TFC gets everything but the soccer right
You know the honeymoon is over when the commissioner of your league comes to town and implores the fans — the supporters that, along with your sales department, are the pulsing lifeblood of an otherwise comatose young soccer franchise — to attend, rather than protest, when the league’s championship game arrives in November.
Yeah, that’s a pretty unambiguous sign that Toronto FC has fallen from a state of red-and-white grace in this town. Partly, it is the result of four years of what by all accounts was pretty terrible soccer; partly, it was the inevitable machinations of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, which has price-pointed the cost of viewing the Leafs, Raptors, and most recently FC as relentlessly as water, finding its level.
And so when Don Garber, the voluble commissioner of Major League Soccer, spent a couple hours with the local press yesterday, the bulk of the time was spent discussing the fortunes, both literally and figuratively, of the local boys. Which is never the best sign of how things are going.
“When I think about what we have achieved here with Toronto FC, it is global credibility,” Garber said over lunch at RealSports Bar and Grill downtown. “This is a successful market … If we’re going to talk about a World Cup bid, if we’re going to talk about why America’s a soccer nation, we’re showing pictures of BMO Field. We’re talking about the passion of the Red Patch Boys.
“So I fully understand and I sympathize with the fans that are frustrated with the lack of success, and I know [MLSE] cares about that.”
Garber’s rather selective interpretation of geography aside, fans tend not to be mollified when they are told that MLSE cares. But despite the enthusiastic recent fan unrest over price increases and continued ineptitude — not to be confused with the contractual unrest of star striker Dwayne De Rosario, who last month mimed signing a cheque after scoring yet another goal in yet another loss, providing what was probably the most memorable and appropriate on-pitch moment of the season — the commish made it abundantly clear that he considers Toronto FC a raging success in almost every way.
“MLS is where it is today because of the success of Toronto FC,” Garber said. “I have absolutely no doubt that we would not be in the position we are, which is a respected and credible, fastest-growing professional sports league in the world without the success of TFC. This is not an easy business. You’ve got to make things work in the boardroom, you’ve got to make things work on the field. And it’s evolutionary process to find out how to make both sides work.
“Season tickets, and branding, and promotion, and away-game travel, and television deals, and how they’re managing their stores, and their Internet, and relationships with supporters — these guys are the leaders in that. They wrote the book. They created the supporter culture in Major League Soccer.”
Indeed, Toronto FC has been such a business and operational success that other teams are being encouraged to follow the blueprint, and several have come to Toronto for a first-hand glimpse of how to run your business.
Presumably, though, they don’t spend a lot of time in the general manager’s office. The club has not made the playoffs in four years of existence — last season’s campaign to do so ended when FC bowed out with an utterly humiliating 5-0 loss to New York, then the worst team in the league — and if not for the fire of the supporters, the games would be close to worthless.
And that’s the problem with Toronto FC. MLSE got so many things right — the intimate stadium, the uniforms, the merchandise, the game experience, the sell — and then populated the actual team with empty uniforms, or near enough.
In hindsight, it feels inevitable. MLSE is a brilliant business, and a lousy sports owner. Their teams have failed again and again, habitually. For the Leafs and Raptors, the answer was to hire a celebrity GM — Brian Burke and Bryan Colangelo, respectively. Unless Sir Alex Ferguson is interested in a rather comprehensive lifestyle change, that’s not an option in such a young league.
“[Major League Soccer] doesn’t have decades and decades, and hundreds if not thousands of people that grew up in the management and administration of the sport,” Garber said. “So we don’t have a long list of Brian Burkes who you can just call and say, ‘You’ve done it in some many different places, let’s have you come here … and help us fix the hockey team.’
“We can’t come up with a list of 10 people that we can give to the teams and say, ‘These are guys who have had a lot of success for the last 20 years; go hire them.’”
And so Toronto FC has floundered away, sapping the love of their supporters, who at least have it in them to actively protest, unlike fans of some other teams that one could name. In response, the club issued a letter of apology, and reduced the season-ticket commitment by two games.
The man in charge, MLSE executive vice-president and chief operating officer Tom Anselmi, has already attended three or four spirited town halls with supporters, and will attend several more. When the MLS Cup comes here in November, with an ESPN-dictated start time of 9 p.m. on what could be a very cold night indeed, we’ll see how those same supporters react.
“We expect the town will be painted red,” Garber said. “The opposite of love isn’t hate; it’s indifference. And part of the benefit of this is that people care … it doesn’t keep me up at night more than the other issues, but I would certainly be thinking about it if I were these guys.
