The New York Cosmos made waves Thursday with the announcement that they will be participating in NASL next season, the first tangible sign that the franchise will actually field a team after being reborn in 2010 following a nearly 30-year hiatus.
Based on the Cosmos' statement from earlier in the day, the club maintains its sights on one day becoming an MLS expansion franchise, and MLS commissioner Don Garber addressed the Cosmos' integration into NASL and future aspirations, issuing the following statement:
"We welcome the Cosmos' entrance to the NASL," Garber said. "Having a vibrant second division is important to the overall growth and popularity of soccer in North America, and we are pleased to see the NASL add a new franchise.
"Major League Soccer remains committed to securing an expansion team in New York City. The current focus is on exploring a stadium site, but we will continue discussions with several potential ownership groups, including the Cosmos, about the possibility of joining the efforts to bring a second MLS team to New York."
What do you make of Garber's comments?
Share your thoughts below.
+1 to Dimidri. +1 to Tony. +1 to d3.
Either live in NYC, or just have a minimal understanding how things like marketing, business, branding, etc. work.
exactly. attendance is looking alright this season and they have owners now that are actually attempting to market the team. The USOC game against the galaxy sold out the entire stadium in under 4 hours. They rushed to open a new stand behind one of the goals and that was full within 2. They’ve got a massive potential fanbase, multiple colleges within travelling distance (college kids like soccer), and a beautiful stadium already thats expanding next season. Florida has already tried and failed twice with teams there, and Atlanta cant even keep their NASL team running.
Mr Soler….despite the relative excitement (and improved attendance over the actual 10k per game last year) this year, NYRB continues to be the most underperforming team in MLS over the past 2 years in terms of wins to team resources/salary. No team has done less with the player talent and cash available when Soler/Backe started this experiment. Kudos to the players that are now performing well this year despite the management disfunction…..but let’s be serious – this team has 4x the budget of every other team except LA, and a guy named Henry, and they are barely in the top quarter of all teams half way through their best season under Backe. Thank God for a freak accident like Ryan Meara…to overcome an otherwise IK Start II situation….
I can’t wait until all you yahoos are proven wrong about a 2nd NY team. Take your yankee-hate out of it and your arguments dont hold up. I guess you just have to live here to ‘get it’. MLS does. Cosmos ownership does. That’s enough to plow ahead.
And southeast is silent back because there’s no fans to retort.
That’s makes too much sense. You’ll be thoroughly flamed.
Wouldn’t work. Next.
Mr. Chicken, meet Mr. Egg.
A nonsensical argument, although it does grab attention.
A better way to think about it is with 2 NY teams, how much more money and even better talent will be drawn to our league? Sorry to be so pragmatic.
So one team in the area draws poorly and the solution is to stick another team at the other end of the NYC region and that will help? Not sure how.
And sure, the Cosmos name might have “tradition” or whatever but the reason people went to Cosmos games (to the extent they did) was because they had big name stars. Not sure this team is going to get high caliber players.
relax, the market is there, both teams is actually benefit from this!
Personally I think MLS should look at the Railhawks and slap a stadium down in the middle of the research triangle area in NC and live off the “Carolina” branding a la the Carolina Panthers. Both the USMNT and USWNT have used the facilities at Cary over the years and that is a big soccer friendly area, as well as a culturally diverse melting pot. If the NHL can make NC a viable market for hockey, then the MLS should love their chances their. Besides, it is a little discouraging as a soccer fan in the south to see MLS ignore an entire geographical region to put multiple teams in more than one city!
I honestly think everyone who believes there is a market for this team is sorely mistaken. You’ll have two poorly supported franchises out in their respective suburbs.
I read this as Garber saying “FU southeast”.
facepalm
Good one, Deuce…
There is nothing that says all things Cosmos must forever live in the days of hippies and disco. Name recognition and community continuity has been very important in the sense of history in San Jose, Portland, Seattle and Vancouver – even if the current iterations have precious little to do with their predascessors. I am a Timbers fan (saw them play cosmos a couple times even …. Back in the day) and also a TrailBlazers fan, and even though the later is the same franchise with actual continuity, the current iteration bears little resemblance to the championship team of 35 years ago, or even the good teams of 20 years ago other than the colors and name on the front of the shirt. Cosmos2.0 would be the same …. perhaps even a disappointment to some who would expect them to sign Messi, C. Ronaldo, Xavi, Neymar and still have the money for better than average players everywhere else.
