May 27, 2016

May 27, 2016

Hello all; here is another in my continuing series of open letters urging David Beckham & Co. to team up with Bill Edwards & Co. and move the Tampa Bay Rowdies to MLS! 

Some goons discuss the Miami situation…

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The Ray Parlour › USA/Canada lower leagues 2016: You've tried the best, now try the rest!

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3762847&pagenumber=4

(Quoting an article by Chris Green)

Sports Opinion: MLS This Could Be Us But…

http://www.southdadenewsleader.com/sports/sports-opinion-mls-this-could-be-us-but/article_f7b16ace-1ead-11e6-ab5c-8f2ba28ab1c4.html

Just imagine the possibilities. A team playing in front of a capacity crowd. The most loyal supporters club marching through downtown on their way to the stadium for the evening’s match. The entirety of the game’s attendees standing at once and singing their support for the soccer team on the field, led by a three-time English Premier League champion who has played in multiple World Cups for England. Sound’s like David Beckham’s Miami dreamland? Well imagine my surprise when I realized this exists already, and it’s name is the Tampa Bay Rowdies.

During a recent trip to Saint Petersburg, Florida, I had the opportunity to attend a Rowdies game at Al Lang Stadium, a former minor-league baseball field that has been turned into a soccer mesa for the Tampa Bay area, complete with affordable concessions, roaring capacity crowds, and a beautiful view with Tampa Bay quite literally across the street from the stadium’s eastern sideline.

Do over Ham:

This is what I keep telling Beckham via my psychic mind control powers but he hasn't succumbed yet. Al Lang is perfect. Screw Miami and its crooked politicians, Becks. Tampa Bay Rowdies is what you want.

King of False Promises:

It's really shocking that, after all the troubles trying to get stadium land, they've not gone with this.
 
Do over Ham:

It's literally staring them in the face. Florida, downtown urban waterfront stadium, with no NIMBY problems and with a city government quite eager to attract sports investors (due to the Rays inevitable move when their lease is up), with an already established soccer team using the facility (the Tampa Bay Rowdies with an established 41 year old brand name that is well known worldwide especially in Britain) and an already established and proven fan base (which Miami has yet to demonstrate that it has).

After their second or third failure to get a site in Miami I have to believe that the Beckham group started to look at other cities as a backup plan. Becks was in Las Vegas recently so the assumption is that he'll use Las Vegas as his backup plan but they have potentially got the same kinds of problems in Las Vegas as they do in Miami, with none of the pluses that the Tampa Bay Rowdies have. And they have the gambling stigma in Las Vegas as well; maybe not something that Beckham would worry about but he really should try to think of some cities that aren't just "glamour and glitter" cities for a change.

Also Bill Edwards and the Rowdies are really ready for MLS now if they had the Beckham group on board: unlike Las Vegas you would not have to wait for a stadium to get built you could expand Al Lang as is during the off season; and/or use the Ray Jay if necessary (and like Orlando they could probably fill an NFL-sized stadium, while Al Lang was being expanded, especially with the Beckham brand attached to the Rowdies brand). It's win-win idea, and just what the Rowdies need to break through the "but it isn't going to be as good as the original 1970s era Rowdies, so why bother" stigma/catch-22 that we are currently suffering from.

What are they, on their fourth site in Miami, now? And Miami is trying to impose all kinds of unreasonable conditions on Beckham's group? Time to look elsewhere. I keep sending Beckham letters, urging him to look at the Rowdies, so now I just feel like a stalker. 

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But who listens to goons, eh?

I certainly don’t want credit if this should come to pass; if I can think of this I am sure anyone else can as well. I just want to see my Rowdies back in the top league in USA soccer, where they belong.  Here’s a very old piece which illustrates some of the historical legacy that the Rowdies name still carries:

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Mmm, love that détente

http://www.si.com/vault/1977/03/14/560862/mmm-love-that-dtente 

March 14, 1977

When Leningrad Zenit came to Tampa, the Rowdies improved foreign relations

By J. D. Reed

A West Indian band played, the palm trees rustled just like the Florida brochures promise and the Tampa sunshine did its job to the tune of 78° last Friday as 16 Soviet soccer players—the Zenit team of Leningrad—looked wide-eyed at a buffet of barbecued ribs, corn on the cob and Budweiser in an elegant dining room at Busch Gardens, the brewery's huge recreation and entertainment park. Media types, pretty girls, soccer officials and one baseball notable, Yankee owner George Steinbrenner, circulated as the Soviets listened attentively to translations of welcoming speeches. In Tampa for outdoor/indoor matches with the Tampa Bay Rowdies of the North American Soccer League, the Zenits seemed to be wondering if all this opulence and hospitality was a capitalist plot to psych them out of playing a good game. If that was the case, it didn't work. On Saturday night Zenit won the opening outdoor game 1-0.

