5/03 News

[alianza]

I don't think lowering prices is a good idea. I think the prices are reasonable. I think more than anything fans need to be educated.

Only in america is soccer not the number 1 sport.

One of the highest paid athletes in the world is yes a soccer player, his name Beckham (37.4 Million ) most are endorsements and image rights.

I think this sport will succeed in Utah.

The best part is these guys bust their butts off without the huge salaries ( Didn't the jazz have a problem with that this year)

Finally,
Larry H Miller is not the owner. Uncle Checketts is.

[Merrill]

I don't think ticket prices need to be lowered, but they really ought to consider creating an under 18 price, half off or something. Utah folks have got a whole lot of kids. If the price is the same for them as the rest, they just won't bring them. But we need the kids. These kids will grow up to be season ticket holding, dues paying loyalists. We have to have them in the stands so that in five and ten years, the crowd keeps getting bigger.

[Aero]

I think that they should do a few family nights where you get so many people in for a certain price, kind of like what the Jazz do.

[Stucki]

RSL has a youth price for season tickets, it seems strange they don't have one for single game tickets.

[AreliusII]

Are name-brand clubs wave of future?
By Kent McDill
Daily Herald Sports Writer
Posted Tuesday, May 03, 2005

Here are some of the key details of the hour-long discussion Major League Soccer commissioner Don Garber held in Chicago last week:

The inclusion of Chivas USA, a team operated by Chivas Guadalajara owner and Mexican millionaire Jorge Vergara, has caught the attention of club teams from around the world.

Garber said his league could someday entertain offers from several corporate name-brand clubs in Europe and South America about operating a team in MLS.

“This is the untapped virgin territory of global soccer,’’ Garber said. “The Mexicans are closest to it because they have been playing in the United States for so many years, and they see the emerging soccer culture that exists.”

Garber said it was Vergara’s decision that, “If I believe in the American soccer market, I need to have a team in this country.”


Associated Press
Landon Donovan of the Los Angeles Galaxy is back in MLS after a brief stay in Germany.



Associated Press
D.C. United goalie Nick Rimaldo makes a flying save against New England during action at RFK Stadium in Washington on April 23. United, which shares the stadium with the Washington Nationals, has expressed displeasure with field conditions during the early weeks of the baseball season.


“Real Madrid has come to that conclusion,’’ Garber said. “And Manchester United and Chelsea and Arsenal and Boca Juniors and so many others.

“Whether it ever happens is to be seen, but all of them believe in this market and believe with the expansion of the emerging professionalism of this sport here, the merging success of national team, emerging quality of young players, all are trying to find ways to tap into this market.”

The success of the first game between Chivas USA and the Los Angeles Galaxy, two teams sharing the same market and the same home stadium, has MLS thinking about replicating that rivalry atmosphere in other markets — namely, Chicago and New York.

“We want to recreate what has been working in other soccer leagues around the world,’’ Garber said. “It’s the prospect of two teams playing in the same city or the same stadium and going at and creating the passion which has in many ways been missing in our sport.”

Expansion talk: Major League Soccer is going to expand again, and soon.

While MLS hopes to put an existing franchise into the San Antonio Alamodome for next season, talks with Toronto have gotten to the stage where the league plans to be there by either 2006 or 2007. And officials are looking for a 14th team as well, with a half-dozen possibilities in the United States.

The prospect of further expansion has gotten so bright that FIFA, the world soccer organization, has asked MLS to cap its expansion at 18 teams, at the same time asking the English Premier League and other top-flight club leagues to reduce to 18 as well.

“We have no rush to expand,’’ commissioner Don Garber said. “We don’t need to do it. We don’t need the money from expansion fees. It is all about strategy. I would rather have Chivas and Salt Lake and two other teams get on firm footing.”

Indoor MLS soccer: The league’s talks with San Antonio involve a very lucrative deal for MLS to play inside the Alamodome, which needs a tenant since the Spurs moved a few blocks away to a new arena. But to play inside means to play on FieldTurf, and FIFA discourages any games being played on artificial turf.

“But I would rather have a good FieldTurf field without football lines on it than have a great grass field with football lines on it,’’ Don Garber said.

The San Antonio situation points to something Garber believes will help MLS grow in the United States — when people who grow up with soccer eventually become “influencers’’ in the American marketplace.

Such is the case with San Antonio mayor Ed Garza, the major proponent of bringing MLS to his dusty Texas city.

