Dear Don, it isn't always about you or the weather it should be about the fans
by denz on Mar 30, 2011 4:36 PM MDT
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PrintYou ever have one of those things that no matter how hard you try to understand, you just can't. You know those things that you want to just let slide, but you can't. Heck it even went so far as I tried to defend this to others, I am not a good peacemaker. In the end this simply struck me as a bit offensive but clearly as something that seems to not have been well thought out, and to some a bit offensive.
On the eve of MLS First Kick, Don Garber the leader of MLS and it's marketing partner SUM said the following when interviewed by Grant Wahl for SI:
I'd like to get to the point where our MLS Cup is in the home of the team that earns the right to host it, as opposed to a neutral site. That's a goal we hope to achieve. We were not able to get to that point this year for a variety of reasons, not least that we're still struggling with stadium availability in many markets and weather. We dodged a bullet hosting a Champions League game in Salt Lake in the first week of March. I shudder thinking about what would happen if we had that with MLS Cup. Most of our fans don't accept how much time we spend thinking through all these issues. While the pundits believe the easiest answer is the one that appears to be the most logical, the factors that go into each decision are varied and complicated, and we have to prepare for all scenarios. We don't live in a perfect world by any stretch.
In 2009 MLS Cup was in Seattle with a high of 48 degrees and their average is 49, in 2010 MLS Cup was in Toronto where the temp hit a high of 46 but the average is 38. Yet you seem intent on pointing out the potential of cold in Salt Lake City, but on the date of MLS Cup the average is 46 degrees. Yes a whole 3 degrees colder than Seattle, but 8 degrees warmer than a city you selected to host MLS Cup. So your arguments about weather simply don't hold any real weight, and you do an incredible disservice to the fans of Salt Lake City, and MLS in thinking that they won't attend MLS Cup, or matches in cold weather.
more after the jump:
Now don't get me wrong I believe that a warm venue would be great but limiting yourself to only those markets (what do you consider "warm weather"?) is kinda doing a disservice to the fans. I expect they would have filled Pizza Hut Park for MLS Cup with FC Dallas playing in it. You got a huge pop in Seattle because the tickets were part of their season tickets (it wasn't a great venue for the fans of the teams playing who either had to buy scalped tickets or got to sit in the 3rd deck). You had nothing but chaos for the fans of Toronto who were forced to buy tickets to MLS Cup in order to get 2011 season tickets, and half of them left at halftime and it has been a major point of contention with their fans since then. So is the weather a deciding factor on where to hold MLS Cup
You say you want to give the best team in MLS Cup the right to host it, but then you say you can't do that this year? If you can't do it in 2011, because of weather or stadium availability (please list which stadium have another event planned for the Sunday before Thanksgiving) what are you expecting to change for 2012 and beyond? I am sorry I get that you love to hold meetings and other events with MLS Cup and you want to plan months in advance, but how about you stretch your staff and a before MLS Cup you plan based on the 4 teams in the Conference Finals (or MLS Cup Semi-finals) and then you have one full week to cancel events in 3 and schedule in 1.
If you can't handle that pressure now, what makes us think you will in the future? Or how about you hold your meetings the week after MLS Cup in somewhere nice and warm and leave MLS Cup to be MLS Cup?
I think they've already made a serious run. The event I attended a couple weeks ago in Salt Lake was a special moment for the league. I spent the day there, and the match was well-promoted and had a higher awareness than any other Champions League match I had attended in the past. I had lunch with Dave Checketts yesterday and said to him, "You have really put something great together in Salt Lake." Because the attendance at that match and the passion of those fans showed it really has become a soccer town. And before 2005, the sport was nonexistent in the city. That proves to me if you have the right owner with the right marketing and operations with the right facility, any market can be a soccer city.
I find it highly offensive as a RSL season ticket holder (from day one) who has braved the Fiji hail/snow storm of 2007, as one who has when it snowed during a RSL match joined in with others in singing x-mas carols and rejoicing in the circumstances. To think for a second that RSL fans or any other fan in a "cold weather" market wouldn't show up to support their team in MLS Cup is simply an insult to all MLS fans.
If you want to make excuses about your events and meetings, then make it clear that it is the reason why you chose random locations for MLS Cup, do not tell the fans that you want to have them at the home stadium of the higher ranked team but are afraid that they won't show up if it is cold. Be honest that your staff needs weeks even months to schedule things like the blogger roundtable, supporters' summit, award banquets, I can deal with that, heck I can almost accept it, but to lay the burden on the weather and suggesting that should RSL, Chicago, New England, or any other city with a team that could one day host MLS Cup as the higher seed in the match wouldn't be able to get their fans to show up because of the cold, is simply not true.
You are better than this, and we the fans will hold you to a higher standard. There is a saying around Real Salt Lake "Fortes fortuna adiuvat" Fortune favors the bold, make a bold decision and don't give the MLS Cup to LA or anyone else. Let the best team earn the right to host it, and I am willing to bet that the fans will reward that decision in a big way.
