| Miami Manures | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Feb 6 2014, 06:39 PM (269 Views) | |
| santry_gooner | Feb 6 2014, 06:39 PM Post #1 |
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Looks like Beckham has found an attractive location, undersupplied with football and sport generally. However, this project is going to need the support of locals, sadly the reputation going back to the Fushion days is bad. And what's complicated because the city has a reputation for sporting segregation. He also seems to be struggling to get an ideal city centre location for football. http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/feb/05/david-beckham-superstar-mates-miami-new-mls-team |
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| jays712 | Feb 6 2014, 07:56 PM Post #2 |
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This is a bad idea. Pro sports for the most part don't do well in south Florida unless they are doing really good (see Miami Heat). If the team is just decent or worse, people won't show. They can't even get 20,000 for a Tampa Bay Rays baseball game and that team is good every year. There are alot of transplants that move there and they don't support the local teams. College sports do better business in Florida than most of the pro teams. |
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| rw_mlite2 | Feb 6 2014, 09:11 PM Post #3 |
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Fushion Fans (all 1,000 of them) claim the team didn't do well because they were actually located in Ft Lauderdale. I don't buy it. |
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| JustOneDennisBergkamp | Feb 6 2014, 09:12 PM Post #4 |
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JODB
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It sounds as if this new franchise might actually be a bit of a throw-back. If Becks has his way with MLS, he can stock this franchise with aging stars much like the old North American Soccer League did back in the day. With the right mix, that might play in FLA, especially if Bron Bron buys a chunk of the action and actually attends games. |
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| santry_gooner | Feb 7 2014, 02:07 AM Post #5 |
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For sure there are problems. Isn't the heat a problem? I'm not saying that it's Qatar scale but from what I remember the one time I was there Miami is uncomfortable outdoors at midday, or any hour near it. I was listening to Gabrielle Marcotti. He was saying Miami is a trap in sporting affiliation terms because you get such high levels of segregation. You either get the black, the Cuban, the Hispanic, the Jewish or the other white population. But you rarely get a mix of them. Background fact is this map of the US Census which shows in real terms the segregated pattern in terms of neighbourhoods and districts: http://the305.com/2013/09/03/photo-this-map-tells-you-how-racially-divided-segregated-miami-and-dade-county-are/ Melting pot my arse. |
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| phatosas | Feb 7 2014, 02:50 AM Post #6 |
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I lived in Miami for over 5 years and I can tell you that Floridians are a lot more complicated than the simplistic way they have been described. The society is such that you have a complex mix of the very rich, the old people that come to retire, tourist and working class people struggling to make ends meet. The nature of the City is such that Sports also has to compete with night life. However the Miami fans are not fair weather, for example I remember the year when the Heat picked up the worst record in the NBA yet attendances were still very decent. The bottom line is there are fans that are there through thick and thin but there are also fans that show up when there is limelight. When the MLS first started in the US, I can see how a franchise without very good roots would not survive in Florida. However you have a very large hispanic population in Florida and a lot of them actually like the game and follow teams in Mexico and South America. In fact when I lived in Florida, Fox Sports en Espanol was one of the local cable stations and they used to broadcast those games as well as premier league games in Spanish. Beckham therefore doesnt need to sell the sport to the people in Miami, he just has to sell his product. There is definitely potential there and I can see why Beckham would invest in a football team especially at that price. I can also see why he would want to put his stadium close to the Miami Heat arena rather than the outskirt of the City. Although parking is a big problem in downtown Miami, the location close to the Heat Arena is in the heart of the City and building a stadium there is a no brainer. Edited by phatosas, Feb 7 2014, 02:54 AM.