“He is Mexican-American, plays on a club team, plays twice a week,’’ Garber said. “This guy is a huge fan. As our league evolves, the influencer growing with the sport now is in the position to make decisions, and that is the tipping point for MLS. (Garza) is a soccer guy, played in college, and it is the most important thing in his life. He is going to take everything he can to build it up.”

Beasley speaks: The issue of Landon Donovan’s return to Major League Soccer after a second — this time very brief — jump to the German Bundesliga, keeps coming up. Don Garber said it was “unpatriotic’’ to suggest Donovan’s return was anything other than a desire by an American to promote an American product.

Others say Donovan’s decision to leave was a result of him not getting much playing time and being unwilling to accept that role.

DaMarcus Beasley, the former Chicago Fire forward who is succeeding at a surprising rate playing in Holland, said it is all a matter of what makes Donovan happy.

“If he’s happy in MLS, he’s happy,’’ said Beasley, who plays with Donovan on the U.S. national team. “I saw in his first game he scored 2 goals. I guess when he’s happy he plays well and he’s comfortable. I’m behind him.

“If he wants to be in MLS, he doesn’t have to prove anything to anybody. He’s his own person. He wants to be closer to his family and his girlfriend, and that’s fine. I don’t think anybody should fault him for that.”

Size matters: The Washington Post reports D.C. United players and officials think the team has played at least one game on a lopsided field at RFK Stadium.

The stadium is being converted back and forth from baseball to soccer to accommodate both United and the Washington Nationals of Major League Baseball.

For a recent game against the New England Revolution, “there appeared to be a 6-yard difference between the two diagonal lengths of the field,’’ according to an MLS official quoted by the Post.

In walking off the distance from opposite corners, it was discovered there indeed was a 6-yard difference.

The shared-stadium agreement between the United and the Nationals is scheduled to last three seasons, until a new baseball stadium. The stadium conversion requires almost two full days and includes hiding the pitcher’s mound beneath the surface of the soccer field on a hydraulic lift.

United’s management and players just wants what is right.

“I don’t think they’d ask the Nationals to play on an 88-foot basepath,’’ United president Kevin Payne said. “We don’t expect to play on a field that’s the wrong size.”


http://www.dailyherald.com/search/printstory.asp?id=44218

[Deuce]

The tickets prices need not be changed.
When the Jazz were winning alot and Karl and John were there you could not get tickets for 8 bucks that is just plain propoganda.

Now you can get tix for the Jazz for 8 bucks because they suck wind!
but when they start winning again you will not see a game for 8 bucks.

Oh yeah... why was there no mention of the Larry Man buying the Stingers and right off the bat doubling the ticket prices?
You can bet there are very few, if any, 8 buck tix there anymore!

Try to get into any other major league sport for eight bucks... for that matter try to get into any other major league sport consistantly for $18

ticket price change is just a stupid idea.

[AreliusII]

May 3, 2005
SOCCER REPORT
Second New York-Area Team?
By JACK BELL

New York City businessman with experience in the taxi business and as a commercial lender has emerged as a likely new investor in Major League Soccer.

Andrew Murstein, 40, the president of Medallion Financial Corporation, said he had been negotiating to buy the Kansas City Wizards from Lamar Hunt and move them to San Antonio, Las Vegas, Houston ... or perhaps New York.

"Soccer, to me, looks like the best investment in the sports world," Murstein said yesterday in a telephone interview. "Teams in other leagues have really reached their peak in market value."

Murstein said he had held discussions the past several years to purchase baseball's Milwaukee Brewers, the N.H.L.'s Anaheim Mighty Ducks and the N.B.A.'s San Antonio Spurs. He added that any deal to buy an M.L.S. team would be a personal investment and would not involve Medallion.

Murstein was in San Antonio last week with M.L.S. Commissioner Don Garber. The city has offered M.L.S. an attractive deal if it is awarded a team, through a relocation for 2006 or an expansion team in 2007.

"I'm also focused on New York and a second team here," Murstein said. "With the MetroStars moving to Harrison, when that gets done, M.L.S. will have a huge void in New York, and that should be a priority for the league."

Murstein said he would meet with New York City officials this week and would propose building a soccer stadium near Shea Stadium in Queens. He also said he had offered more than $1 million and other incentives to purchase the Cosmos name from Peppe Pinton, who holds the rights to the recognizable team from the North American Soccer League that has not played in more than 20 years. "I like to think I made a realistic offer, but the owner of the trademark has his own idea of what it's worth," Murstein said.