“This is a good situation. They just need a better team.”
Yeah, that’s a pretty unambiguous sign that Toronto FC has fallen from a state of red-and-white grace in this town. Partly, it is the result of four years of what by all accounts was pretty terrible soccer; partly, it was the inevitable machinations of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, which has price-pointed the cost of viewing the Leafs, Raptors, and most recently FC as relentlessly as water, finding its level.
And so when Don Garber, the voluble commissioner of Major League Soccer, spent a couple hours with the local press yesterday, the bulk of the time was spent discussing the fortunes, both literally and figuratively, of the local boys. Which is never the best sign of how things are going.
“When I think about what we have achieved here with Toronto FC, it is global credibility,” Garber said over lunch at RealSports Bar and Grill downtown. “This is a successful market … If we’re going to talk about a World Cup bid, if we’re going to talk about why America’s a soccer nation, we’re showing pictures of BMO Field. We’re talking about the passion of the Red Patch Boys.
“So I fully understand and I sympathize with the fans that are frustrated with the lack of success, and I know [MLSE] cares about that.”
Garber’s rather selective interpretation of geography aside, fans tend not to be mollified when they are told that MLSE cares. But despite the enthusiastic recent fan unrest over price increases and continued ineptitude — not to be confused with the contractual unrest of star striker Dwayne De Rosario, who last month mimed signing a cheque after scoring yet another goal in yet another loss, providing what was probably the most memorable and appropriate on-pitch moment of the season — the commish made it abundantly clear that he considers Toronto FC a raging success in almost every way.
“MLS is where it is today because of the success of Toronto FC,” Garber said. “I have absolutely no doubt that we would not be in the position we are, which is a respected and credible, fastest-growing professional sports league in the world without the success of TFC. This is not an easy business. You’ve got to make things work in the boardroom, you’ve got to make things work on the field. And it’s evolutionary process to find out how to make both sides work.
“Season tickets, and branding, and promotion, and away-game travel, and television deals, and how they’re managing their stores, and their Internet, and relationships with supporters — these guys are the leaders in that. They wrote the book. They created the supporter culture in Major League Soccer.”
Indeed, Toronto FC has been such a business and operational success that other teams are being encouraged to follow the blueprint, and several have come to Toronto for a first-hand glimpse of how to run your business.
Presumably, though, they don’t spend a lot of time in the general manager’s office. The club has not made the playoffs in four years of existence — last season’s campaign to do so ended when FC bowed out with an utterly humiliating 5-0 loss to New York, then the worst team in the league — and if not for the fire of the supporters, the games would be close to worthless.
And that’s the problem with Toronto FC. MLSE got so many things right — the intimate stadium, the uniforms, the merchandise, the game experience, the sell — and then populated the actual team with empty uniforms, or near enough.
In hindsight, it feels inevitable. MLSE is a brilliant business, and a lousy sports owner. Their teams have failed again and again, habitually. For the Leafs and Raptors, the answer was to hire a celebrity GM — Brian Burke and Bryan Colangelo, respectively. Unless Sir Alex Ferguson is interested in a rather comprehensive lifestyle change, that’s not an option in such a young league.
“[Major League Soccer] doesn’t have decades and decades, and hundreds if not thousands of people that grew up in the management and administration of the sport,” Garber said. “So we don’t have a long list of Brian Burkes who you can just call and say, ‘You’ve done it in some many different places, let’s have you come here … and help us fix the hockey team.’
“We can’t come up with a list of 10 people that we can give to the teams and say, ‘These are guys who have had a lot of success for the last 20 years; go hire them.’”
And so Toronto FC has floundered away, sapping the love of their supporters, who at least have it in them to actively protest, unlike fans of some other teams that one could name. In response, the club issued a letter of apology, and reduced the season-ticket commitment by two games.
The man in charge, MLSE executive vice-president and chief operating officer Tom Anselmi, has already attended three or four spirited town halls with supporters, and will attend several more. When the MLS Cup comes here in November, with an ESPN-dictated start time of 9 p.m. on what could be a very cold night indeed, we’ll see how those same supporters react.
“We expect the town will be painted red,” Garber said. “The opposite of love isn’t hate; it’s indifference. And part of the benefit of this is that people care … it doesn’t keep me up at night more than the other issues, but I would certainly be thinking about it if I were these guys.
“This is a good situation. They just need a better team.”