Christian Araos

Staff Writer

The New York Cosmos will not be joining MLS. We knew both sides broke up and went their separate ways but MLS Commissioner Don Garber’s comments to the AP Sports Editors may be the final nail in the coffin.

So where does that leave the New York Cosmos? In short, in control of their destiny.

It is very easy for the Cosmos as an organization and a fanbase to play the victim in this. It is also very easy for both to want to act out of spite. While this does sound like a breakup column, that’s exactly what this scene is. MLS has already moved on. Now the Cosmos have to do the same.

Unfortunately for the Cosmos, that requires them to recognize their place — and stay in it for the moment.

The Cosmos’ place is the NASL, a league that is going to have to come to grips with its second division status sooner rather than later. That is a very tough realization to come to because it can present an existential threat to the league. the relationship between American sports fans and minor league teams is iffy at best, but there is no other option for the league and the Cosmos at the present moment. Pro/rel’s chances of happening are remote at best (let’s leave it at that) and US Soccer will not suddenly give the NASL a first division sanction for the main reason that US Soccer and MLS are in a mutual relationship that has greatly benefited both.

Prime example? The creation of Soccer United Marketing.

Of course, the Cosmos should not be absolved of blame in this situation as well. There is no definitive, objective look on what happened in the negotiations between them and MLS. However, when negotiations fail, the narrative from one side — usually the one with more to gain than the other — is that they are in a victim-oppressor situation.

That narrative had more bearing to it during Gilded Age; not when it is multimillionaires facing multimillionaires in a board room. Instead of formulating anachronistic narratives or throwing more competition rhetoric into the news cycle, the Cosmos have to move on.

The first way they do that is to further develop their team — not their brand. The growth of the Cosmos’ brand is now severely limited given their second division status, defined by the lack of national media coverage and overall national awareness. That can be a blessing in disguise if the Cosmos are smart enough to stop leveraging their growth on the power of their brand. After all, the brand was one of the sticking points that the team and MLS could not agree to resulting in our current situation. As David Wangerin’s book Soccer in the Football World explains, the only money MLS keeps to itself is national sponsorship, television revenues and 30% of gate receipts. It is arguably a fair deal for prospective owners given the expansion that is going on, but not for the Cosmos, whose primary concern was the revenue their brand would generate on its own.

The Cosmos need to build themselves into a club that does not have to consistently spend money on improving themselves even though the rhetoric coming from the front office and the fans is to spend more to compete with MLS teams — particularly in the US Open Cup. What are the tangible rewards to winning the Open Cup for the Cosmos? $250,000 in prize money and, assuming the USOC winner will continue to compete in the CONCACAF Champions League, at least two home games.

The average attendance for the Cosmos in 2013 was 6859. Those are weekend gates. We will make two optimistic statements and say the Cosmos get to play at Shuart Stadium for those matches and that they would get that attendance figure for both Champions League games. So that figure is multiplied by the average ticket price of a Cosmos game, $37, (although that is inflated by the price of club seats) the projected ticket revenue for the Cosmos is $253,783. Double that, and add the $250,000, and the Cosmos could make an estimated $750,000 by participating in the Champions League.

If the Cosmos can get that revenue, they should run around Hofstra’s campus leaping for joy.

It has to be acknowledged that the two statements are truly optimistic since there is a very distinct possibility that the Cosmos would have to play their Champions League games at Belson Stadium on the campus of St. John’s University, which can seat 5,000 people at most. According to sources, Hofstra University is not leaning towards making its stadium available to the Cosmos for those fixtures, which could take place midweek during the Fall Semester. It would then be a similar concern for St. John’s, who would also have to take the needs of its soccer teams and students as a priority before allowing the Cosmos to play there.

It’s easier for them to do that now for the US Open Cup considering the fact that classes are not in session and that the college soccer season is not taking place.

That stadium trouble is one part of the ultimate reason why the Cosmos could be dooming themselves with their own rhetoric. Their rhetoric is intended to sell outsiders to the narrative that they can surpass all of MLS and Liga MX as ‘the best team in CONCACAF,’ but they literally do not have the money to put where their mouth is – as evidenced in the likely fact that the Cosmos would lose money if they competed in the tournament where they could actually try to surpass MLS and Liga MX.

The Cosmos operate at a loss, and the last thing you want to do when you are operating at a loss is to increase expenses; something that would have to be done in order to fulfill the organization’s goal. Additionally, and dangerously for the Cosmos, they do not have the revenue to match the expenses. The Cosmos’ only get $1 million in jersey sponsorship revenue from Emirates; lower than any other sponsorship deal MLS teams have. Also, the only MLS stadium smaller than Shuart Stadium is Buck Shaw Stadium, which the San Jose Earthquakes will move out of at the end of this year.

That’s where this could all end for the Cosmos. The stadium. It would be a great thing for New York soccer to have three soccer-specific-stadiums in the area, but it is not going to happen in the near future. If the Cosmos’ proposal is selected by the Empire State Development Corp., it is supposed to green light the team’s project. However, as has been seen with the political fiasco surrounding the New York Islanders, the Town of Hempstead will surely have it’s say in the process.

Divorce yourself from the Cosmos for a second and look at their standing in the New York sports scene from afar. They barely register. There is far more apathy towards the Cosmos amongst the residents of Nassau County and the Town of Hempstead than there was for the Islanders. That can be measured easily by attendance figures which would show the fact that the Cosmos have not sold out Shuart Stadium since their 2013 home opener — despite winning last year’s Soccer Bowl. Last Saturday’s game had the lowest attendance figures since the Cosmos began playing again. Simply put, the demand for the Cosmos is not at a point that justifies a new stadium. More importantly, the demand for the Cosmos is not at a point where the local residents support a new stadium, all talk of bi-partisan pandering aside.

