North Carolina Tar Heels

[CAT]

Actually,I was quite pleased to see our team gave as good as it got! Hadn't seen that 'quality' of play since Clint Mathis and Chris Klein were on the team!

[eCat]

its mean but I would have reacted the same way if it was my kid

[hedge]

I met Stu at the park one day several years ago, he had his kid out there on the swing, me and Stu were sitting there talking and the kid was leaning back in the swing while going backwards, somehow he flipped out of the swing at the bottom of the motion, face first into the ground, and did a backflip and slammed onto the ground. I thought he might've broken his neck, but when he started squalling, me and Stu cracked up...

[eCat]

In 2013, 60 minutes did a story about a lawyer named Eric Conn (apt name) . The guy had teamed up with a crooked judge and was cranking out hundreds of disability claims each year - at one point every person that he either recruited or came to him ended up on government disability - and in the poorest counties of Kentucky/West Virginia it was a boom.

Guy was pulling in several million in fees - up to $6K per client all funded by the government and he gave a kickback to the judge who was making about $14K a month for his share.

Anyways, he gets busted earlier this year by the feds (4 years after the 60 minutes story?) , pleads guilty and goes on the lam while awaiting sentencing. Claims he bought a fake passport and flew out to a country that doesn't extradite to the U.S. - and offered this information voluntarily to the press via email from him. The feds thinks he's lying and is hiding out somewhere close by.

Some of the things he's known for is building a Lincoln memorial statue at his office and commissioning a video with Ralph Stanley, Jessco White and the Obama girl - whoever that was - praising Obama getting elected - describing him as a “superhero without a cape,” which she rhymed with “He learned Spanish off of a tape.”



[youtube]Ljua1P7M9DU[/youtube]

[eCat]

LOL

he also paid a guy a few thousand to do this to reach out to the "urban" community

[youtube]7M0jkkDj55c[/youtube]

[eCat]

This guy is the gift that keeps on giving

This is his post indictment commercial

[youtube]zqtL78-H_YI[/youtube]

[eCat]

ok I may have turned the corner on soccer tonight watching FC Cincinnati play Chicago tonight on ESPN and watching the fans get into it.

30K fans showed up for that game

[hedge]

30+ years later and soccer is starting to win the war of attrition...

[eCat]

The announcers did a good job of keeping me engaged in a 0-0 game 95 minutes into it. It helped they talked up the city all night, trying to sell it as a MLS franchise location

[Jungle Rat]

My daughter was there. So disappointed.

[Jungle Rat]

She kept texting me updates. I was watching it but fell asleep. Soccer is boring.

[eCat]

I have no interest watching any other games other than Cincinnati home games

[Jungle Rat]

That's about my same interest. I might go if my daughter drags me. I've grown up with soccer in my blood. My brother coached UC for 11 years before he said fuck it and moved to Monterey and opened up a camera shop.

[Professor Tiger]

Ralph Stanley died. Is Obama girl Jenn Sterger?

Atlanta has a new MLS team. All their games at GA Tech's stadium (55,000) have been sold out.

Anybody who is a baseball fan, but complains that soccer is boring, is silly.

That is all. Carry on.

[aTm]

MLS as a league is pretty salty attendance wise compared to other leagues worldwide. Only Germany, England, Spain, Mexico, China, and Italy have top divisions that draw better (and out of those, only Germany and England draw well across the board and so have much higher averages), and that puts it above the French, Argentine, Brazilian, Dutch, Russian, Scottish, Turkich, etc etc leagues. At this point, if MLS were to drop the reins on competitive balance (where the salary cap is keeping the richer teams from spending except on a handful of star players), Toronto, Seattle, LA Galaxy, NYCFC, and New York Red Bulls would immediately become some of the largest and best clubs in the world either because of their attendance drawing power, marketing power, and or, in the case of the New York teams, ownership groups that are itching to spend and invest in the clubs for marketing purposes. MLS is very conservative in terms of moving to that kind of system for a variety of reasons though.

[hedge]

What reasons?

[aTm]

The league has a single entity ownership structure, rather than club franchise model, so technically every owner kind of owns the whole league, its a subtle difference, but in practice it means things like players don't have contracts with the individual teams, but their contracts are owned by MLS. I think because of that structure, and the fate of the NASL in the 70's and 80's where teams were driven to bankruptcy by spending to compete with the New York Cosmos, they have tried to hold a very tight hand on the finances of each club rather than letting some owner go sign a bunch of expensive talent and then have team's fold because of it. Also the league is heavily tied into a financial relationship with the United States Soccer Federation, in which MLS shares in a business relationship involving exhibition matches, television revenues, and sponsorship revenues. So one of the goals of the league is to develop American players, something which would likely be hurt somewhat if most roster spots were suddenly used on more highly paid European and South American players as could happen if the teams are allowed to spend indiscriminately. I think there is also the perception that the Euro style leagues where there are dominant super powers that compete with only 1 or 2 or 3 other teams, while everyone else has almost no chance wouldn't play well here, and the salary cap is a competitive balance measure.

[CAT]

I agree, but one glaring fact is, at every MLS game the stadium is filled to capacity, we need to build larger stadiums. they built a second divisium stadium in Sacramento and before it was even finished it was totally sold out with season ticket holders. At all games the fans are extremely enthusiastic which makes it a lot of fun to attend any game. The only game that comes close to fan enthusiasm is ice hockey!

[Professor Tiger]

Speaking of "ice hockey" (as opposed to what other kinds of hockey?), Atlanta has had two NHL teams - the Flames and the Thrashers. Both folded for lack of attendance.

By selling out all their games, the new soccer team is clearly doing something right where the NHL teams didn't. Maybe a lot more soccer crazy Hispanics have moved in than hockey crazy Minnesotans.

[sardis]

It's because it's new. After the initial years, Atlanta fans will go into their typical don't care, mode until the local team makes the playoffs.