Correct. Can’t argue the point from experience, though most of us who don’t live there assume some fans of RBNY, the Jets and Giants come from the city.
Honestly, maybe NJ alone can offer enough support to sustain RB, but those of us who don’t live there but want to see this league grow and succeed long term just don’t want to see another “second fiddle” team as so often happens in American cities with 2 teams (clippers, islanders, nets, etc.). As I said above, NASL for a few years to get things moving and establish (reestablish?) a separate but loyal fan base of 30-50k may ultimately allay all of those fears.
it is super “serial” that everyone advocating for NY 2 is as redundant as the team will be.
LOL! Nice. Posting from your phone sucks sometimes.
not a bad idea!
ditto…
Plenty of clubs have made the leap from the second division to MLS recently, and I would love to see a storied franchise like the Cosmos follow suit.
As long as they can rack up wins in the NASL and put on a good show in the Open Cup, fill the stands, get the Borough Boys behind them, and pay the price of admission to MLS, I’m for it.
That being said, may the best teams win slot #20-24, and may the also runs create a “vibrant second division” that will someday inspire pro/rel.
kinda duplicated and unnecessary, just like a second new york team.
It doesn’t. Only Jersey and New Yorkers understand the situation with the Red Bulls. New Yorkers don’t cross the Hudson to see the Red Bulls. But someone in Manhattan, the Bronx, or Brooklyn would go to Queens to see a proper New York team. I hate how everyone opens their mouths and probably have never had a commute from Jersey to New York.
With current MLS structure, the prospect of cosmos in MLS really only threatens RBNY. I think the winning something by Cosmos really need be a large, stable and separate fan base. NYC has more than enough population for that. While I am scarred for life over the (old) NASL Cosmos role in concentrating talent and resources and pulling the league under with it’s massive weight, MLS cosmos would be necessarily different.
They don’t need to win (new) NASL trophies to prove they belong in MLS, they do need a viable plan with support that doesn’t turn RBNY into another NE or Chivas in the process. Playing a few years in NASL and building that may just be the smartest route.
The Cosmos are a pretty ready-made franchise and brand with some considerable support/credibility in Eric Cantona, Pele and Cobi Jones. In my mind, hands down this should be the 2nd franchise in NY, once the business of securing a stadium site and making a move towards construction. Can’t buy history, can’t buy tradition, and the Cosmos have it in spades.
And I don’t get why anyone cares about NYC Chivas or whatever it will be called. It’s apathy not hate. Another poorly supported NY team is just no big deal to fans in the rest of the country.
JOB in the midfield would be good right now.
yo ives, was gooch in the house?
etc.
I’m s-o-o-o-o tired of Cosmos-mania. That was then (and I was there and I loved it) and this is now. The Cosmos brand will have no long-term effect on the success of any second MLS franchise in NYC.
That said, I still think a second team in NYC is a bad idea. It will undercut RBNY. I can’t believe RBNY’s ownership would welcome a second team. Awarding a huge part of its potential market to a different team is a heck of a way to reward an owner that sank millions into a new stadium and roster,
This is almost as exciting as going for a drive with Charlie Davies!
Haha.
Precisely.
“Having a vibrant second division is important to the overall growth and popularity of soccer in North America, and we are pleased to see the NASL add a new franchise.
Implication to a possibility of having a promotion/relegation system in the future? That itself would be a BOON to the economy of American soccer as small town soccer clubs tend to have much stronger fan loyalty.
Don with a cool and coy response…
i really don’t see how those 2 are related..?
should Colorado and Salt Lake have 2 teams because we have won championships or maybe 2 teams in Seattle because they have produced a lot of results?
i think a better argument is NY should not have a second team until the NASL Cosmos win something; USOC or NASL title.
