Dana Blankenhorn

Sport Economics Bring Recession Home

My local soccer club went toes-up yesterday.

The Atlanta Silverbacks, in the minor-league USL, announced they won't play next year.

The decision was a no-brainer. Since U.S. soccer lacks the promotion-and-relegation process that lets every European team hope it can score the big bucks, there is no upside to the investment. Without an upside it's all ego. Amazing how, when things go bad, ego becomes the first casualty.

Soccer isn't the only troubled sport. Arthur Blank, who owns the Atlanta Falcons, is cutting back, both in business and in charitable giving. The Home Depot co-founder has found there is a bottom to his pocket.

Blank's cutbacks put the lie to the Silverbacks' excuse for folding, namely the chance the MLS will move a team in here. Blank was the money man behind that speculation.

All this reveals an important truth about how the economics of sport have changed in this decade, and given us a taste of things to come.

Grinding It Out

While waiting for Barack Obama's e-mail on his Vice Presidential pick, I decided to take a break today and enjoy some footie.

It was the U.S. vs. Brazil with the Gold Medal on the line.  Unlike many past matches of this type, the better team did not win.

The U.S. did.

The game illustrated the two schools of soccer, or futbol, or football -- the beautiful game. Brazil played beautifully. They had better players. They passed us silly the first half, back-and-forth across the pitch. They looked deadly early in the second half, firing shot-after-shot at goalie Hope Solo (right). It was one-way traffic until they tired, and the Americans gave up their own short passing game for long breakaways up the middle.

The U.S. goal, by a girl named Carli Lloyd, came seemingly out of nothing, a quick flip to get space and a screamer past the goalie, across the face of goal. Then it was back to hang in there baby, Brazil coming in from all angles, attack after attack, corner after corner, the issue not decided until their last missed by inches less than a minute from time.

We call this grinding it out. When my daughter Robin played, through high school, she became a specialist at this sort of thing. It's not pretty. It's exhausting to watch. It's physical, tackling and getting in front of people, banging the ball downfield just to get a breath.

But it works. At all levels. The balance between the beauty of a Brazil and the grinding it out mentality is what makes the game so compelling. Because you can see the same balance in a U-10 rec game as in a game played by pros.

Speaking of the pros...

Revolt of the Sports Fans

Over the weekend my daughter and I decided to visit a local bar and watch the footy. Italy was playing Spain somewhere in Austria, and we thought it would be fun to spend time together before she travels to Italy for a summer semester later this week.

The place was mobbed. We couldn't get a view of the TV. Had to come home.

This is no longer unusual in America. It's seldom remarked upon, but it may be the most important sports story of the decade here. Ordinary Americans are dropping their obsessions with baseball, NASCAR and basketball to cheer on a bunch of guys in shorts doing what their kids do on Saturday mornings.

Now some of these people are immigrants. Some of these people are kids who grew up on soccer. But I'm beginning to believe, increasingly, that some of it is political.

How Far Has U.S. Soccer Come?

This far.

I'm pissed we lost to England. At Wembley.

The game was over by the time Landon Donovan was scratched, ostensibly with a groin injury, but in fact so as not to detract from teammate David Beckham getting his 100th (and last) cap for England. Becks later set up the first English goal, then showered and wore a nice suit during the second half.

He wears a suit well. More on that later.

Without Donovan, we had nothing to offer in attack. We had Euro-scrubs, guys like Eddie Johnson and Carlos Bocanegra who couldn't play for Fulham, guys from minor leagues in Belgium, Holland and Germany. Our back line of Cherundolo (too old), Bocanegra (too slow) and Onyewu (too ponderous) could do nothing with the English attack, and Coach Bob Bradley did nothing about it.

It's no longer enough for me to come up on a big occasion and watch our coach act like he's scared of the upcoming Barbados encounter. We've practically got an automatic, every quadrennial bid to the Big Dance now, and it's past time we got to the next level.

The next level, in this case, is beating teams like England, and Spain, and Argentina, in their own buildings, in front of their own fans, with fancy, fast, entertaining, high-energy stuff.

Coach Lilly

What happened to the U.S. Womens World Cup team this week was sad, but pretty neat in a way.

