I'm American born and have lived in South America. What I'm sad about is that his stereotype is too true in too many cases. As is yours. But that doesn't mean either one are completely true, and this kind of attitude definitely won't create a productive discussion. On the original topic - there's no evidence that a fan rally would change the minds of an American sports team's front office. Therefore, people aren't going to be willing to spend their time worrying about it.
The thing is that many Americans DO think like that so its kind of difficult to differentiate when one is joking or being serious. I was born in Houston but have lived most of my life in Ecuador, South America, but also have lived in Ireland, Argentina and the US, so you can say that i have "world" experience, and the truth is that its fairly easy to encounter americans who think like that for real while people from other origins not so much though.
Not only that, who buys the stadiums they demand? The taxpayers. I saw something in the news yesterday about the thought of CITIES buying teams, rather than owners buying teams and courting cities to build their infrastructure. I think it is absolutely ridiculous that a crappy team can pressure an entire city to spend 100 mil to buy them a new toy or they'll leave.
Exactly right. No sense wasting our time rallying for a player or change that we have no influence over. We (As Americans) wait until we get what we want (Championships) then we worry about fan rallies..... :grin:
What are you gonna protest? Can you as a fan protest your way to a Rockets championship? I mean it's fine to protest and all but if you're gonna protest you need: 1) Massive amounts of people 2) Specific things to protest about. Protesting that the Rox aren't the Spurs isn't a good protest idea to me lol Take for example the OP, in Europe fans protested because their football team was underperforming, it got relegated to a lower league, the finances in are in debt etc. What exactly can you protest in the Rox? THis is the same as the dude who created a thread asking for an apology, the Rox haven't been great but they also haven't been the worst, in fact it's a minor miracle the team is constructed the way it is considering they didn't tank and didn't get anything significant out of Tmac and Yao Ming. The Rox were able to trainsition from YaoMac to DwightDen in just 5 years, in contrast to that Philly is already on year 2-3 of tankcity and it doesn't seem like an end is in sight just yet.
My limited observation of European and South American soccer (oops, I mean futbol) fans is that they're obsessive to the point of lunacy and even occasionally killing each other over a sport. I'm glad we have a little more restraint over here. I don't want our fans acting like children crapping all over our team or the other team at a game. I don't think there's a whole lot the fans can do here. The most direct thing to do to show disapproval would be to not give them your money in any form. However, for every single-person boycott, there are probably three people gladly willing to take their place. Such is the nature of our national sports monopoly. It takes quite a while of horridness to start losing large numbers of fans. The Astros worked hard at sucking to figure out that formula. Also, with all the corporate seats in any professional stadium nowadays, the fans have even less of a say in the team's revenue. The teams know that a huge number of their seats are already bought blindly by businesses before the season ever starts, and they don't care if nobody fills those seats. Houston, especially, I think has probably one of the most laid-back fanbases in the country. Most people in Houston may like their teams, but we're all working at our jobs and taking care of our families and doing a million other things and that makes it a little harder to be an obsessively dedicated fan like say a Packers or Steelers fan, where football is practically a religion. Houstonians go to games to have a good time with their families, and most aren't committing harikari at every misstep along the way. That is kind of the problem. The Texans have been like a bad girlfriend/boyfriend for their entire lives, constantly building up and disappointing their fans. The fans, however, are still content to put up with it, and that's why Texans games always sell out and there's like a three-year waiting list for season tickets or something like that. The Rockets also sell out consistently at high prices. I don't think there's a whole lot we can do, because it's very hard to organize mass boycotts. We'll just have to hope that the owners and GMs have a desire to actually win something, because they have by far the most important say in whether it happens or not.
The moon is made of cheese. Dogs can mate with cats, and that's why hamsters are encouraged to raise goldfish. See, I can say unsupported things and pretend they're true, too!
No street rallies or financial boycotts, that doesn't help at all, in fact if we could ever organize such a thing it would only hurt the team. What the fans could/should be is more vocal and organized during games, that is pretty much it. In our case the red rowdies could lead a "complaint" but if they are the only ones screaming or chanting that doesn't have any real effect, but if the rest of the Colosseum joins the chant then that is different. If for example there is a player that is constantly performing badly for several games and yet the coach insists on using him despite his poor performance, an organized fan base with the during games could "demand" via chants that the coach stops using him or "force/motivate" the player to do a better effort when it looks like he doesn't give a $hit. Other than that i dont see what else fans can do to force the team to be any better, and obviously any form of violence should be out of the question.