In a telephone interview yesterday, Garber said any thought of a second team in the New York area was premature. "New York is not our focus right now," he said.

The Anschutz Entertainment Group, which runs the MetroStars and four other M.L.S. teams, has exclusivity within a 70-mile radius of New York but does not own the right to operate a second team in the area. Garber recently suggested that the team could move to the proposed stadium on the West Side of Manhattan or could move out of the area.

MAJOR LEAGUE SOCCER

Top Scorer Has Come a Long Way

Nacogdoches will probably never be mistaken for the nerve center of the soccer world. The town in East Texas is in Clint Dempsey's rearview mirror as the road to stardom expands to a superhighway from two lanes.

Dempsey, last season's rookie of the year in Major League Soccer, leads the league in scoring after five games this season, and all four of his goals have been game-winners for New England, including a header in the 88th minute that defeated CD Chivas USA on Saturday.

The Revolution, which has made the playoffs the past three years after frantic late-season scrambles, leads the league with 13 goals (9 on the road) and is off to its best start since 1997. New England has scored 5 goals in the final 15 minutes of games, the most in the league.

"The team is more together this year, the chemistry is much better, and we're playing with confidence," Dempsey, 22, said in a telephone interview. "A few of us also started the year in camp with the national team, and that has allowed us to be sharper earlier."

New England is the only team in the league with three players (Dempsey, Taylor Twellman and Pat Noonan) with three or more goals, and Dempsey plays a dynamic role coming out of a strong midfield that includes Shalrie Joseph, Steve Ralston and José Cancela.

The 6-foot-1 Dempsey has good size for a soccer player, and like many talented athletes from Texas, he first had to test himself on the football field.

"I was a free safety in eighth grade trying to tackle some big old running backs, but they were running over me and I could barely catch their legs," Dempsey said. "At least I tried football."

He dedicated himself to soccer, making the six-hour round trip to Dallas several times a week to play with club teams. He starred in college at Furman, in South Carolina, and was the eighth selection over all in the 2004 draft.

Dempsey's strong play in M.L.S. (he always seems to be around the ball and is one of the most fouled players in the league) has put him squarely in the national-team picture during qualifying for the 2006 World Cup. He made his international debut against Trinidad and Tobago as a substitute on Feb. 9, and played the full 90 minutes in subsequent friendlies against Colombia and Honduras.

Dempsey, who trained during the M.L.S. off-season with Feyenoord in the Netherlands, will soon catch the eye of the top teams in Europe, if he has not already done so. "Going overseas is something I would love to do, to make a living doing what I enjoy," he said.

BEACH WORLD CUP

12 Teams Will Kick Up Some Sand

The Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro will play host to the first FIFA Beach World Cup, a 12-team tournament that begins Sunday. The final will be played May 15.

The United States team will play in Group B against Portugal and Japan. Brazil's sand wizards will be led by Romário, 38, who scored more than 900 goals during a 20-year career and played in his international farewell game on a big field on April 28 against Guatemala.

Beach soccer is played on a sand field that is about 31 yards wide and about 40 yards long with a ball that is two ounces lighter than the standard 16-ounce ball used on turf.

Each side has four players and a goalie (there are unlimited substitutions) for a game that has three 12-minute periods. No defensive walls are permitted against free kicks, all of which can be taken on goal. Players can use a throw-in or kick-in if the ball leaves the field. If a match is tied after regulation, the teams will play three minutes of overtime and then go to penalty kicks if necessary.

In the qualifying tournament late last year, when the United States defeated Argentina to advance to the finals, the eight teams combined to score 129 goals in 16 games, an average of 8 a game.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/03/sports/soccer/03soccer.html?pagewanted=print&position=

[AreliusII]

05/03/2005 12:16PM
Season 10: An MLS magic number
Tampa Bay's Lassiter put together a season that will be tough to top
By Michael Lewis / Special to MLSnet.com
As part of its 10th year celebration, MLS today kicks off a new column looking at the accomplishments of its players.
Every pro sport has that magic number to which players aspire.

In baseball, it once was 60 or 61, as in the number of home runs that Babe Ruth or Roger Maris clubbed in a single season.