The Soviets were right, however, in sensing that what they were seeing was really high-powered capitalism in high gear. The Tampa Bay Rowdies are one of the most financially successful teams in the league—which means they lost less money last year than most of the other 19 franchises—and they have a reputation for front-office savvy. Indeed, they are regarded as one of the slickest little organizations in all of pro sports.

Declared Steinbrenner, pushing away his plate of rib bones, "If anyone asked me how to start and operate any kind of franchise, I'd tell them to study the Rowdies. It is simply the best marketing in sports. From the top on down, it's a group of geniuses that have put it together. They have done the one thing that most teams fail at in all sports—in Tampa, they've made going to the soccer game the thing to do."

The Rowdies won the NASL championship in 1975, their first year, and made it to the semifinals in the playoffs last season. But they do a good deal more than play just fine soccer in their slightly comic, Victorian-looking uniforms of sunshine-yellow and grass-green stripes.

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Some commentary from Kartik Krishnaiyer, about the MLS Miami situation:

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Time for MLS to look beyond Miami for second Florida soccer team
 
http://worldsoccertalk.com/2015/03/11/time-for-mls-to-look-beyond-miami-for-second-florida-soccer-team/

Kartik Krishnaiyer
 
March 11, 2015
 
The idea of reentering the Miami market was based largely around television, and the size of the local TV market. Jacksonville, whose new NASL entry is already in many ways further ahead of where Orlando City was in 2011, would be among the smallest TV markets in MLS. Tampa Bay, on the other hand, is a larger TV market than Miami and has a history of supporting pro soccer.
 
Many will point to the folding of the Tampa Bay Mutiny in 2001 as a reason MLS should not return to Tampa/St Petersburg but the plug being pulled on the Mutiny has little relevance today. The Tampa Bay area boasts the best youth soccer infrastructure in the state of Florida, and a second division club that has a richly unique history and local brand recognition. The Tampa Bay Rowdies are a local institution, but when MLS began play in 1996, they were reluctant to embrace any portion of the original NASL’s legacy.

The Rowdies recent success owes itself to Bill Edwards’ ownership and a full embrace of the 1970’s and early 1980’s legacy that made the Rowdies the second best supported soccer club in the United States at the time. Elevating Tampa Bay Rowdies to MLS would mirror the NASL legacy clubs from the Pacific Northwest that have joined the top division and could have a similar local galvanizing effect.

The Tampa Bay area and Orlando are separated by about an hour of interstate and the rivalry between the two clubs sets of fans is about as intense as it gets in US soccer. This would give MLS yet another big localized rivalry, something that can help the league grow.

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Time for MLS to pull the plug on Miami debacle

http://worldsoccertalk.com/2015/03/19/time-for-mls-to-pull-the-plug-on-miami-debacle/

Kartik Krishnaiyer

March 19, 2015

On the subject of local rivalries, internet buzz has begun to circulate about the Tampa Bay Rowdies and the potential of the minor club who shares the name of one of the great professional clubs of a previous era in American soccer to move to MLS.
 
It is important to note while arguments can be made for Miami as an MLS franchise, the Tampa/St Petersburg TV market is actually larger than Miami/Fort Lauderdale. It is also critical to note that between 1975 and 2014, the Tampa Bay area and Miami/Fort Lauderdale areas have had pro teams in the same soccer leagues for 23 seasons. In that period only three times did the southeast Florida team boast higher attendance than the Tampa Bay-based one. This includes four seasons in Major League Soccer (1998-2001), where Tampa Bay led Miami in attendance three of the years, and nine seasons in the NASL (1975-1983) when Tampa Bay led Miami or Fort Lauderdale every single season.
 
Miami is more of a global branding opportunity than a soccer-crazed market. Major League Soccer has survived for years without a Miami team, and now is thriving despite the debacle taking place under the palm trees in southern Florida. While I, as a local, would like to see MLS return to southeast Florida, the club in Orlando is close enough to me that my need for MLS in Miami has been minimized. Furthermore, it is important that the health of MLS and US Soccer be considered – MLS does not need another Chivas USA debacle or a club limping along in a huge metropolitan area without any real tangible market penetration like the Chicago Fire. Chances are quite high that a Miami team would represent either another Chivas or Chicago, and either scenario is unacceptable for MLS and the health of the game in the United States.
 