I sure have traveled the world and guess what? There are plenty of people who don't make a stink about their team losing and don't get drunk and start fires in the street. When I go to Spain my family there likes soccer but they have careers and families. They go to a few games but when I ask them why they have soccer hoolagans they say it's because they are unemployed, drunk and have nothing else going for them. 25% of Spain's youth are unemployed (recession) If people here think I mean EVERY South American doesn't have a hobby of a job I'm sorry it came out that way. I meant that there are a lot more poor, uneducated and bored people in South America and places in Europe than here.
Colombian here Believe, you don`t want to do this. First, you don`t want to reach the levels of passion here. It becomes sickening. I don`t even go to see my local team anymore. It`s simply too dangerous and I wont risk everything I have achieved with my hard work over a team that does not care. Second, rarely fans have input in decisions of the team. Someone said before the thing about elections, and that is kind of cool but ends up being a corrupt process most of the time. Third, in countries where fans really have input it gets really bad. In Argentina where this is one of the countries where is most common, "barrasbravas" camp outside the team offices and then "gently" advice the team on several issues. This has become a cancer and the best teams like Boca and River are sometimes forced to hire players the fans like but are not really good. It has become a mob and it makes everything related to the team dangerous. I can tell you organizational skills are not common in sports management outside the US. These are not Ivy leaguers, these are poorly educated business man. The kind of continuity the Pats and Spurs have achieved is unseen, even in leagues where there is no cap room hence parity is not a thing. Even a simple "call to your team representative", well I can`t remember see this here. Believe me, we can argue about the results Morey and Alexander are having here, but you certainly can not argue about the process. The overall commitment to winning while not surrendering the team to any particular player is unseen to me and is has made me even more loyal to the Houston Rockets. My local soccer team, the winningest team in the country was inherited by a spoiled kid, all of sudden the players are not longer under contract to the team but directly to the owner, so, this italian team comes in and buys our best striker for 5 Million Dollars, not a single penny goes to the club. He goes like this for 5 years, we ended up on the "b" category after going through relegation, and here we are 4 years later and this guy found out it`s more profitable to have his team on the B than fighting and investing to win promotion. So basically I`m stuck with this team that I love but does not really want to win. It drives me crazy.
First of all, the red rowdies are s joke lol Second, nfl is different to basketball And what in trying to say is that we as fans could greatly influence the scheme of things like if at every home gane at s certain time at the exact time every game we yell "fire mchale" which is just an example bit my opinion cause I know a lot of guys don't like mchale, but shyest something simple like that
the burden of proof is never upon the negative, it would be an incredibly easy claim to prove given the scope, if it had actually ever occurred before, it hasn't. Passive protest never achieves anything, to give an example, your view is that the correct way to protest king george's tax on tea was for the people who didn't like it to simply stop buying tea, yeah that would have worked .
Red rowdies are a joke and common American comment. Chanting during the game "fire McHale" wont do anything. You're better off yelling at a wall outside of the Toyota Center. A whole lotta noise for a whole lotta nothing.
I don't understand why fans feel entitled to tell the team what to do, who to start/bench, who to fire/hire, ect... The team doesn't owe any fan anything beyond the fact that if you purchase a ticket, you are owed the right to sit in a seat and watch the game. It's also ridiculous for any of us to think we have better answers than the people who are in a position to have inside information (Morey, McHale, ect...). These guys know what is going on inside the organization, we only speculate and hear rumors.
What I'm saying is that we can put pressure in the front office. I know we're not gonna win every game and I know players and managers make mistakes I'm just saying that we change the culture and atmosphere in Toyota stadium. ik happy with the way we're playing I was just saying we can be more vocal as fans for future reference.
In this forum alone, the only thing we can all agree on is that we want a championship ring. Other than that, everybody has their own vision on how to do it. Dmo or TJ, replace coach or not, start Lin or Beverly, etc, all topics which have been discussed furiously. All your asking is for the front office to waste their time listening to POF (player only fan) arguing against POH.
