Sage, Thanks for the promotion of the Islanders TheOffside Blog.

I’m puzzled about the Miami FC thing, though. In particular, this:

It seems a lot of people may have been holding off buying tickets knowing there was an MLS team coming to town in a year. Now that they know there will be no MLS, will they get behind their USL team and purchase tickets?

The thing is, I don’t get it. If I’m a soccer fan, enough of one to buy season tickets at least, why on earth would I skip this USL season just because there might be an MLS team next season? For that matter, knowing that any future team would probably be based on this club (ala the Sounders: same name, same colors, some of the players, etc.), it seems like the additional publicity would tend to draw *more* fans.

Lastly, MLS in Miami wouldn’t have happened “in a year” anyway, right? It’s Philadelphia next year, in 2010, and Vancouver (probably) the year after that, in 2011. So maybe that could have been Miami instead of Vancouver in 2011, or else their expansion would have been way out in 2012 or beyond. In any case, I don’t see how that would affect 2009 season ticket sales all that much.

What about other sports? Do people hold off from buying Yankees or Steelers season tickets because of some drastic change that might happen 2 years from now? Sure it’s a different situation, but my point is: do ticket-buying fans really look beyond the current season?

I guess what I’m saying is, I think the specter of MLS expansion is a bit of red herring for these failing USL clubs, first Atlanta, now Miami, to hide behind. I don’t mean to seem ungenerous, I wish these clubs were thriving. But at least I hope they’re honest enough about what’s going on that maybe we can learn from what happened to them.

Steve
Montreal

Sage- Excellent report. Thanks much for that information. I think I’ve been to your sight previously but I will now bookmark it as part of my daily USL check sites along with the others you mention.

I am so impressed with Colin Clark and you have to believe that Dallas made a huge mistake in firing him several years ago. Also, after the last two CONCACAF games, how important does the addition of Addlery look? He was an impact player in both of the last two games.

I try to write some article in english, bt you got to understand that down here in the Island, many people refuse to read in english for one reason or another… well too bad for them for staying ignorant. But anyways, you can also check out http://www.hiapr.org/ which is an fan forum for the Islanders….

Any ways… let me know if you need any helpt finding info in english of current Islanders news:

Colin Clarke just signed a 3 year contract
Addlery was transfered from the Whitecaps to the Islanders
Frazer transfered in from the Miami Blues
Kyle Veris was signed by the Islanders- Used to play for LA
Martin Nunhez transfered in from the Railhawks.

Thats basically it…