OFF MY SOAPBOX
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SS Winner Compromise
Great Article and couldn’t agree with you more. Last years MLS cup in Toronto was poor because of the atmosphere not the weather. The best scenario is to have MLS cup at the higher seed of the finalist.
Maybe for a compromise, have it at the field of the Supporters Shield winner, that way there would be plenty of time to make arrangements and reward the SS winner with possibly playing in the final in front of their home fans.
Still last year it was LA
how many people would have liked to see FC Dallas and Colorado battle it out in LA, or in 2009 at Columbus. I think if you are going to not chose random locations, then it has to be the higher seed in the match. It would have been great to see FC Dallas play to a full house at PHP, may have made a huge difference in the outcome.
This is really going to anger you
I suspect the reason they’re waiting is because they only way they want the SS winner to host it is if a big market team wins the SS (Seattle, LA, NY, etc.). I think the fear he’s dancing around (and denz is aluding to this as well) is that if RSL wins the SS with the right to host the final but then doesn’t make it to the final, nobody’s going to show up.
I think if last season’s final had been held it LA it wouldn’t have been a sellout, but it would have been close. Imagine if last season’s final had been held at Rio Tinto. Would 5,000 have even showed up? I think not.
It’s not a surprise that you love the idea of the top seed that makes the final to host the final. That likely would benefit RSL this season, so of course you like it. The problem with this approach is that there’s no time to plan for all of the extra stuff surrounding MLS Cup (Supporters Summit, etc.). MLS Cup really should aspire to be an event like the Super Bowl I think. It’ll take a number of years before it gets there, but not knowing where it’s going to be until the week before the event is a big step in the wrong direction.
I know sharing this comment is like throwing gasoline on the fire with you, but I’m sharing.
I love the idea no matter who is #1
I don’t like the ides of the Supporters’ Shield winner, simply because as you say they may not make it to the Cup. Having the team in the final with the best record host seems like it would be the fairest way. I would have had no issue heading to LA in 2009, and heck I would have been more likely to go to Dallas last year than I would have Toronto.
It seems that the goal should be to have a sold out match, well if there is a market that couldn’t sell out their hosting the MLS Cup with their team playing in it, they simply shouldn’t have a team. I think fans in cold markets would all show up for their team in the Cup, and to think otherwise is a bit of a discredit to the fans.
I think you are way off target, they can sell the NBA finals, the World Series, the Stanley Cup all without huge amounts of notice. I had no plans to go to Seattle in 2009 until the week before, and I had no problems making arrangements to get there. While smaller market teams may not offer the variety of hotels that larger markets could, I doubt that fans would have trouble finding rooms in any MLS city for the weekend before Thanksgiving with just a weeks notice.
I think things like the Supporter Summit are important but every stadium has a meeting room that could host it, or a hotel that could host the gathering. I would move some of the other stuff to the All Star Match (which should be moved to a weekend). Thinking that MLS Cup will ever be like the SuperBowl is a pipe dream and nothing more and I wouldn’t want it to become like it. More and more the SuperBowl is about corporate sponsors and less and less about the fans, ticket prices are so high that it is out of the reach of many fans.
I understand the concern but you really would have more than a weeks notice, you would have an option of 4 cities two weeks prior to the event and working with the local convention planning groups to know the capabilities of those markets really isn’t that hard. If last seasons MLS Cup had been held in LA and either Chivas or Galaxy fans hadn’t either had the match in their season tickets or had to buy tickets to get season tickets, I don’t think 10K would have shown up and that would have been as many Colorado and FC Dallas fans who could afford the tickets and trip. I think very few of the local fans would have shown up, maybe 2-3K to watch a match between teams they don’t care about.
For me I was just amazed that in the same interview where he is critical of the weather in Salt Lake and uses it as an excuse to not put MLS Cup here (despite the facts that the weather is very similar to the last two MLS Cup locations) because he claims people wouldn’t show up, and then just minutes later in that interview he goes out of his way to try and praise the fans in Salt Lake for taking such a high interest in the Champions League. The guy is just a pandering fool who is so full of himself that he doesn’t realize that people are starting more and more to see through him. I am sure if he had his way every MLS Cup would be held at the HDC, Red Bull Arena or CenturyTel Field, just like it is clear he would love every MLS Cup to be New York vs LA. That isn’t reality and if you want to reward the regular season, the easiest way to do it is to allow it to determine home field advantage for the playoffs, all of the playoffs.
Wow
This is just dumb on his part. Completely stupid. And think about it – in November, is ANY stadium going to have “warm weather”?
I can see Garber being concerned...
…if we were talking about SLC being chosen months in advance the way they do it now and there was a risk of RSL not being involved. Case in point: the poor turnout for the Snow Angel Cup last March (I know, I know, apples and oranges, but it certainly couldn’t have helped people’s impressions).
But we’ve proven repeatedly that we’ll show up to watch RSL play a meaningful match, even if it’s like two degrees outside or pouring rain or whatever.
So, in short? Garber can suck it.
Fortes fortuna adiuvat
Did Kreis, or whoever has been writing “fortes fortuna adiuvat”, take a lot of literature classes? Ovid seems a bit obscure.
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