the crew would improve their attendance average to... 19th out of 20 teams. We talk a lot about fan passion in this lovely sport we love, and its pretty clear that Columbus just isn't really that passionate about the Crew, despite Columbus having exactly 2 Major League teams in the city. The other being the NHL Blue Jackets.
Oh but
JGarrettLieb the (few) fans of the Crew are so passionate and support the team so much. 1. you just ignored everything I said so far. 2. Honestly, there is no way to really measure passionate support except in the financials. The question becomes, are people buying Jerseys and team kit and generally financially supporting their team?
I'll let you guess the answer dear reader.
The answer is no, the Crew fandom, by every metric publicly available do not financially support their team.
The Crew are exactly dead last in terms of value per team with a team value in 2017 of $130mm (3)(4). Lets go over that number a bit more, this means that the crew in Columbus is literally worth less than the expansion fee requested of new owners. That's how much the fans of the Columbus Crew give a shit. But it gets worse.
The crew on a net revenue basis lost $5mm last year. Thats actually the 16/20th spot in terms of losses, except every team that is below the Crew spends either well or massively on their DP spots. Below the Crew are Toronto, NYCFC, Chicago Fire, and Colorado Rapids. A major surprise of writing this post was learning that COL actually spends $1.5mm average on their DP's ,(5) whereas the crew are spending less than $1mm per DP(5). If Colorado got rid of all their DP's they would probably run $4mm or $3mm loss instead of their $6mm loss. However, if the crew got rid of all their DP's they'd still run either a $5mm or $4mm loss, depending on rounding.This means that Rapids fans are spending money whereas Columbus is not, I'd like to take this moment to remind everyone that Colorado actually has a lower attendance than the crew at this point.
But it gets worse. Look here http://www.mlsstore.com/Columbus_Cr...ot}{ct-JerseyCollection}{tt-Columbus_Crew_SC} and here http://www.mlsstore.com/New_York_City_FC_Jerseys NYCFC jersey's are $20 more expensive per jersey than Crew jerseys, and if you bother to look at the top selling Jersey list you will find the crew no where near it.
Now lets compare Columbus to Austin. Because I haven't beaten this dead horse enough yet.
"The Columbus metro area continued its steady growth as its population hit 2,021,632 in 2015, up about 1.2 percent from 1,997,308 a year earlier, according to estimates released on Thursday by the Census Bureau." (6) There is another way to say that information, Columbus Ohio is growing more slowly than the national average population. Btw, I used the entire metro area of Columbus because its a more favorable comparison for Columbus. I may be shitting on the fans of the Columbus Crew here, but never let it be said that I fudge my numbers.
The present population of Austin Texas is 2,056,405, and it grew last year by 3%. Which doesn't tell the full story of the fastest growing city in the United States, "The decade ending 2015 saw a 37.7% increase in population," (7) to put it succinctly Austin is already a better market than Columbus and that disparity is only going to increase as time goes on. But here's where the disparity increases, many of those new people in Austin have come from high income areas and are thus likely to be high income themselves. (8) This is in contrast to the blue collar nature of Columbus.
From a financial perspective Precourt would be nuts to keep the Crew in Columbus. And after Precourt leaves any other owner would have to be even more nuts to try and start a MLS franchise there.
Long story short, sorry Columbus, you don't support your team, and that lack of support, financial and otherwise has caused the best possible course of action for the ownership to be to move somewhere else.
(1) https://soccerstadiumdigest.com/2017-mls-attendance/
(2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_League_Soccer_attendance
(3) https://www.statista.com/statistics/477837/team-value-of-mls-soccer-teams/
(4) https://www.forbes.com/sites/chriss...soccers-most-valuable-teams-2/2/#21871e5d199c
(5) http://www.mlssocceritalia.com/wp-c.../April-15-2017-Salary-Information-By-Club.pdf
(6) http://www.dispatch.com/article/20160325/NEWS/303259725
(7) https://www.austinchamber.com/economic-development/austin-profile/population
(8) https://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2010/06/migration
Precourt should move the crew to Austin with all haste, and anyone saying that Crew fans are at all victims in this are only lying to themselves.
