Everyone in soccer knows what kind of effect Drew Carey has had on soccer in Seattle, and there was a big time story in the LA Times this weekend that gives some pretty good insight to how the whole ownership stake came about. After the jump there are a few excerpts and a link to the whole story.
from LA Times:
Carey, schlumpy son of middle America, has become a soccer fiend and one of the game’s most ardent evangelists. He wants fans to share his goal of making soccer deeply popular in this country. He wants pro sports teams in the United States, particularly ones like the soulless L.A. Clippers, to replicate the Seattle Sounders’ tight, almost brotherly connection with fans.
Impossible, right? Team owners aren’t known for welcoming change. To think a trend will develop, says David Carter, executive director of the USC Sports Business Institute, “is simply wishful thinking.”
Soccer is hardly fertile ground for such a movement. This is Major League Soccer’s 14th season, yet ESPN this year scuttled its weekly “Primetime Thursday” showcase game because of meager ratings.
The Sounders, though, lead the MLS in attendance, having sold out the 29,000-seat Qwest Field for all 15 of their home games, right up to the final match in October that ends the 30-game season.
cont.
It was serendipity that led Carey to became a soccer fiend. As a teen, he knew of the North American Soccer League, which included the first incarnation of the Seattle Sounders. He also recalls adults saying that no one would get hurt playing the game, predicting it would be the next big thing. It wasn’t. It did have a superstar, though: Brazil’s Pele.
When the NASL folded in 1984, Carey felt no loss.
“It was just that league that had Pele and then went down in a heap,” he says. “That’s all I ever thought . . . that soccer in America equals failure.”
By 2004, the comedian had his own fame thanks to his nine-year run on ABC with the sitcom “The Drew Carey Show.” He took some time off and returned to a childhood love: sports photography.
To practice, he chose soccer because the sport received so little attention. He could go to a U.S. national team game, sit on the sidelines with his camera and nobody would notice. He did well enough that a wire service hired him to shoot the 2006 World Cup. That changed his life.
“A complete revelation,” Carey says of World Cup play. “The sport all the parents tried to sell as not competitive . . . it was violent! Nothing but elbows and forearms. . . . Not competitive? Not tough? That’s like if someone were going to tell you, ‘Hey, you’re going to make your living going up for rebounds against LeBron James, but don’t worry, it’s not going to be very physical. It’s not going to hurt.’ I was hooked!”
He soon hungered to own an MLS franchise and arranged a meeting with Joe Roth, the former chairman of Disney Studios who was majority owner of the soon-to-be-launched Sounders.
cont.
It was August 2007, and Carey arrived at the introductory lunch with a heavily bandaged left wrist, the result of a prop going haywire that morning during taping of “The Price Is Right.” Roth wanted to take him to a hospital. Carey was focused on soccer.
“Joe, forget the wrist, I want to own part of the team,” Carey recalls saying. “But, oh, by the way, there are two conditions.”
Condition No. 1: A marching band. Carey was in his high school’s band and wanted to re-create that experience. Condition No. 2: Involve fans in a way no other team in America had. Carey trotted out prominent European examples: soccer juggernauts Barcelona and Real Madrid. Both hold elections to fill the singularly powerful role of team president. A pricey bond must be secured to seek the office, but anyone can run. Candidates campaign, often promising to sign the best players, and season ticket holders vote.
Roth remembers squirming, and Carey pressing for compromise. Reserve the right to hire the general manager, the comedian said. But every four years let the fans vote on whether the GM should stay. If there’s enough anger, fans can call for a no-confidence vote once a year.
“The fans can do your dirty work for you,” Carey argued.
Roth was sold, and Carey was in. The team has the band, of course, and all it takes to oust the GM is a majority vote by the 22,000 season ticket holders and fans who pay $125 to join a booster group.
Carey, 51, won’t divulge his ownership stake other than to say it’s large enough to get his voice heard but not large enough to have a final say. Most important to him, his vision is becoming real. Even better, it dovetails with Roth’s.
pretty good stuff, clink on this link for the entire text at LA Times
images via latimes, zimbio, and daylife