The Cosmos need to make sure more of their money goes into themselves instead of Albany or Mineola. They can start by recommitting themselves to developing an academy. Only the New York Red Bulls have gone all-in on an academy that is more than just partnerships with various youth teams in the area. It’s the investment in infrastructure and coaching that establishes a pipeline of homegrown talent for the club at a much lower cost than that of a hopeful stadium to host the stars as they take on the likes of the Carolina RailHawks.

It is not unfeasible to suggest that the Cosmos move to further develop their club infrastructure as opposed to blindly entering a wild goose chase that would come from the political process of building large developments on Long Island. Also, a training center that would house the club and its youth teams could be built in Nassau County to establish roots. This is a club that puts the bill of their stadium at $200 million, they surely have the money to build a facility for, at most, a tenth of the cost of the stadium.

The Cosmos are off to a good start in this regard as they paid for a partial redevelopment of the Mitchel Athletic Complex for its use as a training facility. This involved some improvements to the Complex’s office space, locker room and soccer fields, which are open to the public afterwards (you have to pay a fee to the County to use it, but we’ll ignore that just to be nice).

While a good start, renovating a small part of public property and becoming its primary user is the Cosmos being nice enough to hold the door for a politician. Ultimately, the Cosmos will have to move out of Mitchel because they will need their own private space.

The talk of a new stadium and signing a slew of players sounds like the newly-single girl eating ice cream, complaining to her friends about ‘him’ or the newly-single guy getting drunk with his friends repeating the hook to a Junior M.A.F.I.A. song. The direction has to change because the talk and actions from the Cosmos right now is indulgence out of spite; something that never ends well.

In order to excel, the Cosmos need to develop themselves into a club, and need to do something they have never really done in either incarnation of the team: be realistic.

Empire XI

1. The New York Red Bulls picked up seven points in three crucial conference games and they can credit Bradley Wright-Phillips for his performance up front in place of the injured Tim Cahill. However, they can also credit a re-commitment to Head Coach Mike Petke’s ethos of direct, counterattacking football. Keep tactical philosophies like that in mind when you see people make comments like this about MLS coaching (ignore Alexi Lalas‘ input).

2. Remember when we thought Clint Dempsey’s move to the Seattle Sounders was on the verge of disaster? Remember when we thought Dempsey had ‘fallen off’ after an unsuccessful loan spell at Fulham? Yeah let’s all forget about that because the American captain is in top form at the right time for the US Men’s National Team.

3. Jose Mourinho is not a bus driver. He’s just the epitome of that term’s connotation, not its definition. A bus driver is a coach who just has his team drop deep and hope for the best against attacking sides. Mourinho employed perfect defensive tactics in Chelsea’s 2–0 win against Liverpool. His side was organized and compact and although Liverpool had chances, the majority of their chances came with a high degree of difficulty. That’s why we saw Steven Gerrard shoot so many times from outside the box and how Liverpool were forced to reduce their angle on shot attempts that either got blocked or forced Mark Schwarzer to make a relatively simple save.

4. As for Brendan Rodgers, he has a point in this postgame comment but while defensive football may be easier to coach, it’s about results. How you achieve said results ultimately does not matter because fans — for all their talk about wanting to be entertained — will come to see a winning product. A coach achieves a winning product by implementing his philosophy on a club. The complication of that philosophy ultimately does not matter as much as Rodgers would suggest.

5. It is not the most reliable way to determine this stuff but judging from a report and a tweet, it would be safe to say that New York City FC are above 1,100 but below 3,000 as of last Saturday on the number of season ticket holders in the first week since they went on sale. Not a terrible situation but not a great one in the early going.

6. It would be a dishonest criticism to compare NYCFC’s season ticket situation to that of Atlanta in where 9092 people pledged to buy season tickets as of last Friday. It is a good indicator that the Atlanta franchise is being received well but we are still in the nascent stages of either franchise so let’s wait and see for a year with Atlanta and until after the World Cup with NYCFC to assess their status.

7. D.C. United are likely not going to be a contender in the Eastern Conference, but snapping their winless streak is a weight off their back and they are playing like it. That was evident in their win against FC Dallas as they took advantage of two red cards with the flourish that is normally expected out of contending teams. For Head Coach Ben Olsen, his seat just got much cooler.

8. CONCACAF President Jeffrey Webb’s comments that the Gold Cup could move outside of the United States are hopefully just an example of pandering to the other confederations in the region. If it is part of an actual plan to move the tournament out of the US, then he should be fired before it actually happens. The tournament is CONCACAF’s main fundraiser and it has consistent success because of the country’s diversity – something that guarantees that a majority of games will be well-attended. Having the stadiums to house the fans is also vital but stadiums are useless when no one is in them.

9. Congratulations to Sacramento Republic FC on selling out their home opener. It is a good start for the USL Pro club and the start of good things for the club. It is a definite uncertainty if they can be an MLS city but that discussion is for another day.

10. It is very tough to get a finger on the Portland Timbers’ struggles. A big issue is their lack of incisiveness in the final third while their defense is still unnecessarily shaky. The goal by the Houston Dynamo is a disastrous moment of ball-watching by Pa Modou Kah while the goal the Timbers scored may be illustrative of their problems. In the buildup, the Timbers attack collapses so badly that there are four players within 10 yards of each other in a crucial spot in the field. The goal itself is a sign that the Timbers are in the right direction given the intelligence of Darlington Nagbe’s run, but Gaston Fernandez almost starts his run too late — though his finish is superb. It is a sign of progress for Portland given the intricacy of the attacking move that led to the goal, but it also shows that, for some weird reason, the Timbers are still not in sync through eight games this season.

11. Rest in Peace Tito Vilanova. Gone too soon. Thankfully, cancer will not be claiming this young man’s life.