Really?

I have received two press releases about this.

The Stars have reached the playoffs. Something that many individuals stated, or may have alluded too, as being impossible this season. Some even went as far to say that they wouldn't win more than 3 games all season.

So, when in fact the team reaches the playoffs and has had a fairly successful season on the pitch the first thing you can think of is, "where is the press release" for something that just happened less than 16 hours previous?

Man.

There is no slack with you.

If Scott Clasen would just get his lines right, they'd have had that out sooner and MN Debbie Downer guy wouldn't have gone through so many boxes of tissues waiting in anguish.

CLAAAAAAAAASEN!

Umm...

This may be unexpected coming from me, a long-time Minnesota Thunder/Stars homer, but MN soccer guy has a legit point, albeit with a few major caveats thrown in.

Caveat Number One: The fact that they had about a month to put most of this together is relevant. It is apparent that the NSC has underestimated many aspects of operating and maintaining a Division 2 franchise. And while they have done an excellent job in many areas, they have been less than excellent in some departments.

Caveat Number Two: Because of that underestimation, there was a lack of hoped-for resources, in both manpower and capital, with which to perform at the highest level in all departments. Limited resources will ultimately affect performance over time.

Caveat Number Three: I think that MN soccer guy goes too far in saying that it seems the organization is not excited about being in the playoffs or the lack of a timely press release smacks of throwing in the towel. I would want more evidence before I got the feeling that a sports franchise wouldn't care about advancing to the next level. Only a cynic would reach that conclusion from a late press release.

(Okay, everybody who reads my posts: All together now...)

Having said that...

Any top level sports franchise would have had that press release out within 15 minutes of their qualifying for the playoffs. This is big news to anybody who follows the team and should be big news to anybody who covers it.

And while it is true that most of the local news outlets don't run most of our press releases, we never know just when they will run with one, so it is better to proceed as if they will. And timeliness IS an important factor in sports media.

And keeping all those caveats in mind and crediting the NSC front office and publicity departments for doing as well as they have under trying circumstances, they have struggled in certain areas.

Not every signing received a press release. The twitter feed was good on some matches, poor in others. I know that a match summary should be on the official site within an hour of the end of the match and that some didn't appear until the next day.

If a publicity department is firing on all cylinders, every match or scrimmage that team is scheduled to play, whether against Manchester United or the Little Sisters of the Poor's scrubini squad, should be prominently announced on the homepage within a half day of it being scheduled and should be included in every schedule in the website. Such was not always the case.

The above are just a few of many areas where the publicity department fell short. And while there are legitimate reasons that were undoubtedly factors involved, in the end, they did fall short.

To draw a parallel to the game itself, there may be many legit reasons that a team loses a game. They may not have the quality of the players the opposition does. They might have a key call go against them. The schedule, the injuries, the weather...

But in the end, if they want to be called the best team on the day, they need to win the match.

Remember, this is an organization that announced at their supporters' summit that their goal was to be the best Division 2 franchise in the country. And while they have made outstanding progress in many areas, they still have much work to do.

And I think it is fair to point out those areas where the work is needed, no matter the source.

"The fact that he thinks the only difference between Messi and your average MASL player is 'desire' is beside the point " jabs

That little old jersey collector

Me

Did I really use 13? Wow! I guess I was pretty excited! Hahahahaha.

I know many of you can't deal with MN Soccer Guy, but if you take away the snarkiness and poor timing of the way he writes things sometimes, he has a point.

Perception is the key to many endeavors and the difference between coming off as professional or amateur is a fine line that can make things happen or not, especially in the long run. And until I hear otherwise I am going to go on the assumption that the National Sports Center is on board with this team for the long run.

In my opinion the timeliness of information coming from the team was fast and furious as the season started, and then slowed and became less detailed as the season wore on. Kind of like a rookie player hitting the wall 2/3's of the way through a season. The stamina was just not there.

From day 1 I said that the most important thing the organization should seek out was some people with real experience running a professional sports team. And it never happened.

Hard work and desire alone, which NSC has in spades, will not get the job done at this level.

The ticket sales fiasco is a #1 and probably worst example of things gone wrong. The organization stated that hitting a certain average attendance was a big key to their financial success yet they failed to hire a sales staff with any knowledge of how to do that. It made me really sad.

And my second and final example was that in their early meetings with the public the team made grand statements that should never have been stated publicly. They said that their player salary budget would be in the middle of the pack, but its known by league insiders that they clearly have one of if not the lowest budget. And then there were the statements about putting in place a player loan agreement with an MLS and European team. Those didn't happen and were not likely to happen from the start no matter how much of a cool idea it seemed like at the time.

And I think that same lack of experience factor hurt the Thunder considerably, and watching that all go down should have been a great lesson to learn from, yet it was not.

If a new investor can be found, I really hope an effort will be put in to find a couple of key employees with real experience.

Enough on this topic from me.

I am excited that we WILL get at least one playoff game, and hopefully more than that. I am proud of the players and coaches, and certainly very appreciative of the National Sports Center for fielding a team for us to watch for another season. We can never take that away from them.

These last few responses hit the target and I think the key is to separate our feelings for the team (and its results) from our feelings for Minnesotan soccer (and our desire for its success).
That said, the Star Tribune ran a small item in today's paper (pg. C3). I couldn't find the piece on the Sports page until I searched for NSC Minnesota Stars, but here it is: http://www.startribune.com/sports/103683469.html?elr=KArksUUUoDEy3LGDiO7aiU

Also, is it bad to really hope that there is an NFL strike so that US soccer can steal their fans?

Only in a soccer discussion would you find snarkiness and churlish in the same discussion. Well done!

There was a nice piece in this morning's Strib, but it could have been two -- one on Thursday announcing playoff qualification and another today previewing the regular-season finale against Tampa and more specifics on playoff scenarios. When you are trying to publicize a home playoff game while competing with every major sport plus the U of M, you must take advantage of every possible free opportunity.

And it wouldn't have taken much. The playoff release could have been written before Wednesday's game and sent off -- from the comfort of someone's home, a coffee shop, wherever -- as soon as the score became available. It would have been nice to include a canned quote from Manny, who I'm sure is proud of his team's effort, not to mention confident about their playoff chances.

As Bruce mentioned, these are some of the little things that distinguish a professional operation from something less. To give NSC staff a pass on basic media relations seems a bit generous given 20 years of experience in the sports promotion business.

Bruce- all great points, we all knew the ticket guy wasn't going to work out, what an awful hire. As you pointed out most of the responses have to with Soccer Guy's consistent snarky comments that point out every inadequate instance of slight failure. It is as if he had a secret agenda against the NSC and their desire to put a team on the field.

OK. Mi dispiace. I think I finally get it now. If you were running things over there everything would be beautiful, there would have been two Strib articles rather than one, and releases would be issued nanoseconds after important events.

I think we could go one better: I'm talking pre-emptive press releases.

Here's one:

Stars beat Tampa 2-1, Takada finally scored, Altman picked up a yellow card, Tampa Fans couldn't help liking Superrookie.