To start with, Columbus crew fans have voted early and often with respect to how much they value their team, and its current location. In short, the Columbus metro area could not give less of a shit about the Crew.
2017 attendance average: 15,439 (1)
2016 attendance average: 17,125 (2)
2015 attendance average: 16,513 (2)
Lets get the obvious out of the way and note that the 2017 average attendance for the Crew was god awful. In fact it was so awful it comes out as a solid 20/22 teams in the league. But even if we were to use the numbers from the heady days of from last season, the crew would improve their attendance average to... 19th out of 20 teams. We talk a lot about fan passion in this lovely sport we love, and its pretty clear that Columbus just isn't really that passionate about the Crew, despite Columbus having exactly 2 Major League teams in the city. The other being the NHL Blue Jackets.
Oh but
JGarrettLieb the (few) fans of the Crew are so passionate and support the team so much. 1. you just ignored everything I said so far. 2. Honestly, there is no way to really measure passionate support except in the financials. The question becomes, are people buying Jerseys and team kit and generally financially supporting their team?I'll let you guess the answer dear reader.
The answer is no, the Crew fandom, by every metric publicly available do not financially support their team.
The Crew are exactly dead last in terms of value per team with a team value in 2017 of $130mm (3)(4). Lets go over that number a bit more, this means that the crew in Columbus is literally worth less than the expansion fee requested of new owners. That's how much the fans of the Columbus Crew give a shit. But it gets worse.
The crew on a net revenue basis lost $5mm last year. Thats actually the 16/20th spot in terms of losses, except every team that is below the Crew spends either well or massively on their DP spots. Below the Crew are Toronto, NYCFC, Chicago Fire, and Colorado Rapids. A major surprise of writing this post was learning that COL actually spends $1.5mm average on their DP's ,(5) whereas the crew are spending less than $1mm per DP(5). If Colorado got rid of all their DP's they would probably run $4mm or $3mm loss instead of their $6mm loss. However, if the crew got rid of all their DP's they'd still run either a $5mm or $4mm loss, depending on rounding.This means that Rapids fans are spending money whereas Columbus is not, I'd like to take this moment to remind everyone that Colorado actually has a lower attendance than the crew at this point.
But it gets worse. Look here http://www.mlsstore.com/Columbus_Cr...ot}{ct-JerseyCollection}{tt-Columbus_Crew_SC} and here http://www.mlsstore.com/New_York_City_FC_Jerseys NYCFC jersey's are $20 more expensive per jersey than Crew jerseys, and if you bother to look at the top selling Jersey list you will find the crew no where near it.
Now lets compare Columbus to Austin. Because I haven't beaten this dead horse enough yet.
"The Columbus metro area continued its steady growth as its population hit 2,021,632 in 2015, up about 1.2 percent from 1,997,308 a year earlier, according to estimates released on Thursday by the Census Bureau." (6) There is another way to say that information, Columbus Ohio is growing more slowly than the national average population. Btw, I used the entire metro area of Columbus because its a more favorable comparison for Columbus. I may be shitting on the fans of the Columbus Crew here, but never let it be said that I fudge my numbers.
The present population of Austin Texas is 2,056,405, and it grew last year by 3%. Which doesn't tell the full story of the fastest growing city in the United States, "The decade ending 2015 saw a 37.7% increase in population," (7) to put it succinctly Austin is already a better market than Columbus and that disparity is only going to increase as time goes on. But here's where the disparity increases, many of those new people in Austin have come from high income areas and are thus likely to be high income themselves. (8) This is in contrast to the blue collar nature of Columbus.
From a financial perspective Precourt would be nuts to keep the Crew in Columbus. And after Precourt leaves any other owner would have to be even more nuts to try and start a MLS franchise there.
Long story short, sorry Columbus, you don't support your team, and that lack of support, financial and otherwise has caused the best possible course of action for the ownership to be to move somewhere else.
