Barca-Miami MLS Club Is 90% A Done Deal Says CEO

[Luis_Rancagua]

EXPANSION: Barca-Miami MLS Club Is 90% A Done Deal Says CEO

Monday, December 1, 2008

It's clear that the Miami-Barca (Miami FCB) entry into MLS is going full speed ahead. Regardless of what side of the issue (and it is a controversial one) you come down on you may want to read the following excerpt from an article.

Courtesy of Bloomberg:

Dec. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Barcelona, soccer’s third-richest team by sales, has a 90 percent chance of co-owning a Major League Soccer franchise in Miami, Chief Executive Officer Joan Oliver said.

The 2006 European champion bid for one of two available franchises in October. It’s competing against six groups, including one from Montreal involving Liverpool co-owner George Gillett and another in Portland, Oregon, headed by Merritt Paulson, son of U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

“If it’s confirmed, we expect to make a profit in the second year,” Oliver said in an interview in London. “However, we are making an investment in our image, not financially. It won’t cost us any money.”

Seeking to boost its sales in the U.S., Barcelona would become the first European soccer club to own an MLS franchise. Barcelona plans to share ownership with Miami-based Bolivian Marcelo Claure, chief executive officer of Brightstar Corp., a telephone maker. He and other sponsors would cover the start-up costs of about $40 million, according to the Spanish club.

After its team toured the U.S. several times, Barcelona is seeking a new marketing impetus, Oliver said.

“We are pioneers and if turns out well other clubs will follow us,” Oliver said.

http://www.mls-rumors.net/2008/12/expansion-barca-miami-mls-club-is-90.html

[Tuscan]

This happening will ensure that MLS remains a feeder league to Europe. I don't believe that having large European clubs come in to ownership deals with MLS is a good thing for the league. Barca doesn't give two sh*ts about MLS, all they care about is their own image. There is nothing beneficial about this bid to MLS. I hope it gets rejected.

I am fully aware that this is off of MLSrumours, regardless, I have felt this way about the bid from the beginning.

[Loud Mouth Soup]

And Luis makes his daily salary...

[DoyleG]

quote:Originally posted by Tuscan

This happening will ensure that MLS remains a feeder league to Europe. I don't believe that having large European clubs come in to ownership deals with MLS is a good thing for the league. Barca doesn't give two sh*ts about MLS, all they care about is their own image. There is nothing beneficial about this bid to MLS. I hope it gets rejected.

I am fully aware that this is off of MLSrumours, regardless, I have felt this way about the bid from the beginning.

More than a rumor when comes form Bloomberg.

[Guest Jeffery S.]

Tuscan, you are wrong and right.

Barça is doing this for image in the US, to enhance their brand identity, and in that analysis they may be right. I am a club member but have some doubts about it, though since the costs to the club are negligent for now I can accept them trying to make it work.

As for MLS being a feeder league or Barça not being interested in MLS, I am not too sure. On the second issue, there is no reason Barça would not think of MLS any differently than Stoichkov thought of it when he signed to play in Chicago. They know it is a lesser league, they realize that soccer is a small player in North America, but that is not a problem necessarily.

As for it being a feeder league: if you ever thought Barça was looking to set up a team in Miami to feed its 1st team in Barcelona you are wildly mistaken. There is no way that will happen: Barça, like all clubs, signs who they think can handle top flight competitive football, whereever they play. As for sending their youth players or loanable signings, even that is questionable. As is Barça youth play 3rd tier in Barça B and many come up and play for the first team in league and Champions games, then go back and continue their developement. That proximity is essential, and Barça won't renounce that. I really doubt Miami will ever feed a player to the 1st team of Barcelona, and if it happens it will be totally exceptional.

[tmcmurph]

I don't see Miami being a feeder for Barca. Last year 13 of their players on the 1st squad were from their academy. They don't need a feeder team. I don't know how many players on the team this year are from their academy, maybe Jeffrey can tell us.

As to them loaning players I don't see that either. Lots of opportunity to play at a higher level than MLS in Spain or other Euro locales where they can be called up easily.

I think it just comes down to branding. They want the Barca name as recognizable in North America as Man U, Liverpool or Milan.

[BearcatSA]

quote:Originally posted by tmcmurph

I think it just comes down to branding. They want the Barca name as recognizable in North America as Man U, Liverpool or Milan.

I'll ditto that sentiment.

[Massive Attack]

Prediction: Barca Miami will be a failure of Chivas USA proportions.

They would have been better of simply calling the team FC Miami.

[Richard]

This is a marketing ploy by Barca without any shadow of a doubt. Just read the quote in the first post above: "Seeking to boost its sales in the U.S., Barcelona would become the first European soccer club to own an MLS franchise."

