Nick Cushing Named Interim HC (Jul '22) / HC (Nov '22) / Fired (Nov ‘24)
- Thread starter Kjbert
- Start date
I think part-owner is too diminishing. From all appearances, even only a short time into his tenure, he seems to be the owner most tuned in and most interested in the club. I don’t think he should be making final decisions. But I would expect someone like that to have a seat at the table and be involved in discussions of strategy and personnel.
At least, if I owned 10% of the club, I’d want to voice an opinion on whether this was a rebuild year or a compete year, what our talent recruitment strategy should be, and how we assess our senior leaders.
If this were a public company the BOD would have input into the C-suite. I’d think in a club like NYCFC, Cushing and Lee would be included in that group.
On some level he should listen to the fans. If fans are complaining about the experience, he should be all ears. But sporting decisions need to be left to the sporting department.
Listen yes. But his response just indulged childish whining from some of the worst fan accounts.
I wish our fans would complain as loudly about our lack of star level, difference maker DPs as they did about Cushing
I’m trying to think of a good comparison, but I can’t find it. In corporate structures you generally want to empower people and avoid micro-management. Your BOD or owners should be involved in managing the CEO and depending on the organization might have more or less contact with other members of the C-suite. Having coached CEOs and other C-suite members in both public and privately held companies I can say that it is rare that BOD/owner involvement beyond the CEO is viewed favorably.
But sports franchises are a bit different. In a typical company the CEO is the most important decision maker / performer in the company. The BOD / owners are right to operate thru the CEO as a conduit. In a sports franchise, arguably the head coach is as or even more important than the CEO. Consider Bill Belichek, Pat Riley, Phil Jackson. Yes, these are extreme examples, but tell me the President of any of those clubs was more important than they were to their teams.
So even though you might want owners to stay out of decisions three layers down in the organization, this one role is the tail that wags the dog. So it really does fit pretty normal ownership behavior for them to have say in that important a role.
Have to think Mehdi is going to be one of the names under consideration.
I wonder if Vanni Sartini, fired from Vancouver, and Jim Curtin, fired from Philly, will be under consideration too.
Ultimately I think the next NYCFC coach is someone we've never heard of.
For me, the owner's role on a sports team is to make sure the business is making as much money as possible, retaining season-ticket holders, sponsors, etc. The owner is unlikely to have a firm understanding of the sport, so he empowers people smarter than him to run the sporting side. The owner hopefully enjoys watching the sport, but isn't nearly knowledgeable enough in the Xs and Os to actually have a meaningful role in that side of the business.
Yes. I have always thought that if our owners really cared about results, with our access, network, and $$, we could easily field a roster challenging for the SS and Cup essentially every season. We could accomplish much of this through DPs alone. Instead, the blueprint has been to serve as another resource to play the numbers game on hitting on upside prospects regardless of whether they fit our roster needs. Then fill a few of the holes as necessary to get us above mediocrity. That often gets us to pretty pretty good on the field, but not the consistently great we should be. Given who we are and who we serve, this probably will never change. The new stadium is our only hope that the marketing upside of that will modify the blue print for a moment.
I don't disagree, but going on nothing more than the direction this team has been going the past few years I'd be shocked if they brought in any guys like Sartini, Curtin, or even a Mike Petke.
Whoever the new guy is going to be I'm willing to wager he's going to be a Nick Cushing clone. Someone from deep in the organization. A good company man who is going to do things the CFG way. A guy that's not going to make waves and go public when he looks for a new CF and gets the #9 guy on his list.
Am I being a sarcastic motherfather? Sure I am. But I'll believe different when I see it.
The rumor from a few years ago that renting out Yankee Stadium costs $1M/game has stayed in my head for a long time. If it costs the team $18 million to open the doors every season before all other expenses, where will that money go once we open our own stadium and control our own revenue.
I do think we will see a change in how the organization operates once the stadium is open because there will be millions of dollars the team is no longer setting on fire just to get on the field.
I don't disagree, but going on nothing more than the direction this team has been going the past few years I'd be shocked if they brought in any guys like Sartini, Curtin, or even a Mike Petke.
Whoever the new guy is going to be I'm willing to wager he's going to be a Nick Cushing clone. Someone from deep in the organization. A good company man who is going to do things the CFG way. A guy that's not going to make waves and go public when he looks for a new CF and gets the #9 guy on his list.
Am I being a sarcastic motherfather? Sure I am. But I'll believe different when I see it.
This is only the second coach they've ever fired, so I don't know if that's completely true. They did bring in Dome, who did not toe the company line.
I agree it will be a CFG coach, but it should be a CFG-style coach. That's how we want to play, so it should be a coach who shares those philosophies.
Maybe Cushing wanted to get out of the US prior to the Clown taking over again, as he's one of those immigrants taking our jerbs.
I've been thinking about Marcelo's tweet (I know, I know, but I'm having a very quiet day).
Anyways, I don't think he had any role in the firing. I think based on the way he's acted since becoming part owner he has a huge desire to be loved, and since Nick was fired last night and Marcelo posted that cryptic tweet last night, I think he sent that tweet after he was informed of the firing so he could appear as the knight in shining armor.
Anyways, I don't think he had any role in the firing. I think based on the way he's acted since becoming part owner he has a huge desire to be loved, and since Nick was fired last night and Marcelo posted that cryptic tweet last night, I think he sent that tweet after he was informed of the firing so he could appear as the knight in shining armor.
Fair enough. But as we've discussed before, I don't see Abu Dhabi throwing $787 million (which will be closer to $1.2 billion when all is said and done) at a stadium for a farm team. And they're clearly aligning assets with the project. They just leveraged us for a route announcement for their airline.
They expect MLS to grow and become the most significant league in the Western Hemisphere, from a profitability perspective, and maybe even from a competitive standpoint, although Brazil may want a word about that. We're the MLS team in the biggest market -- which is why they created us in the first place, of course. They expect us to be at the pinnacle of that growth.
The goal is to open our park with the MLS Cup in the center circle and a gigantic digital championship banner on the gigantic digital scoreboard. No doubt Nick had to meet certain metrics this season in order for the organization to have confidence he could get us where we needed to be in time.
He didn't make it.
I have no doubt about their commitment to the project—investing in the stadium is clear evidence of that. I'm confident we’ll open the stadium with a lineup that boasts big-name stars and a strong roster, much like they aimed to do when founding the club.
However, putting aside the narratives and speculation, and focusing solely on our current roster, we are far from being one of the league’s more ambitious teams. Our Designated Players (DPs) are not game-changers and barely exceed the salary threshold to qualify as DPs, which feels like cutting corners. Meanwhile, our U22 slots have been used on raw talents who arrived at least a year away from being MLS-ready.
The current roster construction does not align with the ambitious goals they outlined at the end of last season. If the club truly intends to compete for trophies every year as they claimed in the emails at the end of last season, it’s time to back those ambitions with decisive action and sign genuine difference-makers. Otherwise, the rhetoric needs to match the reality. We can remain optimistic about the future and supportive of the team while still holding the decision-makers accountable when their choices fall short.