Sad, because Coach Greg Ryan made a classic mistake, replacing his goalie for a semi-final, and he paid the appropriate price, in that the team was crunched, 4-0 by Brazil.

Pretty neat, because this is the kind of thing which happens to mens' teams all the time, and for once it got the kind of attention we give mens' teams.

End Football Now

This morning I watched a great football match. Although this post is not really about that football.

England fell behind, came back through an incredible individual effort by Kelly Smith (who pulled off her shoes to celebrate the goals), then was tied at the death by Japan. The game featured several hard collisions, with one goalie nearly knocked out and another player lying injured while play continued around her.

Football, or soccer, can be a dangerous game. Some great players from the past have died from the impact of repeated concussions with the hard leather balls used in the 1960s.

Much Adu About Nothing

For a special treat this Sunday here's a sports story which has nothing to do with scandal, or drugs. Or even David Beckham. Although it is about soccer.

It's about Freddy Adu. Four years ago, Freddy Adu was the face of U.S. soccer. He signed with Major League Soccer at just 14, having already completed high school, and was said to be the next big thing.

Sad to say, he may turn out to be U.S. soccer's Mickey Rooney, classically trained, too famous too young, and too short. Rooney had increasing trouble getting good roles as he aged, his cute turning to dumpy, and his un-Andy Hardy lifestyle had him forgotten before TV even arrived. Rooney's story has a happy ending. He's 85 and recently celebrated 25 years of marriage. He seems happy, content, everything any of us could hope to be at that age, a role model once more.

Adu should be so lucky.

Now 18 he flew to Europe this weekend, tail between his legs, hoping to catch on with Benfica, a Portuguese team.  He had tried out with Manchester United, he was hoping to catch on with Celtic in Glasgow, so while Benfica is a big club, for Portugal, it's a real come-down.

Un-patriotism

What do Tom Hicks, George Gillett, Stan Kroenke (left), Malcolm Glazer and  Randy Lerner have in common?

They've all stuck hundreds of millions of dollars into English soccer teams.

Meanwhile, the MLS goes schlumping along, and by the time the season winds down in September no one will care who wins. (Oh, wait, it ends in November. See?)

All most Americans really care about is their national team, and Sunil Gulati, who runs US Soccer, finally gave in yesterday and named Bob Bradley his permanent coach.

What does this mean? It means big American money is fleeing the sport and its status is not going to change. What is big-time elsewhere will remain small-time here.

It doesn't have to be that way.

Smash and Grab

I stayed up late last night watching the USA-Mexico game, so if your idea of sport is some steroid-juiced bumpkin pounding a pea over a wall, smashing someone's head in, or swatting a basketball away bear with me. (Picture from MLSnet.)

The game was the typical smash-and-grab we've become used to since Bruce Arena became the USA coach in 1998. The team concentrated on its defense, got lucky on a set play, and then dug in deeper until Mexico made a mistake that allowed a quick counter. Another 2-0 victory. (That's Landon Donovan rounding the Mexico goalkeeper and putting the game away.)

This is sad (in a way) because Mexico plays beautiful football and they love the game so much. The tactics Arena introduced (and interim coach Bob Bradley employs) come directly from the way Germany played it for years. It's not pretty, let alone beautiful, but it's effective.

Why Mexico doesn't just find themselves a big-footed power kicker, fall down a few times and beat up anyone who comes near their box is somewhat beyond me (at least when they play us). Instead they insist on playing beautiful (Beautiful!)...believe it or not Mexico hasn't scored a goal on U.S. soil this Millenium.

Anyway, the real news was made at halftime, only no one noticed.

The Collapse of Local Media

I missed a great story recently.

My son's recreation soccer team at TYSA got pummeled by a team from his old program at the local YMCA. I thought our coach was a great story, since he was also, at that time, editing The Lion, The Witch & the Wardrobe.

I was wrong.

It was the opponent who was the story. They were called the Fugees, as in the old musical group fronted by Wyclef Jean. They had game. They were respectful, good kids.  And after the game, I noticed, they didn't have snacks.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution never wrote about them. I never did, either. Neither did Creative Loafing or any other media company, despite the team's cool Web site. It was left to The New York Times to get the story. (The picture is from that story.)