(1) https://soccerstadiumdigest.com/2017-mls-attendance/
(2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_League_Soccer_attendance
(3) https://www.statista.com/statistics/477837/team-value-of-mls-soccer-teams/
(4) https://www.forbes.com/sites/chriss...soccers-most-valuable-teams-2/2/#21871e5d199c
(5) http://www.mlssocceritalia.com/wp-c.../April-15-2017-Salary-Information-By-Club.pdf
(6) http://www.dispatch.com/article/20160325/NEWS/303259725
(7) https://www.austinchamber.com/economic-development/austin-profile/population
(8) https://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2010/06/migration
Love the analysis, and damn there’s a lot, and it’s all compelling and spot on.You know what, this opinion is going to be spectacularly unpopular, but it needs to be said.
Precourt should move the crew to Austin with all haste, and anyone saying that Crew fans are at all victims in this are only lying to themselves.
To start with, Columbus crew fans have voted early and often with respect to how much they value their team, and its current location. In short, the Columbus metro area could not give less of a shit about the Crew.
2017 attendance average: 15,439 (1)
2016 attendance average: 17,125 (2)
2015 attendance average: 16,513 (2)
Lets get the obvious out of the way and note that the 2017 average attendance for the Crew was god awful. In fact it was so awful it comes out as a solid 20/22 teams in the league. But even if we were to use the numbers from the heady days of from last season, the crew would improve their attendance average to... 19th out of 20 teams. We talk a lot about fan passion in this lovely sport we love, and its pretty clear that Columbus just isn't really that passionate about the Crew, despite Columbus having exactly 2 Major League teams in the city. The other being the NHL Blue Jackets.
Oh but
I'll let you guess the answer dear reader.
The answer is no, the Crew fandom, by every metric publicly available do not financially support their team.
The Crew are exactly dead last in terms of value per team with a team value in 2017 of $130mm (3)(4). Lets go over that number a bit more, this means that the crew in Columbus is literally worth less than the expansion fee requested of new owners. That's how much the fans of the Columbus Crew give a shit. But it gets worse.
The crew on a net revenue basis lost $5mm last year. Thats actually the 16/20th spot in terms of losses, except every team that is below the Crew spends either well or massively on their DP spots. Below the Crew are Toronto, NYCFC, Chicago Fire, and Colorado Rapids. A major surprise of writing this post was learning that COL actually spends $1.5mm average on their DP's ,(5) whereas the crew are spending less than $1mm per DP(5). If Colorado got rid of all their DP's they would probably run $4mm or $3mm loss instead of their $6mm loss. However, if the crew got rid of all their DP's they'd still run either a $5mm or $4mm loss, depending on rounding.This means that Rapids fans are spending money whereas Columbus is not, I'd like to take this moment to remind everyone that Colorado actually has a lower attendance than the crew at this point.
But it gets worse. Look here http://www.mlsstore.com/Columbus_Cr...ot}{ct-JerseyCollection}{tt-Columbus_Crew_SC} and here http://www.mlsstore.com/New_York_City_FC_Jerseys NYCFC jersey's are $20 more expensive per jersey than Crew jerseys, and if you bother to look at the top selling Jersey list you will find the crew no where near it.
Now lets compare Columbus to Austin. Because I haven't beaten this dead horse enough yet.
"The Columbus metro area continued its steady growth as its population hit 2,021,632 in 2015, up about 1.2 percent from 1,997,308 a year earlier, according to estimates released on Thursday by the Census Bureau." (6) There is another way to say that information, Columbus Ohio is growing more slowly than the national average population. Btw, I used the entire metro area of Columbus because its a more favorable comparison for Columbus. I may be shitting on the fans of the Columbus Crew here, but never let it be said that I fudge my numbers.
The present population of Austin Texas is 2,056,405, and it grew last year by 3%. Which doesn't tell the full story of the fastest growing city in the United States, "The decade ending 2015 saw a 37.7% increase in population," (7) to put it succinctly Austin is already a better market than Columbus and that disparity is only going to increase as time goes on. But here's where the disparity increases, many of those new people in Austin have come from high income areas and are thus likely to be high income themselves. (8) This is in contrast to the blue collar nature of Columbus.
From a financial perspective Precourt would be nuts to keep the Crew in Columbus. And after Precourt leaves any other owner would have to be even more nuts to try and start a MLS franchise there.
