Shuffle up and deal, Joey
By Guest, in Onward Soccer,
Before I lose my audience, let me link this to someone who’s played a good poker hand badly, and must now urgently consider going all-in:
Joey Saputo.
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
The Montreal Impact owner pancaked out of the 2011 MLS expansion race, then had to watch his USL-1 counterparts in Vancouver and Portland play their cards masterfully, winning a whopping $5-million cut in the $40-million expansion fee Saputo didn’t want to pay.
They’re in, and Montreal is out. And if Montreal doesn’t seriously reconsider its strategy, the Impact will be staying out indefinitely – perhaps forever.
So let’s fire up our spycam, and see what cards "Riverboat Slim" Saputo is holding.
It’s not all aces, soccer fans. Saputo Stadium is a solid Queen. Could be a King, but MLS has proven it isn’t hard-and-fast on its soccer specific stadium requirement – Seattle, Vancouver – so that downgrades a pretty little park that still needs major expansion to qualify for MLS.
Impact attendance is worth a Queen as well, I think. About double what Vancouver draws, but that’s partly down to the petiteness of the Whitecaps’ home park at Swangard. The Impact have a reputation for house-papering, as well – but there’s no doubt they really did get 55,000 folks out to their CONCACAF CC QF with Santos Laguna.
When I was in Montreal for the Canada-Honduras game, I kept hearing that the city’s soccer fans live in the west island, and the stadium’s in the east island, and it isn’t easy to get there, so they don’t go. This despite the fact Stade Saputo was built flush to a Metro line, and they’ve been building Metro stations all over the west island for the better part of 35 years. (And, as I’ve mentioned, there were Honduras fans there that night who had driven up from Phoenix , Arizona .)
Of course, it’s been ringingly proven in both Toronto and Seattle that low USL attendance numbers do not, in any way, predict season ticket sales in MLS.
As small north American soccer clubs go, I’d rate the Impact at King. They went ahead and build their own park, without waiting for an MLS franchise. They packed/papered it with fans, won the Voyaguers Cup and had a great run in CONCACAF.
The city’s worth a King, and the transportation links are Queen, minimum.
So, with a full house of Kings and Queens , Joey Saputo tried to bluff the dealer. Saputo told MLS commissioner Don Garber he’d pay $40-million, but in Canadian dollars. The money was at par at the time, but the beaver buck quickly lost 20 per cent of its poutine-buying power when the global economy was moved from the business to the fiction section.
Also, Saputo wanted to use a solid whack of that money to refurbish the stadium.
The dealer (Garber) not only rejected the bet, he reached across the table and folded Joey’s hand. Meanwhile, Vancouver and Portland stayed patiently in the game. When Miami folded and it was clear St. Louis was poor and Ottawa wouldn’t be ready in time, the Whitecaps and Timbers had Garber exactly where they wanted him. The admission price was quietly dropped to $35-million.
Speaking on “It’s Called Football” this past Saturday, Whitecaps president Bob Lenarduzzi clearly said that if the price hadn’t come down, MLS would have lost two wonderful markets.
And that, dear children, is how you play poker.
Riverboat Slim has some decisions to make. Does he re-enter the game, knowing he holds far fewer chips than Eugene “The Biovail Hustler” Melnyk up in Ottawa ? Does he start rounding up new backers to raise his bid to a competitive level? Does he walk away, staying in USL-1 despite the imminent loss of Vancouver from his league, and the extreme difficulty his side faces ever winning the Voyageurs Cup again – let alone advancing to the CONCACAF knock-out stages?
He doesn’t have long to decide.
Garber is talking about expanding again for 2012. It’s likely a bluff – a way of telling anyone who’s still interested that they need to get seriously ready right now. But anyone who’s been watching this game unfold would likely pick Garber as a better bluffer than Saputo, even though the MLS commish was ultimately stared down by the two best card-players at the table.
Montreal still has a good hand. What it needs now is a good card-player.
Onward!
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