While the Tampa Bay market “failed” once before in MLS, that was a different time. A fear about cannibalization of the audience from Orlando which is nearby could be real, but the rivalry implications (Orlando City and the Tampa Bay Rowdies already have a robust rivalry fostered at the lower-division and US Open Cup level) probably offset those concerns. A “war on I-4” rivalry would be far bigger for MLS then an organic club like Orlando City battling a manufactured and largely plastic club like Beckham’s Miami entry promises to be.

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Indeed we had some shenanigans with some of the Orlando ultras a few years back that got them ejected from Al Lang; the potential for a local rivalry between the Tampa Bay Rowdies and Orlando City SC in MLS would be huge.

As an aside, anyone wanting to do some basic research on the current Rowdies fan base should check them out on Facebook. The following are some Facebook pages or groups of interest: Tampa Bay Rowdies, Tampa Bay Rowdies Alumni Group, Tampa Bay Rowdies UK, Tampa Bay Soccer, Tampa Bay Soccer Supporters Alliance, Inc., Cigar City Soccer, Ralph's Mob, Support Al Lang, The Hooped Sleeve, The Unused Substitutes.

Bill Edwards earlier this year talked about expanding Al Lang to 18,500 seats, for $70 million dollars. It makes far more sense to do this with an eye to moving to MLS, rather than staying in the NASL. An Orlando City SC official later stated that the Tampa/St. Pete area is part of Orlando’s MLS territory; Orlando City SC has MLS territorial rights which he claims he can use to prevent the Rowdies from moving to MLS. This is an obvious attempt by Orlando City SC to poison the well for the Rowdies in any potential attempt to move the Rowdies to MLS. But the Tampa/St. Pete TV market is a different, and bigger, TV market than the Orlando TV market. If there is a serious proposal to have the Tampa Bay Rowdies join MLS, no one believes Orlando City SC can stop it; it makes no sense to believe otherwise. Tampa/St. Pete is not part of the Orlando market in any reasonable universe. Tampa/St. Pete: 13th largest TV market in the USA. Miami-Ft. Lauderdale: 16th. Orlando-Daytona Beach-Melbourne: 19th.          

Ideally there would be a good sized, deep pocketed ownership consortium to move the Rowdies to MLS. In addition to the current Bill Edwards Rowdies ownership group and the David Beckham group, it would be nice if other local owners joined the consortium. Tampa Bay Lightning owner Jeffrey Vinik has been frequently mentioned by Rowdies fans as one potential co-owner. The Glazers, with their control of the Raymond James Stadium, would be useful co-owners to have as well, as the Rowdies could use Raymond James Stadium for games where the larger capacity would be needed, and for when Al Lang might be unavailable due to new construction to expand it. The Glazers also own Manchester United and thus have a connection that way to David Beckham. Stuart Sternberg and other Tampa Bay Rays owners might also be interested as the Rays future plans in St. Pete and the Tampa Bay area may prove important to the Rowdies overall plans. The Steinbrenners are long time Tampa residents and Rowdies fans who might also be interested in co-ownership (they also already have a stake in MLS in New York City FC via their Yankees ownership). Landon Donovan has been mentioned in news articles as working with potential MLS ownership groups so I will send him a copy of this letter as well; feel free to mention the Tampa Bay Rowdies to anyone you talk to about potential MLS ownership, Landon!

Some people have expressed some skepticism about the growth of pro soccer in the USA. As an older person myself (I turned nine the year Pele joined the Cosmos and the Rowdies won the Soccer Bowl, in 1975) I have seen a lot of this skepticism from people whose impressions of pro soccer in the USA seem to be permanently stuck in the year 1985. Things are changing and changing rapidly; see for instance this Economist article for one example; the Tampa Bay area really needs to jump on the MLS train while it is still in the station; it will be harder to get on board the longer they wait:

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Kick turn

http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21699484-more-and-more-americans-watching-people-kick-round-balls-kick-turn 

More and more Americans like watching people kick round balls

May 28th 2016

Partly as a result, average attendances at MLS games have grown by 56% since 2001. In the past five years they have risen 29%. More people go to MLS games than go to an NBA games or National Hockey League ones (though both basketball and hockey are played in smaller stadiums with higher ticket prices).

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That’s all I have for now. David Beckham and Bill Edwards and everyone in Tampa and St. Pete and everywhere else, help move the Tampa Bay Rowdies up to MLS! COYR!

Regards,