Imagine supporting a team where four years of mediocrity means that the fans fire the general manager. Imagine supporting a team where the voice of fans is invited to sit on the team’s advisory board? Imagine supporting a team that has such a resonance with the community that it has sold over 16,000 season tickets with less advertising than a concert at the Showbox?
This isn’t a dream world. This is Sounders FC where season ticket holders, and others who so choose, are Members of the team. Members can select from amongst themselves individuals to sit on the Council and from the Council the team will select five members to sit on the Advisory Board.
I am Dave Clark. You may recall my work at Inside The Park, here at Prospect Insider, at Fanhome.com, baseballboards.com or as a commenter on a number of other Seattle Mariners blogs.
Currently I am running to be on the Membership Council so I can share my passion for the sport of soccer and help move the team in a direction that rewards long-term membership and works toward capturing the inefficiencies of the opponents’ and to fill the entirety of Qwest Field with Rave Green.
My one simple goal is for the most recent Sounders team to lift a championship banner, and to do so in its first few years in the top level soccer league in our country, and to support their vast efforts to share the sport of soccer with the Seattle area. The world’s game has in fact come to the Emerald City, and with Seattle’s greatest play-by-play voice, Kevin Calabro, bringing you the action you will see victories, Shields and Cups.
I am Dave Clark, and I approve this message.
Accept nothing less than victory
To vote for Dave Clark and help get the Seattle sports blogosphere properly represented in Seattle sports, click here. Seriously, the council’s advisory board can fire the general manager. I’d suggest voting, if for no other reason than to support the firing of bad gm’s in this town.
Click here to become a season ticket holder (as low as $288 for 18 games)
Click here to become a member without season tickets.
And for those who actually want to own an actual, profession soccer club, might I suggest myfootballclub.co.uk
Join up, and be an owner of Ebbsfleet United FC - a community of 20,000 owners who jointly purchased the club and make all the decisions.
I’m ready for some futbol action! Calabro calling the games is fantastic. I can’t wait to see what he comes up with.
What does the FC stand for?
Football Club?
That’s exactly it, Futbol Club, is the way it’s spelled overseas I believe, but yeah.
Man, I hate soccer.
LMAO.
But click on the vote link and vote for Dave.
It’d be a greatly-deserved thing for Dave to be a member.
He’s as soccer savvy as there is and his passion for it rivals ours for baseball.
Vote!
I have to agree Jason. I tried to get into the World Cup before but watching Soccer on TV is just so damn boring.
Yes, FC stand for Football Club.
Some other teams use other abbreviatiosn:
SC - Sport(s) Club
AFC - Association Football Club, in reference to the official name of the sport - “Association Football”
CF - same as FC only Spanish Club de Futbol
Soccer just isn’t for me, just like the NBA isn’t for me anymore, only for vastly different reasons.
I also dislike Hockey.
Oh, and Consider this your Sounders FC Open Thread.
And Willmore, Ebbsfleet is roughly equivelent to an Independent League team as it is in the Conference, basically semi-pro.
Whereas Sounders FC will be right here in the USA playing in US/Canada’s top division. The current squad has beaten four MLS teams in the past two years, as well as Preston North End. This team is about winning from the foundation.
How would they do against Manchester United?
“If you’re not a Manc, you’re a WANK!”
ManU fans are the most obnoxious, alcoholic, uneducated people in the world. Not that there’s anything wrong with that …
Oh, and yeah, Ebbsfleet is in the Conference and technically would be considered Semi-Pro, but the setup there is quite professional. Not to mention it will be playing football, not soccer :-)
But yeah, I’m still mulling purchasing season tickets for the Sounders. At the very least, I’ll go to a few games a season.
I’m excited to have another major league team in town. Never been much into soccer, although it was the sport I played the longest. I’d definitely support ya, Dave, in the campaign — can’t think of a better guy to take on the challenge! I think the links need a little work, though.
Hey, wow! Seats that include “stadium snacks and non-alcoholic drinks” for $24/game? That’s not terrible. Too bad most of them are sold out :-)
Yet another reason why I wish I lived closer to Seattle. But it’d be fun to make it up to a game or two to check it out.
You can’t really come on a Mariners blog and tell us Kevin Calabro is Seattle’s greatest play by play voice :P
How would they do against Manchester United?
The last time they played the Sounders beat ManUre 3-1.
It was 3-0 and that was 1982, when even teams like Wimbledon could win the F.A. Cup.
…and when even teams like Wimbledon existed!
