kevinfootes

Correct me if I'm wrong, but (as I recall) the original plan was for 13Kish. The problem is that would have involved building a secong tier and added a great deal of cost to a building that was already way behind in fundraising.

roy, I disagree. IMO the biggest factor was the success of the program and the appeal of the conference. I think that the new Kiel was also a major factor in our attendance. The Blues were doing well and were a hot ticket. The Rams were already here is 1995. We were drawing well with Hughes 2 years after that, so I don't think that was the case. Having games against the likes of Memphis State, Louisville, Cincy and DePaul made us a worthwhile investment for season tickets in the eyes of more casual fans...not to mention walk up crowds. I'm with you on the dome games. However, it was nice to see us beat Illinois that night. The fact that they lost the neutral location game to us means they'll probably never play us in St. Louis again.

Congrats to your family. AMDG.

What's your deal with the Steelers? I liked them when I was a kid. The Cardianls were my team, but VERY hard to watch.

Fordham has St. Johns, while we have SIUE. IMO, in the big east coast cities there is a lot more interest in pro sports than in college sports. When you have a track record like Fordham is has to be tough. I think they drew 500 fans for their first game in the Meadowlands.

Fordham has St. Johns, while we have SIUE. IMO, in the big east coast cities there is a lot more interest in pro sports than in college sports. When you have a track record like Fordham is has to be tough. I think they drew 500 fans for their first game in the Meadowlands.

Everything points to Green Bay winning this game, which is almost enough to push me towards Chicago. But not quite. I also don't see Pittsburgh losing this time around. Going with home teams bucks the trend for these playoffs, but that's how I see it right now. Green Bay vs. Pittsburgh would be an old-school super bowl. Any thoughts?

Skip, soccer has a long way to go, but I agree that it will continue to improve in popularity. No sport has ever started out with immense popularity. I think the expectations for MLS were a little ambitious at its inception, but they have corrected a lot of that over the years. The Jim Rome-esque "soccer sucks" types are pretty silly IMO.

I was simply quoting the article that I posted. If you have a problem, take it up with the author. The article was about failed soccer teams in St. Louis. There has been a long history of that over the past 35 years or so. That is a fact you simply can't refute. In fact, you've cowered away from addressing it. You are the one making comparisons to the EPL and Continental Basketball Association, etc. I didn't do that in this thread. I simple answered a question that clock tower had about MLS. Talk about groundhog day. You can't pay attention whatsoever. To your point in this post. Soccer does lack popularity in terms of ratings. I don't see how you can dispute that. It may be slowly improving, but it's still not very good. You sound like the girl who thinks she's very good looking but doesn't get asked out on many dates..."I am good looking and popular!!!!" You are the one who absolutely contradicts himself throughout this thread. You have provided very little in the way of facts to support anything. You set up rules for others to follow and don't follow them yourself. You compare to other sports and quote other threads, but no one else can! My self esteem is quite good. Good enough, in fact, to let you have the last word on this if you like. It will be another load of garbage anyway.

Hey ace, "who is Craig Upchurch?" Here's another famous ace question: "who is Orlando Stewart?" I love it when ace enlightens us all with of his SLU basketball wisdom, especially since he knows so much of our history. After more than 10 years on this board ace is still washing and waxing Mr. Miyagi's cars.

at 12:52 I was answering your question, after you strayed from the topic. Can't count that one either. I do appreciate how hard you're trying, though. so you can reference other sports, other threads, etc. but no one else can. I get it. You did exactly what I led you to do...absolutely contradict yourself by doing exactly what you were whining about. You're just like a puppet. Stay on topic! Hey, I like soccer quite a bit. I just have a more realistic view of it's popularity in this country. Sorry I stepped on your blue suede sambas.

Wait a minute! Now you're wandering off to other threads! Which rules are you following here? Oh wait, you don't have to follow the rules you set up! Of course I've posted about lack of interest in other threads. The lack of of interest is noted by poor ratings. That can't really be disputed.

Hmmm, you are arguing against claims that I haven't made. Show me where I posted anything about interest in MLS in this thread, other than a lack of interest from investors to pay the expansion fee? You should really stick to the topic and quit taing shots at statements that I haven't made. I DID post that it would be hard for a team to succeed financially based on the expansion fee, but that's a different point. Keep trying. You're getting closer.

