Is it possible to owe a huge debt of gratitude to someone who made one of your dearest dreams come true, and still wish, at times, they would simply go away?
Is it possible that the very people who did the heaviest lifting to bring MLS soccer to Toronto are also the ones who are keeping the team from winning?
If we accept that all involved mean well, how much patience must we all expend waiting for them to do well?
These questions have hung – like a lingering, thickening haze – over Toronto FC since, really, the beginning.
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It’s like driving a hilly road on a foggy night. One minute, you can see everything clearly. The next, all definition and direction is swallowed by a bland blanket of blah.
Suddenly, you don’t know where you are, let alone how to get to where you want to go.
If life were a wildlife show, Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment would be a puzzling beast, indeed. A predator, for certain, but you can never really know for sure if it makes its own kills. Just to confuse things further, it leaves multiple, differing sets of footprints -- one for each executive whose decisions have affected or altered the course of the club.
As an exasperated Yosemite Sam once smouldered at Bugs Bunny: “Ah don’t know how ya done it, but ah KNOWS ya done it!!!”
So last month, I banged out a short series of stories comparing Toronto FC’s six-year start to 57 different NHL, NBA, NFL and MLB expansion teams, dating back to 1967.
I discovered that, while there have certainly been worse starts – in all four leagues – no team as bad or worse than TFC has ever burned through seven different head coaches in under six seasons.
That level of chaos, that chronic doubt and uncertainty, that staggering number of restarts, has battered and crippled a club that began, in 2007, as one of the best feel-good Toronto sports stories in recent memory.
It also left behind a bill of ultimate responsibility – one that has yet to be paid.
There are many different reasons for what has occurred, but the one constant – throughout it all – has been Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment.
A couple of things we know for sure:
- MLSE is great at making money. They’ve built a thriving ticket-selling, arena-running, condo-building empire that makes its investors very happy. An imminent takeover by Rogers and Bell underscores how profitable and successful this company has been.
- MLSE teams are lousy at winning championships. Check that – MLSE teams can’t even make the playoffs. GMs, coaches and star players come and go, and the Maple Leafs, Raptors and Toronto FC go nowhere.
And yet, the tickets sell. Empty seats dominate at many TFC home games, but MLSE assures us that season-ticket sales remain strong. No one’s yet been able to successfully refute that.
It must be fairly noted that Major League Soccer “owners” do not actually own their teams. The league retains single-entity ownership, while MLSE hires, fires, pays for Designated Players and runs the overall business.
Yes, there’s been a huge investment in the TFC Academy, and yes, that’s good for the future of Canadian soccer. But there was also a huge investment in Aron Winter and total football, and that turned into a naïve, futile and seriously expensive footballing fiasco.
What seems clear, entering this investigation, is that Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment has created more than it has destroyed, where the ongoing embattlement of Toronto FC is concerned. But when they have destroyed, it’s been deeply damaging. That unpaid bill is growing by the day.
These stories will examine key aspects of the TFC/MLSE relationship, one by one. We’ll look at all of TFC’s coaches and general managers, check in on ownership’s deteriorating relationship with the support, and try – as best as is possible on a dark and foggy road – to shine a light on anything that can actually help us steer.
I’ve got a request in official channels to interview MLSE chief operating officer Tom Anselmi, who’s had the soccer file on his desk since Toronto FC was born. I encourage him to join the conversation. These stories will be fairer – and better – with his input.
Up next: TFC’s coaches.
Onward!