Willmore, you know that soccer is what Brits called As[soc]iation Football so it wouldn’t be confused with Rugby Football?
There’s good value in the 20$ seats out on the wings.
Paul, those seats at the North End have availablity.
They did it for a short while, and it was never exclusively soccer, or for that matter an official name, it was more of a slang thing. Football was always the generally accepted term for football and rugby was always known as rugby, whether union or league rules.
The excuse of calling the game soccer in America because the Brits started it is a relatively new thing and it’s just that - an excuse. Americans took rugby football, but instead of calling the game rugby or American rules football, or whatever else they could have called it, they called in simply football. Really, that’s the sort of naming scheme that gave us “New York” and “New Jersey”.
Spot on Willmore.
In Britain, if someone refers to the beautiful game as soccer rather than football - they’re generally thought of as being rather naive and unknowledgeable. The kind of fan who supports Man Utd despite living in London, and can only name two or three of the United players.
I know that’s not the case with a North American calling it soccer - but it’s not the acceptable term over here.
dont really follow soccer that much, but what is goin to happen to the current sounders team? it was my understandin that they were the equivalent to a semi-pro team. are they moving?
Oh, I am not saying that soccer is currently accepted on the other side of the pond, just that is where the name originated.
baseballman, the current Sounders team is an interesting situation. Sounders FC (of MLS) has the right to sign every player on the current team. One of the minority owners is doing everything in his power to have a new/old USL-1 team across the Puget Sound over in Kitsap somewhere.
Sneekes, do you have a club over there? I paid a lot of attention to Fulham USA last year, but will probably follow Tottenham more in this upcoming season.
Hey all, KJR-AM is doing an online soccer show now called Seattle Soccer Show. Give it a listen they know what they are doing.
so are any players on the current sounders team good enough to play in the MLS?
any chance seattle can get landon donovan? lol, but seriously where will be gettin our players from?
baseballman,
The Sounders already signed one player - the current Sounders striker Sebastian Le Toux, he’s french. The management has said that they will be scouting nationally and internationally to fill the roster. No, there is no chance that Landon Donovan will be a Sounder.
In fact, it’s unlikely there will be many big-name players on the team. MLS has a 2-million dollar salary cap, with one exception per team allowing a player to have a salary higher than that. The antiquated system used by MLS limits its development, but may also keep the league afloat in an unfavorable football market - North America … north of San Diego. However, with the very favorable sponsorship with Xbox, the team will be one of the more financially viable teams in the league, thus allowing more money for coaching, scouting, development, etc. etc.
The roster will not be hammered out until the MLS off-season, so be patient. Regardless of the squad, it is exciting to have football in Seattle.
The current Sounders face off against their Open Cup SemiFinal opponent, but in a league match tonight. Several current Sounders are likely to be developmental signees with Sounders FC and a few will see regular time.
Willmore, the salary cap in MLS isn’t as hard as you make it out as there are some odd rules that allow you to bypass the 400ish thousand max single player contract as well as the 2.25M$ full roster (only applies to senior team’s 18 players). One is by paying your developmental players more than the 12,900 that is typical. Another is by using allocation monies as a signing bonus. Third is by using the team’s take of a transfer as a single year bonus. Plus team’s can trade for two Designated Player slots (which is why the Galaxy have Beckham and Ruiz, Donovan counts as an allocation as he’s on the National Team). So let’s say that Keller makes an appearence with the National Team before he signs with Sounders FC, he would then fall under allocation rules and could be paid near DP funds. The team could then sign a Designated Player (most often linked with Sounders FC is Thierry Henry - seriously). After that Sounders FC could trade a few of their SuperDraft picks for another Designated Player (let’s say Adu - also linked to Sounders FC previous to his loan to Monaco). That’s three players who would only account for 1.2 M$ of Cap space but would be getting paid about 12M$.
There is also strong evidence that Nate Jacqua of the Dynamo and USMNT will be acquired by the Sounders after the current season. With Jacqua at Foward as well as the hypothetical Henry that would bump LeToux to a Winger, which is probably a better spot for him in MLS.
From the Kansas City filing with the city we also know that the total costs of a single MLS team are between 8-12 Million dollars. The Sounders have already made over twice that money from their announced sponsorships and season tickets sold. They have plenty of cash to finangle the Byzantine Rules of MLS contracts and they have an ownership group that is willing to do so. This is evidenced by their ability to negotiate that they can keep as many players from the current team as they want.
