Break up the HSG

With success comes a lot of things: rings, trophies, shields, and blame.

The Hunt Sports Group, popular in Major League Soccer by basically bottle-feeding the league throughout its infancy, has come under fire numerous times in the past years for their inability to put products on the field that yielded consistent fruits.

Starting up with Kansas City and Columbus, Lamar Hunt owned what was 1/5 of all franchises and was a charter investor in the young league that was hoping to strike it big with the popularity that the 1994 World Cup brought to American soil. They successfully captured the interest in fans and even built the first soccer specific stadium in the U.S. in 1999. Things appeared good for HSG, but things changed quickly in the mid-2000's.

For one, Columbus was a stinker. Attendance was shrinking, the team was shallow at best and never proved to be much more than a mid-table brand of soccer that was neither entertaining nor exciting.

The Wizards were a club that saw only marginal success, winning the Cup in 2004 but never really doing anything exciting in a league where so much is based on image and posturing for the following season.

In 2003, HSG purchased the Dallas Burn, renaming the club and building its own stadium. As altruistic as it might have been, the team was looking desperately for a turn from their poor form and HSG was willing to jump on the bandwagon once more to collect a total of three teams. The change produced good results for the club, boosting ticket sales and helping the team become runners up in the Supporters' Shield race in 2006.

Success even trickled down to their other clubs. After a downturn for almost 12 years, the Crew finally won their first championship in 2008 and have collected two Supporters' Shields in the past two seasons, giving them opportunities to advance to the Semifinals of the CONCACAF Champions League and a spot in next year's tournament.

But do things really appear better for HSG?

In 2006 Clark Hunt sold the Wizards to an ownership group looking to rebuild the franchise into something that can contend year after year, something HSG could never do. FC Dallas hasn't made the playoffs in two years and consistently drew under 10,000 fans for several games this season.

Most disturbing? Maybe it's the fact that the Crew still cannot draw a crowd after the success they had over the past two seasons, or maybe that FC Dallas relied on an over the hill striker for the second half of the season. If you are looking for a real kicker, though, look no further than the MLS ownership rules, which allows multiple team ownership to exist.

It is clear that HSG, while the grandfather of the league, has outstayed its welcome in the new momentum the MLS is establishing. With new teams on the horizon with deep pocketed owners, HSG still uses the same tactics to get butts in the seats and advertize to their fans, but every year it seems like one of their clubs is on the verge of collapse.

Because the league is inspired by local owners (take Philadelphia, Seattle for example) having an entity like HSG makes people feel uncomfortable with the people running their team. If you have to take a plane to go to a game, perhaps its best that you just drop one.

In the beginning, people may have thought that it was great to have multiple team ownership, but the truth is that it just does not work anymore. While original investors were safe knowing that MLS could cover their losses, we are now approaching the dangerous discussion of single franchise ownership... the taboo term that no one inside the MLS offices dares to utter. Ownership groups that are disassociated with their teams would most likely crumble first at the very thought of needing to account for their actions.

Splitting up the HSG would probably be the best solution for the MLS; getting rid of one franchise will allow others to develop the abandoned one more personally and learn what is best for their club. Relying on faxes and emails about how your club is doing on a day-to-day basis is hardly ownership.

Attendance is probably the biggest argument leading this effort, as dismal fan numbers has successfully alienated a lot of potential customers. Those watching games on TV see empty seats, deem the sport unprofessional or boring, and immediately change the channel. Hell if we could I am sure the MLS would just televise the Super Classico and every Sounders home game. Without fans, everyone loses in the MLS except ownership, which is the group that needs the swiftest kick in the pants. 

HSG, as a fan of the MLS I love what you've done for us. But it's time that you choose one team and commit.
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