Not quite. I posted a link to an article that mentioned both. Blame the author if you like, not me. Then you went on to talk about EPL, minor league basketball, etc. Quit jumping around so much. And, sorry, soccer can be a topic in and of itself. Soccer in St. Louis can be a topic. The failings of several teams over the past 35 years can be a topic as well. Again, clock tower brought up MLS, not me. I didn't compare MLS with any other leagues in my first two posts. That's your thing. Nice try, though.

I'm having trouble following you in this thread, with all of your jumping between the EPL, Continental Basketball, major and minor league baseball, etc. I started this thread about St. Louis soccer and then answered a question about MLS from clock tower. Why don't you stick to the topics and quit jumping around?

So now you're jumping from my second post to my first post? I'll take from this post that you acknowledge I wasn't jumping to anything when I answered the question from clock tower. If you have an issue with "jumping", take it up with him. Here is my original post: It looks like another team bites the dust. For having a pretty bad product on the field and very little hype, the attendance numbers weren't too bad IMO. I think it goes to show that it's very hard to make money in this sport, particularly in the lower levels. As a side note, I found it interesting that the women's pro soccer league is now down to 6 teams, all on the east coast. I guess the lack of interest was more than just a St. Louis issue. As you can read from the first sentence, my topic is about pro soccer teams failing in St. Louis. In case you haven't noticed, there have been many over the past 35 years or so. Show me where I do a comparison to the EPL. Secondly, I typed that it's hard to make money at the lower levels. In your attempt to criticize my point you take the very same position. If you want to say that moving from men's soccer to women's is "jumping" that can be debated. However, I DID post "as a side note" which would be viewed by most as a transition. (Good for you, from now on no one can address mulitple topics in one thread. I hope you try to police the rest of the topics as much as you do with soccer. How could the author of the article have possibly mentioned it? ) In any case, there were some posts on here critical of area families not doing enough to support professional women's soccer. The learning here is that it wasn't simply a St. Louis issue. It looks like a nationwide issue.

I "jumped to MLS" because I was responding to a SPECIFIC question from clock tower. How in the hell is that "jumping" to anything? If you're going to pick a fight, at least get a fact or two straight.

I would point out that Grawer didn't coach after getting canned by SLU. He went "back to high school" to take the best paying job in the area as Clayton's AD, not coach. I do agree with your overall point that this hasn't been a springboard in general. Didn't we lose our softball coach to a D2 school?

8 hours? Where are the best players in the world playing? Isn't London 5 hours ahead of the Eastern time zone? In any case, there is tivo/dvr technology out there. I'd be willing to wager that if MLS tried to go out and sign "ALL" the best players in the world at their market value it would be a financial disaster at this point.

"Plenty of interest" compared to what?

Who cares if the question continues to come up? Are you expecting straight, consistent answers from RM? We're lucky RM isn't talking about sausages.

I forget what the MLS expansion fee was going to be...something like $35 million. It was enough to scare away any local investors. I'm not sure how in the world you run a franchise and cover the expansion fee without losing money for several years. I think the salary cap is about $2.6 million not counting the protected player rule (or whatever it's called). The teams only get about $2 million each from TV (I think that's what courtside posted). The average attendance for MLS was 16K in 2009, but that number is inflated by Seattle. I guess you could hope for 15K/game. That would be about 225K in total attendance for regular season games (I'm sure they also play a few friendlies and exhibitions, but I'm not sure what you could charge for those games). If you could average $15/ticket, you could cover the cost of the players and probably the coach, but that doesn't go into travel, support staff, etc. That's not to mention the cost of building a soccer-only facility. omight be able to make some money, but IMO you're either gambling on more success down the road or willing to wait many years to cover your investment.

As long as he doesn't play, KM can still be redshirted without any offical declaration happening now. RM said KM wouldn't play unless they were down to 4 players. Not quite an absolute, but pretty close.

I wouldn't be excited, but I certainly wouldn't be infuriated. KM will make his own decisions and have to live by them.

http://www.stltoday.com/sports/soccer/article_4a85b488-0fbd-56d2-b17e-b408d13532e9.html It looks like another team bites the dust. For having a pretty bad product on the field and very little hype, the attendance numbers weren't too bad IMO. I think it goes to show that it's very hard to make money in this sport, particularly in the lower levels. As a side note, I found it interesting that the women's pro soccer league is now down to 6 teams, all on the east coast. I guess the lack of interest was more than just a St. Louis issue.