The Cosmos: Over hyped already and they haven’t even joined the MLS yet.

The commissioner of MLS is in an interesting position.  The league is hitting their numbers and people are starting to buy more tickets at higher prices.  Although the television networks laugh at him behind his back, it’s not as bad as it used to be and more viewers are tuning in.  When the World Cup starts in 2014 his league will be back in the American spotlight and everything should go according to plan.  But this Cosmos thing …..

Let’s rewind to Pele, pretty much the greatest soccer player of all time.  A lot of Americans don’t know that he used to play in New York and because of that he helped an American Soccer league bring in hundreds and thousands of new fans.  Pele’s team was the Cosmos.  And in addition to Pele the Cosmos actually attracted top stars from Europe with promises of top quality competition and millions of dollars in salary.  But what was the secret to the Cosmos’ funding?

It turns out they had an owner that had heavily invested into Warner Bros. (the music and film division) and also Atari. He had so much cash that a money-losing soccer team with multiple expensive players wasn’t that big of a deal.  After Pele retired and Atari was hearing rumors of something called ‘Nintendo’ the Cosmos free cash ride was pretty much done.  No more traveling to Italy, no more sold out Giants stadium, no more fans shutting down freeways trying to get into the game.

But now things have changed.

MLS teams are now constantly hearing about a group that’s trying to bring the Cosmos back and aren’t afraid of the heavy price tag.  Don Garber had previously gotten people in Canada upset by asking 40 million from people in Montreal.  They didn’t like 40 million to join an American league that nobody really paid any attention to.  So why is Garber asking for over 100 million now for the Cosmos?

http://www.thisiscosmoscountry.com/2011/04/letter-to-garber.html

At first it sounds extraordinary that MLS would demand that much money for a new team to enter the league when it was happy to get a fraction of that in the past.  But if we look deeper I think we’ll be interested in what we find.

1.  The people that will run the Cosmos aren’t really American businessmen: Terry Byrne, Paul Kemsley and Eric Cantona.

Terry Byrne (aka David Beckham’s best friend and advisor) is very willing to throw a lot of cash to get this whole team running again. Byrne was a factor in getting a makeshift Cosmos team sacrificed to the lions when they played Manchester United.  That night hundreds of thousands of Englishmen were delighted to see Pele’s old team bullied around the field (even if they weren’t even a professional team!!).

Paul Kemsely used to be involved with management of the Tottenham Hotspur (an English soccer team) but made most of his cash in property development.  He’s probably just helping Byrne in negotiating important business deals and paying Pele to hype up the team again.

Eric Cantona was a star French soccer player who landed at Manchester United right before they started winning championships again.  I’m not sure how much of a financial impact he brings to the table but I do know he probably knows how to manage a team after so many years around the sport.

2.  The Cosmos aren’t just an American brand, they’re global.

Not only were they the first ‘American’ soccer team to play in Manchester United’s stadium, they’re probably the only American team other countries even recognize.  News on them playing just Manchester United could’ve been big news in Brazil, France, wherever.  So even though this new Cosmos team might get little press coverage in the U.S. it’s already going to be over hyped in the rest of the world.

3.  The MLS team New York has right now is in New Jersey.

As much as I think the Red Bulls are a decent team you can’t really say they’re like the Mets, Nicks or Yankees (or Jets or Giants) when it comes to news coverage.  To get to Red Bull Arena you have to hop on the subway and transfer a few times before you get even close to Red Bull Arena and once the game is over you have to head back the same way.  Since most New Yorkers in Manhattan are too busy with a million other things going on the Red Bulls really haven’t caught on yet.  But if the Cosmos somehow have a team either inside Manhattan or less than ten minutes away they’ll be printing cash left and right.  This city has millions of immigrants that can’t speak three words of English but will instantly recognize the Cosmos as Pele’s old team.

That’s why the British Three Amigos are willing to pay Garber over seventy million just to get this franchise.  They want NEW YORK NEW YORK and not somewhere forty five minutes away.  The Red Bulls management can use the comparison of the Jets and Giants playing in New Jersey too and all of them are successful franchises with millions of fans.  But every one of the NFL games in New Jersey will be a guaranteed sell-out with TV revenues coming in.  The Red Bulls are just in a tough spot now (but like I said, they are a decent team backed by a major corporation).

Here’s where we are right now.  The Cosmos are basically a group of players that are willing to travel around Europe to play in friendlies and other meaningless international games.  And because of the cash backing them and their desire to play in MLS, most American soccer fans are going to hear about them over and over.  I already think the Red Bulls and the Galaxy are over hyped.  But what’s going to happen to MLS when the Cosmos and someone like a newly signed Cristiano Ronaldo march into Times Square?

Get ready MLS.  First it was Beckham and now the Cosmos (with Beckham’s best friend tagging along) …