[Free kick]

quote:Originally posted by Jeffrey S.

As for it being a feeder league: if you ever thought Barça was looking to set up a team in Miami to feed its 1st team in Barcelona you are wildly mistaken. There is no way that will happen: Barça, like all clubs, signs who they think can handle top flight competitive football, whereever they play. As for sending their youth players or loanable signings, even that is questionable. As is Barça youth play 3rd tier in Barça B and many come up and play for the first team in league and Champions games, then go back and continue their developement. That proximity is essential, and Barça won't renounce that. I really doubt Miami will ever feed a player to the 1st team of Barcelona, and if it happens it will be totally exceptional.

Agreed. Perhaps Tuscan has forgotten or is not aware but, Barcelona is NOT setting a precedent here by owning Miami. Its identical to the situation with Chivas USA.

[Guest Jeffery S.]

If the Miami franchise gets fans out, say 13,000 average, even 12, in that little stadium, and the results are not totally embarrassing (but even then look at TFC's first year results and you realize results are not the key to success), then they will have done enough.

If a little part of those fans are passionate and have a good time, then all the better.

If somehow they connect to a latent fan base that has never shown its face before in Miami, and get more out, then voilà.

You have to remember that despite the spectacular start to the season for the home club attendance is in fact down at Camp Nou, so Barça is used to a finicky supporter base, even here. Which means I think they'll be game to work on the question of support, and really hard, for what it is worth.

That is all you really want, plus maybe a team that plays fairly well and has a bit of an on-the-field identity that could recall the mother club.

All of that, from what folks say about the area of Miami and the history of soccer there, may be a lot harder than it sounds. Which is why I am worried, and hope, if Miami goes through, that I and many others are proven wrong.

PS. To the question about the Barça academy. Barça plays regularly with almost half the squad from the youth program, starting with Valdes (Jorquera is a sub keeper), Puyol (leave out Pique as he left too young for Man Utd), Xavi, Iniesta, Sergi Busquets (son of the former keeper), Victor Sanchez, Pedrito, Messi, Bojan. I was watching Barça B yesterday and both Pedrito and Victor played, Pedrito after playing vs. Getafe and in Lisbon the previous week.

As MLS has canned its reserve sides, and club academies are weak in MLS, that leaves Barça with no decent way to develop younger players while still in the US, even if they sent top notch coaching to MLS. So they would just not do it, or else, if the prospect was really fine, they would send him to Barcelona, of course.

As far as I know Barça has only one player on loan right now, Henrique, signed from Palmeiras this summer and playing this year at Bayer Leverkusen.

[Danny Boy]

quote:Originally posted by Luis_Rancagua

It’s competing against six groups, including one from Montreal involving Liverpool co-owner George Gillett

Bloomberg needs to get its facts straight first.

[Tuscan]

I still fail to see how Barca's backing of Miami will provide any positives for MLS or North American soccer. I agree with Richard, it's nothing more than a way to get their club in to the North American market, which will bring profits home to the club back in Spain (assuming a deal isn't set up with Miami for profit-splitting). Can someone give me any good reasons why this bid should be granted a franchise? And please don't tell me the Hispanic population in Florida will flock to see this team play.

[Luis_Rancagua]

quote:Originally posted by Tuscan

I still fail to see how Barca's backing of Miami will provide any positives for MLS or North American soccer. I agree with Richard, it's nothing more than a way to get their club in to the North American market, which will bring profits home to the club back in Spain (assuming a deal isn't set up with Miami for profit-splitting). Can someone give me any good reasons why this bid should be granted a franchise? And please don't tell me the Hispanic population in Florida will flock to see this team play.

Tuscan, being of an Hispanic background, I totally agree with you...This is complete nonsense that Garber is even granting franchise rights to this group...

[Richard]

I don't recall seeing any hard numbers but I suspect Barca are investing nothing more than their name and reputation in the Miami MLS venture which is being bankrolled by Marcelo Claure.

[tmcmurph]

quote:Originally posted by Tuscan

I still fail to see how Barca's backing of Miami will provide any positives for MLS or North American soccer. I agree with Richard, it's nothing more than a way to get their club in to the North American market, which will bring profits home to the club back in Spain (assuming a deal isn't set up with Miami for profit-splitting). Can someone give me any good reasons why this bid should be granted a franchise? And please don't tell me the Hispanic population in Florida will flock to see this team play.

The only marketable Barca persona that is somewhat known in the USA is Messi. He was in Sports Illustrated and has great appeal. A tour in the Euro off season to sign autographs, play with kids and promote the Barca brand (both Spain and Miami).