Of those current players Chris Eylandar, Michael Rodriguez, Nik Besagno (Generation Addidas player, so cap exempt) are the most likely to take the step up. Their are six other players that seem likely as well. Many of the current Sounders were borderline MLS players already, but as a team they have competed against MLS clubs quite well.
Yes David, it’s Everton. Had a fair few USA players ourselves: Joe Max Moore, Brian McBride (a really classy guy), and current keeper Tim Howard.
Everton have just flown out to the States to play Chicago Fire and Colorado. Should be interesting as we’re the only Premiership side not to have bought a player this summer - there’s all sorts of cash-flow and new stadium shenanagins going on!
Tottenham should be really good this year - but then I thought that last summer and they turned out to be quite bad.
I discovered Tottenham with a friend from there who invited me to watch the Carling Cup Final, which was also the last time the Spurs played well in 2008. ;)
I’ve followed McBride for some time, as he went to SLU with my best friend from my Army days. He’s back to MLS, this time playing for the Chicago Fire.
Sounders (USL-1) beat the table leaders at home 1-nil with Sounders FC (MLS) Forward LeToux scoring the lone goal. This moves the Sounders up to 4th in the battle for the Commissioners Cup. It was also a preview of the US Open Cup SemiFinal.
There are only 8 more regular season games with six at home (the final of which will be at Qwest against the Whitecaps).
No word yet on who will host the Finals of the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup. Seattle is making a significant bid, they are also arguing that if the USL Sounders win the Open Cup that Sounders FC should get the slot for the CONCACAF Champions League. That would mean that in the first year in MLS the team already has the opportunity to go to the World Club Cup in the UAE to face the best from Europe and South America.
Depending on the DP that is brought on Sounders FC might get the invite to the PanPacific Cup preseason tournament.
Saying that Tottenham will be good this year is relative. In the EPL good for a team like Tottenham is 5th place, and hoping one of the big 4 have a monumental collapse for a chance at the last Champions League slot.
I’m a Liverpool fan myself, and I will say that while they are still far from Chelsea and ManU, there is no way they, or Arsenal will decline significantly enough to make the league competitive for someone else.
Really, the last time a team outside of the Big 4 was in the top 2 of the EPL was over 10 years ago.
What interests me is how someone becomes a fan of a team this late in life? All of my team affiliations were rooted in childhood. A few years ago I realized that I had no real interest in the Seria A or La Liga, and I followed no team there. I tried to find a team to like in both leagues - Barcelona and AC Milan, primarily because I liked their style of play and players at the time. But it didn’t stick. I couldn’t find myself caring for the team and if it won or lost. I’ve been a fan of Liverpool since I was 10-11, a fan of my home team since I was 7-8. I’ve been a fan of the Seahawks, Mariners and Sonics since I was 14, when I moved to Seattle from abroad.
How do you find a spot in your heart for a team without having that childhood connection that bonds you to the team for life? How do you make yourself care for a team as a fan?
You don’t really find a spot in your heart for a team unless you follow them for years, and I would say that the number of years that you need to follow them increases as one ages.
I grew up with the NASL Sounders, even if only in the background, but have never adopted a team on the long term basis. I followed Newcastle when I lived in Newcastle WA. Fulham because of the amount of Americans on the roster and Tottenham because I watched them win a cup with a bunch of their crazy fans.
What I look forward to here in Seattle is to develop the sport and the culture of success with a fan friendly attitude that leads to a pack Qwest Field and stars on the Crest.
USL Sounders get Ciaran O’Brien on loan from Colorado Rapids and sign Kevin Forrest (former PAC-10 PoY at F). Forrest’s MLS rights are now in tug of war between Colorado and Sounders FC, as both can claim a legit claim.
Ciaran’s older brother already plays for Seattle.
Though this is a loan, I would expect when the season is over there will be a deal. He’s a CAM, or straight CM depending on formation needs and has a reasonable salary.
Current Sounders Win 2-1 at Puerto Rico last night to move to 4th.
Also, the first Member of the Council is now known.
http://soundersfc.com/article.aspx?id=1926
It isn’t me.
quick throughballs here
Seattle is at Portland tonight. You can watch it live on FSC (401 if Comcast). This league match could put the PDX out of the running for a playoff spot. Also could end Portland’s attempt at the Cascadia Cup.
The US Open Cup SemiFinal is Aug 12th. If Seattle wins they will be HOSTING the Final, against either New England (SuperLiga Champs) or DC United. Winner of the Open Cup gets a slot to the CONCACAF Champions League.
I planted some ideas with the organization today about ways to market the game WHEN the Sounders beat Charleston.