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Chivas taking a year to find it-self
Sometimes after a few years of college you lose direction and need to step away from school to make some tough choices about which path is the right one. Chivas USA is taking a mid-college break, a year to find a little direction. According to an article in SI there is a '99 percent certainty' that the team will go on hiatus for the 2015 season. The players who are currently under contract with the team would go on loan or go through a dispersal draft.
The team may also be falling under new ownership which could cause the hiatus to last for a longer period of time. The team would be under going a rebranding which is something that it desperately needs, but it would be hard to get a rebrand done in such a short period of time. The report also states that the club could go for more than $100 million dollars while the league paid just $70 million for the club.
Chivas USA has been a failure. Attendance is pitiful to say the least and the last place team hasn't made the playoffs in over five years. At this point killing the team and completely rebranding it is the best option for the club and for the league. It sounds as though keeping the team in LA will be a condition of the sale, but they may be better off moving the team else where. Fans will be wary of anything having to do with the team regardless of what you call it, but MLS is determined to have a second LA team. Chivas will also need its own stadium sharing a stadium with the LA Galaxy has not worked out. Games played between the two teams have been a mess in the stands and on the field to say the least.
While it sucks for the loyal fans of the team (yes they have some) to be without a team for at least a year if the new owners come back with a product that the fans and the league deserve the time off will be well worth it.
Tea time in Atlanta
Tottenham Hotspurs executive director Darren Eales is leaving the team to become president of the new MLS expansion team in Atlanta. Eales has worked for the Hotspurs since 2010 and has been a huge part of their transfers. He was part of the Gareth Bale sale to Real Madrid and also negotiated the sales of Robbie Keane, Clint Dempsey and Jermaine Defoe to MLS. Most recently he has been apart of the Spurs' purchase of DeAndre Yedlin.
The team will join the league in 2017 but at the moment it doesn't have a name or much else besides owner Arthur Blank. The team will be part of MLS' desire to expand to into the Southeast United States. It will be interesting to see what sort of talent Eales will be able to bring to the club given his background.
Congress meddling in sports
On Friday, I wrote about the House of Representatives Judiciary committee sending a letting to the major male sports leagues in America asking them to make their domestic violence policies public yet they failed to address the women's leagues. I pointed out that the women's leagues have had their own problems with domestic violence with their athletes as perpetrators. While I think it is a giant oversight for the committee to not address the women, I don't think that congress needs to spend its time addressing sports.
The committee that is responsible for impeaching presidents and overseeing federal law enforcement is worried about what the NFL and other leagues are doing. The Justice Committee deals with civil justice, immigration and border security but is currently spending its time looking at sports in America. Just like with the hearing held in 2005 about steroids in baseball, Congress is once again sticking its nose where it doesn't belong. Don't get me wrong domestic violence is a huge issue that needs addressing, but we don't need Congress spending sessions dealing with domestic violence situations in sports.
I don't want abusers on my sports teams and I don't want Congress messing with my sports leagues. Public outrage was already forcing the NFL to look internally at how it handled the situation. The outrage at the NFL was also forcing the other leagues to make sure they had dotted their 'I's and crossed their 'T's in regards to domestic violence. Congress' involvement is unnecessary, but then again that is Congress.