Could this be part of the MLS hype machine strategy for the post Beckham era? Summer tours with a MLS team by big stars from Europe? Not playing but promoting and marketing both themselves and their teams interests?

[Luis_Rancagua]

EXPANSION: Miami Fusion Trademark Cancelled, Miami-FC Barcelona Club Nearly Certain Now

Monday, December 1, 2008

Miami is a lock? Maybe, maybe not. With such definitive statements coming from some quarters we at MLSR decided to look for any evidence that there has been a decision made.

Riddle us this for a moment...

If you have gone through pains to keep a trademark alive many years after the team folded, perhaps in hopes of a return to the Miami market, then why would you suddenly cancel it when a major player like Barcelona is interested in joining the league in that market?

Answer: You wouldn't, unless you KNEW that Miami was going to rejoin the league under a new name and that that name for the Miami club most certainly would have nothing to do with the old Miami Fusion moniker. More than that, such changes were made in August.

Here is the history of the Miami Fusion trademark. We have highlighted the recent change in red.

With statements from the CEO of the potential team and this evidence from the US Patent and Trademark database we are very confident that Miami is close to being announced as a 2011 expansion city.

http://www.mls-rumors.net/2008/12/expansion-miami-fusion-trademark.html

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[Calgary Boomer]

St Louis also got a nice shot in the arm with pro MLBer Albert Pujhols (SP?)now throwing his cash behind the Cooper led St Louis group.

I'm starting to think they'll announce 4 teams over 2 year stages.

[Guest Jeffery S.]

I just want to reiterate that I think the whole Hispanic connection is bogus as well, as if a club emphasizing its Catalan identity, and often a symbol against Madrid and Spanish cultural domination, would be an ideal vehicle for uniting Cubans or Puerto Ricans or S. Americans in the US. It is silly, I recognize that.

I think the connection with Miami is part of the idea in Spain, Catalunya notwithstanding, that somehow it is easier to work in the Spanish speaking parts of the US, that they will have an easier time of it. And I agree that this is mistaken, it is a very thin pretext for a location for the project.

But I still can't figure out why a private businessman is allowed to invest, speculate and write off losses for the benefit of his enterprises as an owner of MLS, even as an owner with little knowledge or committment to the sport itself, as a perpetuator of all of MLS's incongruent rules and manners, but a pro club that is fully committed to the sport is somehow not allowed to do so. Is that what you think MLSE the TFC owner is, a model of pure altruism as applied to sport? Or Kerfoot? Why is one support supposedly clean and virtuous and unquestionable (no one on this board has criticized the ulterior motives of any candidate except Barça), and the other virutally satanic? Isn't is really the other way around?

Do you think that if Barça had really only been interested in the bottom line they'd have gone to Miami? I mean, be minimally logical. They are taking a risk, everyone says so. So you can't accuse the club of risking their image on a possible failure in Miami and being a heartless marauder at the same time, it is contradictory. Argue, but don't sit there making claims that are stupid and show bad faith.

Barça spends tons of money to support all kinds of variants of amateur and semi-pro sport (including ice hockey, basketball, athletics, futsal, handball, many more, and at a youth level as well in almost all cases), and at a loss. Barça loses money in most of what it does, in everything it does that is not related to the first team. Never mind paying UNICEF to put their logo on the shirt and funding programs UNICEF and the team foundation identifies as priority (AIDS in AFRICA), and all of that is taken out of the first team soccer budget. Barça is the only powerful club in the world to have renounced advertising on its shirt, millions a year, so give me a break.

Barça also happens to be run democratically, the board voted in by the members and controlled financially and legally by us, which is not the case for any other ownership group in MLS. If you don't like what Barça is doing in Miami with MLS you sign up as a club member tomorrow, get your card and number, and immediately call "Attention to Club Members" and express your views. Or ask to speak to a board member. You all know damn well that no sport club in North America has that transparency.

But somehow this is the option that provokes the ire of many here: you prefer the financial dictators, the pure neo-liberal sharks, those who don't give a damn about the game, the NASDAQ-fed glory seekers, to that menacing European soccer club who wants to expand brand image by attaching its name to a very difficult soccer project in a market that has always failed.

All I am trying to figure out is why the ire? Save the cynicism for the guys who deserve it, and give us a break.

[Tuscan]

no []

I'm only looking at it from the perspective of Barca already stating that their main aim is to promote their own brand. Good on them for the philanthropy, it is something that is BADLY lacking in all pro sports. As for the self-promotion, I dunno, I just hope that the Barca brand doesn't downplay the growth of the clubs in North America. I'd rather see someone wearing a DC United or Kansas City Wizards jersey than a Barca one if this deal goes down.