Long story short, sorry Columbus, you don't support your team, and that lack of support, financial and otherwise has caused the best possible course of action for the ownership to be to move somewhere else.
(1) https://soccerstadiumdigest.com/2017-mls-attendance/
(2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_League_Soccer_attendance
(3) https://www.statista.com/statistics/477837/team-value-of-mls-soccer-teams/
(4) https://www.forbes.com/sites/chriss...soccers-most-valuable-teams-2/2/#21871e5d199c
(5) http://www.mlssocceritalia.com/wp-c.../April-15-2017-Salary-Information-By-Club.pdf
(6) http://www.dispatch.com/article/20160325/NEWS/303259725
(7) https://www.austinchamber.com/economic-development/austin-profile/population
(8) https://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2010/06/migration
My issue is the MLS should really refrain from allowing teams to relocate. I realize it’s happened in the past, as has League contraction, but those occurrences should be closed to discussion moving forward. Precourt bought what is in essence a commodity that has “lost” value and he wants out. Fck him - he can sell the team to somebody for what they deem it’s worth to them - market rate. He can then go and create a consortium to bid on a new MLS expansion club for Austin. Anything else and what’s to stop CFG from deciding to move the team if they run into a brick wall on building a stadium??? I don’t think they’d do it, but if ever the search for a Stadium was dead and buried, moving would be discussed (whether we ever find out or not). Columbus may not be a great fan base, but supporting them in this selfishly helps us.
Thats where we completely and totally disagree. The average sports fan only really wants cares about high level of competition, followed by being a home league. Thus the best thing that soccer in this country can do is to generate the most revenue so that it can achieve the highest possible level of play.
Secondly, spots is an entertainment business if the market for something is too small, then its too small. And with Columbus running a deficit with virtually no DP spending and a shitty youth development system, I'm going to go ahead and say the soccer market in Columbus is too small right now. That can change in the future.
Third, no just no. No one should be forced to sell a part of an asset/firm they own because its customers have an emotional attachment. Like I said previously, Columbus does not care about MLS soccer enough to warrant an MLS team, having an MLS team in Columbus weakens MLS soccer and thus soccer in America. MLS soccer in Columbus is a value destroyer. If Columbus wanted an MLS team then they could have actually supported the one they had!
MLS will move from Columbus, and it won't return, likely ever.
And yes if NYCFC wasn't supported enough by the local community I'd expect them to leave.
This is a great post.You know what, this opinion is going to be spectacularly unpopular, but it needs to be said.
Precourt should move the crew to Austin with all haste, and anyone saying that Crew fans are at all victims in this are only lying to themselves.
To start with, Columbus crew fans have voted early and often with respect to how much they value their team, and its current location. In short, the Columbus metro area could not give less of a shit about the Crew.
2017 attendance average: 15,439 (1)
2016 attendance average: 17,125 (2)
2015 attendance average: 16,513 (2)
Lets get the obvious out of the way and note that the 2017 average attendance for the Crew was god awful. In fact it was so awful it comes out as a solid 20/22 teams in the league. But even if we were to use the numbers from the heady days of from last season, the crew would improve their attendance average to... 19th out of 20 teams. We talk a lot about fan passion in this lovely sport we love, and its pretty clear that Columbus just isn't really that passionate about the Crew, despite Columbus having exactly 2 Major League teams in the city. The other being the NHL Blue Jackets.
Oh but
I'll let you guess the answer dear reader.
The answer is no, the Crew fandom, by every metric publicly available do not financially support their team.
The Crew are exactly dead last in terms of value per team with a team value in 2017 of $130mm (3)(4). Lets go over that number a bit more, this means that the crew in Columbus is literally worth less than the expansion fee requested of new owners. That's how much the fans of the Columbus Crew give a shit. But it gets worse.
The crew on a net revenue basis lost $5mm last year. Thats actually the 16/20th spot in terms of losses, except every team that is below the Crew spends either well or massively on their DP spots. Below the Crew are Toronto, NYCFC, Chicago Fire, and Colorado Rapids. A major surprise of writing this post was learning that COL actually spends $1.5mm average on their DP's ,(5) whereas the crew are spending less than $1mm per DP(5). If Colorado got rid of all their DP's they would probably run $4mm or $3mm loss instead of their $6mm loss. However, if the crew got rid of all their DP's they'd still run either a $5mm or $4mm loss, depending on rounding.This means that Rapids fans are spending money whereas Columbus is not, I'd like to take this moment to remind everyone that Colorado actually has a lower attendance than the crew at this point.