In football, it once was 2003, as in the number of yards O.J. Simpson rumbled for with the Buffalo Bills in a 14-game NFL season.

In basketball, it still is 100 -- as the number of points that the late great Wilt Chamberlain put through the hoop in only one game.

MLS has its magic number as well -- 27, as in the number of goals that Roy Lassiter scorched opposing goalkeepers for, which still stands as a league record and standard some nine years later.

He accomplished that feat for the Tampa Bay Mutiny in the inaugural MLS season of 1996. Former Columbus Crew striker Stern John (1998) and Mutiny forward Mamadou Diallo (2000) have come close with 26, but no one has been able to equalize or surpass it.

But even Lassiter himself, one of the league's true authorities on putting the ball into the back of the net, realizes it won't stand forever.

"It's going to be tough," he said by telephone. "Records are meant to be broken, just like my career goals. Jason (Kreis) passed that. These are great stepping stones for players who are coming in the league and who have been in the league that are producing.

"I'm sure down the line someone is going to (surpass) that goal total. I'm just on standby right now."

In 1996, Lassiter was in his prime, a fast 27-year-old forward who knew how to put the finishing touches on his and his teammates' hard work.

"Roy was very focused and a true goal scorer," said Chivas USA head coach Thomas Rongen, his coach at Tampa Bay. "Even if we would win and he didn't score, he was very upset. Roy lived and died by scoring goals."

It certainly didn't hurt that Lassiter had Colombian national team and World Cup veteran Carlos "El Pibe" Valderrama feeding him some of the nicest passes this side of Bogota.

"I took advantage of him, I guess, in a very good sense," Lassiter said. "It elevated my game to be alongside a player like Carlos. He was my roommate. Besides Carlos, that Tampa Bay team was phenomenal. Thomas Rongen gave me the freedom to do whatever it took to put the ball into the net.

"I was always a goal scorer. All my life I had been a goal scorer. All I needed was a midfielder, and shoot man, God blessed me with one of the best in the world. If I couldn't have taken advantage of it at that time, I probably would have never gotten another chance to do so."

Lassiter's critics claim he was able to score that many goals was because of Valderrama. But that is more fallacy than anything else. El Pibe assisted on only nine of the 27 goals.

"To score 27 goals in any season anywhere is hard," Lassiter said. "You notice it has only been done once. Guys have gotten close, and gotten real close -- Diallo, Stern John -- but weren't able to surpass it. It takes a good, cold mind to be able to finish that many goals in a season. Maybe a little luck but I think hard work brings about luck.

"In '96, to be the ultimate goal scorer, it took a lot of work and a lot of hours after training to do some finishing. Ultimately, Carlos put it on my foot, but someone had to be there to finish it."

Critics pointed out that Lassiter was a goal-poacher. His defense? That was his role.

"I didn't concentrate on anything else," he said. "My job as a forward was to put the ball into the back of the net. ... We have different positions in different roles for different players. I don't need to take on multi-tasks when my job has enough to deal with there is pressure as well."

The 5-foot-8, 165-pound Lassiter scored the Mutiny's first goal in history in their 3-2 victory against the New England Revolution on April 13, 1996, and never looked back.

"I think I was consistent throughout the whole thing," he said. "I scored the first game and it was over. I was excited to play to be in Major League Soccer. I was excited we had a nice crowd. I was just very excited to be very glad to be aside some great players, especially Valderrama. I was overwhelmed. I took it and I ran with it and I got better at it."

Indeed, he did.

During an 18-game stretch midway through the season, Lassiter struck for 17 goals. He earned most of those 27 goals -- he converted only two penalty kicks.

"He finished the majority of his chances," Rongen said. "He didn't need four or five chances to score one. He needed one to score one. That's a pretty incredible ratio if you think of it.

"It wasn't easy to (mark him) because he could beat you in many ways. If there was a lot of space behind any of the defenders, he would exploit that because he was probably one of the fastest players in the league. If you marked him real tight, because of his quickness he was always able to get away from a defender. Only half a step -- that's all what he needed. He was always tough to handle for any backline."

Lassiter's most productive match? A hat trick in a 3-1 win against the Colorado Rapids on Aug. 3.

One goal, however, stood out - in the 82nd minute of 1-0 victory against the Dallas Burn at the Cotton Bowl on May 23.