Why doesn’t Red Bull team up with the Cosmos ownership group, rename the team, and get this over with?
This isn’t exactly the best news attendance-wise for the Red Bulls…they would be much better off with an MLS-Cosmos team to compete with. Now they just have the Cosmos taking away a few tickets that would have gone to RBNY, without any on-field rivalry…
++++
why would anyone want to rally behind an energy drink corporation’s marketing gimmick ?
I just don’t understand the hating on NY2, unless you are obviously from San Antonio, Orlando, etc. It makes too much sense.
There are a finite amount of cities that can pull true DP caliber stars, NY is obviously one of them. And that’s cool and all that you don’t want MLS to be a ‘retirement league’ but a) those ‘retirees’ still massively improve play assuming competent management, b) even as MLS steadily improves and players from Europe are more and more willing to come here earlier in their career, if they are going to live on the other side of the world, forgo the possibility of playing in the CL and still risk their own reputations to some degree, they want to do it in NY or LA.
The benefits for youth development of having a big time team with a big time brand in the biggest city in the US are numerous.
Geographic differentiation+lots of money being spent guarantee both NYRB and the cosmos would easily do well, people seem to forget NYRB still averaged almost 20k last year despite a bad team with Rafa Marquez in the most saturated market in the US. If NYRB is rolling out a winning squad of guys like Meara+Henry, etc. and the Cosmos are doing the same thing, attendance will be great.
Moreover, this helps out every MLs team-big DP’s draw higher away crowds, third DP fees go to all the other teams, etc.
I just don’t understand the hating on NY2, unless you are obviously from San Antonio, Orlando, etc. It makes too much sense.
There are a finite amount of cities that can pull true DP caliber stars, NY is obviously one of them. And that’s cool and all that you don’t want MLS to be a ‘retirement league’ but a) those ‘retirees’ still massively improve play assuming competent management, b) even as MLS steadily improves and players from Europe are more and more willing to come here earlier in their career, if they are going to live on the other side of the world, forgo the possibility of playing in the CL and still risk their own reputations to some degree, they want to do it in NY or LA.
The benefits for youth development of having a big time team with a big time brand in the biggest city in the US are numerous.
Geographic differentiation+lots of money being spent guarantee both NYRB and the cosmos would easily do well, people seem to forget NYRB still averaged almost 20k last year despite a bad team with Rafa Marquez in the most saturated market in the US. If NYRB is rolling out a winning squad of guys like Meara+Henry, etc. and the Cosmos are doing the same thing, attendance will be great.
Moreover, this helps out every MLs team-big DP’s draw higher away crowds, third DP fees go to all the other teams, etc.
Well at least the team that the Red Bulls have always been second fiddle to actually exists now…
Garber haytes the Cosmos brand, as well as success, intellagent women and mecksicans.
OOPS!
RBNY is currently in its most successful first half a season ever. From attendance standpoint as well in a time when they have over $10 mil in players hurt. They are more on track for a title than they have ever been. That may not mean that NY Islanders FC is a genius idea but I fail to see why reminding everyone of past failures in a time when success In other means is just classless.
RBNY is currently in its most successful first half a season ever. From attendance standpoint as well in a time when they have over $10 mil in players hurt. They are more on track for a title than they have ever been. That may not mean that NY Islanders FC is a genius idea but I fail to see why reminding everyone of past failures in a time when success In other means is just classless.
Love the response. It will be weird to test the market of a “NYC proper” team in MLS when the team doesn’t play in NYC (or any place close to transport). (Jack Bell reported that they’ll play at Hofstra – the Cosmos’ original turf before Randall’s Island, Yankee Stadium and Giants Stadium).
The 20th MLS team should be between Atlanta, St. Louis or a Florida team.
No 2nd team in MLS. New York needs to rally behind the Red Bulls
Wow… NASL gear in Lillywhite’s at Picadilly Circus would be a real coup for the 2nd tier league! 😉
When New York’s current team wins anything, it *might* be time to talk about a second MLS team in New York–not before.