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| phatosas | Feb 7 2014, 03:08 AM Post #7 |
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Miami weather is wonderful. It could get hot but a lot of times you just feel the ocean breeze even while under the sun. When I lived in Miami, sometimes you are woken up by the sunrise just hitting your window. It never snows, it hardly ever gets under 60 degrees and the place is beautiful. If you live in Miami, you wouldnt want to leave the City. That is why the rich own vacation homes in Florida and the elderly come to Miami to retire. Unfortunately the economy in Florida is not very good, it is a tourist city with an expensive standard of living and not a lot of job opportunities. Miami is segregated not just in racial terms but in social and economic status. I dont think Becks would have a problem selling the game to the Cubans or Hispanic population that live in the city. He also shouldnt have any problem with the immigrants from Hiati, Africa and Europe. I dont believe that because people are diffierent, they cant all come together to support a team. When it comes to stadium attendances though, it comes down to buying into the team and location. |
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| jays712 | Feb 7 2014, 08:29 AM Post #8 |
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I don't know Phato. South Florida has been among the worst areas for pro sports teams. The Rays, the Marlins, and the Magic have all been a tough sell, even when the teams have been good. College sports are a much bigger deal down there. The area has had multiple opportunities to have a soccer franchise and they all failed. I just don't see what the difference is going to be now. The weather is going to be a factor in the summer. It's hot down there and there's not going to an "ocean breeze" in a stadium to cool things off. The area has also long had a large Hispanic population but still did not sell. As for Lebron buying into this, how long is he going to stay with the Heat? He may bail after this season for another team and his random appearance at the stadium is not going to have much of an impact long-term for them being successful. |
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| phatosas | Feb 7 2014, 02:04 PM Post #9 |
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I think you are wrong in grouping Miami, Tampa Bay and Orlando together. I know they are in the same state but they are three completely different cities very far apart. I have driven from Miami to Orlando, it is a four hour drive and it is almost like driving from one state to another. It is therefore important not to make sweeping generalization of Floridians but rather to consider the dynamics of the City of Miami. As I stated before, I have lived in Miami, New York and Boston during the summer and I can tell you that it is relatively not that different in Miami during the summer. Apart from that it rains during those summer months in Miami and that cools things down quite a bit. I have been in New York during the summer when things a literately steaming and yet it hasnt affected their out door sporting teams. I would argue that if places like Houston and Dallas can have football teams, I see no reason why the weather should be a problem in Miami. I am from Nigeria, I like football before I came to the United States, I support Arsenal and the Dolphins and Heat yet I dont support any MLS team. I think that is the similar story for a lot of South Floridians who already know the game and have affiliations to teams outside the US. It is easier to sell a product to people wanting to get into the game than to people who already love the game and know a shit product when they see one. The success or failure of Beckham's franchise would be dependent on whether he can put a decent team together and the location of the stadium. A lot of big teams have been coming to Miami for preseason and we have Real Madrid, United and AC Milan coming to over to Miami in August. If they dont think there is an audience, they wouldn't come. Finally when it comes to fan support in Miami, what I have been trying to explain is the divide that makes it difficult to fill sports arenas is more social economic rather than racial. It is a society divided between the rich less enthusiastic sports fan that sees going to games more as recreational entertainment and the poor avid fan that cannot afford to go and see games. That is why you have a lot of blackouts during games to force fans to come to the stadiums. When Miami Heat has been in the playoffs for example, the people that buy the expensive seats do not even show up for the game until after tip off. Those are the type of fans that give Miami a bad rap but the irony of it is some of them you see on the floor seat during the playoffs do not even like Basketball. |
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| jays712 | Feb 7 2014, 03:30 PM Post #10 |
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There has long been a heavily Hispanic population to tap into in Miami to support a soccer team, yet they have failed before with an MLS franchise and its taken more than a decade and now David Beckham to get another one. If the market for a club was truly there, than they would've had another team before this due to Miami being such a large TV market that the MLS doesn't have a team in. I'm not going to buy into the economic argument that much when tickets for soccer matches here are cheaper than any other major sport except for baseball. You can get into most MLS games for less than 25 bucks and have a really good seat. Becks can also have fun trying to get that stadium built with private funds because no taxpayers down there are funding another stadium after they paid for that Miami Marlins disaster that no one goes to. |
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