Lassiter said he received "a good through ball from Valderrama. I had to outrun two of the Dallas defenders. They were about five yards ahead of me already and the ball came out to the left side and I was able to get my body around, hit the ball with my three toes and bent the ball on the backside of the opposite post.

"That was probably the goal I watch all of the time. How in the world did I make that goal? That was one of my phenomenal goals that year."

If you want to be a goal scorer, you must concentrate.

"I didn't pay attention to the crowd or too much of what people were saying," Lassister said. "I just concentrated on what I needed to do. That's how I was able to distinguish, to shut that door off from things that don't pertain to the field to really concentrate on what my task was at hand -- finishing goals and being at the right spot.

"One thing about being a forward and scoring a lot of goals -- you've got to be thinking when you don't have the ball. When you do have the ball, there is no more thinking involved. If you think, you miss."

You also need to have a killer instinct. Lassiter would do anything to score a goal -- anything.

"If the ball is streaking across the goal, I would want to score, even if I broke my leg after. I'll break my leg, fine, but I want to put that ball in the net," he said. "That was my thinking always. If it was going to go in that box, that six, that 18, I'm going to be around it. One has to study where to be all the time, where the balls normally pop out at, what position I need to be in."

Of course, goals mean goal celebrations. Lassiter was best known for doing "The Airplane" -- him running around with both his arms stretched out. As it turns out, Lassiter credited Valderrama with a big assist with his celebration.

"He scored a goal -- he didn't score many -- early in the year," Lassiter said. "All of a sudden he did it and I followed him doing it. When I scored, I did it every single time. He would get the airplane out. That guy, if you scored a goal, he would be more excited than you are. He would be just out of his mind. He would come to you with the airplane. I just kept it going."

While he never came close to duplicating those 27 goals, Lassiter is one of only a handful of players to have scored 10 of more goals in four consecutive seasons, which included back-to-back 18 goal-seasons for D.C. United in 1998 and 1999. After stints with the Miami Fusion and Kansas City Wizards, he retired after the 2002 season as the MLS leading goal scorer with 88 goals (Kreis, with Real Salt Lake, has 94).

Today, Lassiter teaches the finer points of the game to 700 children as director of coaching at the Dripping Springs Youth Soccer Association in Texas, situated about 13 miles outside of Austin. He also was named as Boys 1988 coach of the Olympic Development Program staff of the South Texas Youth Soccer Association.

"I knew I wanted to become a coach," Lassiter said. "It's a lot of fun. It's a lot of work. ... Education is a key. As a coach or a player you have to be acceptable to learning at all time, never thinking that you know everything.

"Right now, I think soccer more now than I was playing."

Who knows? Perhaps one of his players will break his record. Or maybe it will be one accomplished by someone wearing an MLS team uniform.

Lassiter felt New England striker Taylor Twellman has the best chance of today's crop. "He is just an all-out, pure goal scorer," he said. "That ball gets in the box and he will be around it somehow. So I can say he was closest to what I was. He is a great finisher. As long as he has those great players around him, he can definitely get the job done."

When and if that happens, a new magic number will be established for players to attain.

Michael Lewis writes about soccer for the New York Daily News and is editor of BigAppleSoccer.com. He has covered MLS since its inception, including the league's unveiling at the 1994 World Cup draw in Las Vegas. He can be reached at SoccerWriter516 [at] aol.com.


http://www.mlsnet.com/content/printer_friendly/y2005/m05/d03/c28585.html

[bordelais7]

I'm not too hot on the idea of having minor league affiliates for big worldwide clubs playing in MLS. Too gimmicky, and it will only help the league to lose credibility. Of course, I never liked the idea of Chivas USA, so...I guess that's not a big surprise.

[rabble-rabble]

A few comments,

The cheapest Jazz seats (pretty much about 4 or 5 rows at the very tippy top of the upper bowl) are just a few bucks less then the RSL cheapest seats, but those Delta Center top row seats are horrible and you can see very little up there, whereas the north stands in Rice-Eccles provide a good view of the match.

This isn't AAA (Stingers) or rookie level baseball (2 Pioneer League team in Utah), minor league hockey (Grizzlies), or third division soccer (Blitzz), it is the highest professional level of soccer in this land and the players need to be paid enough to earn a decent living.

I think this Utah County hack thinks that you should pay only as much for MSL games as for the pioneer league baseball games played in Ogden and Provo.

For what it's worth, people must find paying $14 to sit in the North Stands to be reasonable as they have been completely packed so far.