But it gets worse. Look here http://www.mlsstore.com/Columbus_Cr...ot}{ct-JerseyCollection}{tt-Columbus_Crew_SC} and here http://www.mlsstore.com/New_York_City_FC_Jerseys NYCFC jersey's are $20 more expensive per jersey than Crew jerseys, and if you bother to look at the top selling Jersey list you will find the crew no where near it.
Now lets compare Columbus to Austin. Because I haven't beaten this dead horse enough yet.
"The Columbus metro area continued its steady growth as its population hit 2,021,632 in 2015, up about 1.2 percent from 1,997,308 a year earlier, according to estimates released on Thursday by the Census Bureau." (6) There is another way to say that information, Columbus Ohio is growing more slowly than the national average population. Btw, I used the entire metro area of Columbus because its a more favorable comparison for Columbus. I may be shitting on the fans of the Columbus Crew here, but never let it be said that I fudge my numbers.
The present population of Austin Texas is 2,056,405, and it grew last year by 3%. Which doesn't tell the full story of the fastest growing city in the United States, "The decade ending 2015 saw a 37.7% increase in population," (7) to put it succinctly Austin is already a better market than Columbus and that disparity is only going to increase as time goes on. But here's where the disparity increases, many of those new people in Austin have come from high income areas and are thus likely to be high income themselves. (8) This is in contrast to the blue collar nature of Columbus.
From a financial perspective Precourt would be nuts to keep the Crew in Columbus. And after Precourt leaves any other owner would have to be even more nuts to try and start a MLS franchise there.
Long story short, sorry Columbus, you don't support your team, and that lack of support, financial and otherwise has caused the best possible course of action for the ownership to be to move somewhere else.
(1) https://soccerstadiumdigest.com/2017-mls-attendance/
(2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_League_Soccer_attendance
(3) https://www.statista.com/statistics/477837/team-value-of-mls-soccer-teams/
(4) https://www.forbes.com/sites/chriss...soccers-most-valuable-teams-2/2/#21871e5d199c
(5) http://www.mlssocceritalia.com/wp-c.../April-15-2017-Salary-Information-By-Club.pdf
(6) http://www.dispatch.com/article/20160325/NEWS/303259725
(7) https://www.austinchamber.com/economic-development/austin-profile/population
(8) https://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2010/06/migration
I actually fully agree, that’s why I haven’t said anything (except the Mix-shun face comment masked as game analysis, rivalry banter but actually poking at this point) Every time I see Crew at home on TV, it looks pitiful.
Move them to Austin. Give Cincy a club, as it’s closer to Nashville.
Everyone that complains is simply OPMing the shit out of it.
I have many many friends from college that live in Columbus and there’s a huge soccer scene there. The club may be posting a financial loss while spending little on DPs but that could also be the tail wagging the dog. My understanding is that the club does shitty marketing and the fans don’t think they’re getting a fair shake on their DPs - maybe if the team spent money they’d actually make money by enticing the population that isn’t impressed by the product on the field??? All reports say that Precourt is really skimping.
They've had twenty years.
And your response is to throw good money after bad because you're significantly emotionally involved. Look at the facts, at the highest level of support the crew has ever experienced, in terms of attendance, it still posted a loss and managed to achieve a stellar 19th. Experiment is over, Columbus does not want to support the Crew.
Meanwhile Austin Texas has every single metric in its favor and it will probably get that beautiful expansion hype.
I'll say it now and I'll keep saying it until it sinks in. Columbus has had 20 years to show they are deserving of an MLS club, and they have failed. They have failed so badly that they are hurting MLS and the future of soccer in this country. The numbers don't lie.
You want the USMNT to be better, then it starts by cutting deadweight; Columbus has proven itself to be soccer deadweight on the MLS level.
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