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A Conversation with Orlando City Founder and President Phil Rawlins

Published

8 years ago

September 16, 2016

In a 20-minute conversation with Orlando City Founder and President Phil Rawlins, we were able to cover a wide range of topics ranging from the GM position, to the new stadium and training facilities slated to open next season, and many other topics.

Well, let’s dig in.

First off, how’s the GM search going?

Phil Rawlins: First, let’s bust myth No. 1: we have a full-time GM, and in fact we have two — myself and Niki Budalic. So Niki covers our assistant general manager. When we brought him in, I wanted to ensure that we gave him a chance to work behind the scenes and learn the role and everything, and he’s done an awesome job. He's been with us almost a year, and I can’t praise him highly enough for the work he’s done, and the work he’s done behind the scenes. So Niki and I share the GM (duties) between us. So we do have two GMs — and we kind of have it covered twice, in that respect. And we’re not really searching for a new one, I expect Niki to move up to that role in the next few months and he will continue to do a great job.

Did the off-season Armando Carneiro situation make you more cautious in the approach to set a new permanent GM?

PR: When we took the decision that we needed to go in a new direction in the beginning of the year, then what I said at that point was like, 'look, this is a job that when you think about it, I’ve done for year, and it's no different' — because I’ve done it in the USL. So, at that point, I was like, ‘I’ve done this before, I’m used to doing this for several years, I’ve got the experience, we’ve got a great guy on board with Niki, what we need is a period of stability and we need leadership and stability, and I can provide that.’ So, I said 'let me stay in that role and provide the foundation, and provide that stability that we knew we wanted to have.' And with Niki as my right-hand guy, I think we’ve done that and we’ve done it pretty well.

Has it been tough managing that role this season (with a mid-window coaching change thrown in)?

PR: Go back to basics. When soccer fans generally — and Orlando City fans for that matter — look at what we do, or what an MLS team does, you’ve got to bear in mind that it’s not the same as running a club in the Premier League, or the Championship, or the Bundasliga, the Colombian first division — wherever you want to go. It’s different than anywhere else in the world because you don’t have to deal with salary caps, none of them have to deal with the kind of structure and joint ownership structure you do in MLS. And put Orlando City aside — this could be Dallas, it can be Columbus, or anyone else. You can’t just go out and make wholesale changes because the structure of the rules don’t allow it. So you’re already working within a structure that I’ve got to be not only cognizant of, but you’ve got to stay inside. You get outside of it, you get screwed up pretty quickly — you get fined, you get a slap on the wrist, things that get killed off pretty fast.

Bear in mind you’re working in that structure as you’re dealing with transfers, player personnel issues, and everything else. So you’re somewhat controlled. Therefore, you’re never going to see a club go into a transfer window and say, 'we’re going to change five or six players,' because you can’t physically do it. You’ve got to do it one piece at a time, and sometimes two pieces, but it’s small increments. So, that’s the first thing to bear in mind as a back drop.

But I think we brought in some quality players. You’re always looking to add to that and move the pieces around. In MLS, it’s more difficult because you’ve got that salary cap to work in and you’re like, 'well I’ve got to pay him $195,000, I’ve got to move this guy over to $75,000, and I’ve got to bring this guy in at $90,000.' And so, you see it’s a balancing act, as to how you go about it. So, in the transfer windows, this last transfer window for example, people kind of forgotten we brought in Jose Aja, partly furnished, and now everybody forgets where he came from. He was one of those players that came in during that window.

And we have made incremental strides with, again, a player like [Matias Perez Garcia], who is turning out, and is going to turn out, to be a great buy for us. A creative midfield player, someone that can play multiple roles, can go box-to-box. But we’ve added quality pieces, and we’ll continue to do that. I think what it is fair to say, in this last transfer window with the coaching change, and this was Jason's [Kreis'] choice, we said, 'if you need to make changes, we’ll make them,' and it was his choice, I think rightly so, to say, 'no, I want to assess what we’ve got, I want to give the players I’ve got here the chance to show me they want to be here, they want to be a part of this club, that I can assess their quality, and the worst thing I can do is make some big moves now before I understand that.' So, he took that decision, and we fully supported him on that, and that to a certain extent led to a quieter transfer window.

That said, we came very close to making a big signing — I don’t mean big in terms of money, it’s not like signing a Chicharito — what I mean by 'big' is a game-changing transfer for us, and I think it would have been substantial and it would have been game-changing. And it’s still there, by the way. It has not gone away, it just went away in that moment, should I say. And that was the only one that we really wanted to get done, if we could get it done. I think we’ll go back and revisit that — if it will happen, you don’t know in this time.

But I think you’ll see in this off-season that Jason’s had the opportunity now to assess the players for five-six months, will have the chance to work with them, knows their character — which is important to him, and rightfully so. He’ll have the chance to mold the shape of the team to what he wants and the kind of characters he wants around, and he’s making those decisions now based on a lot more time than he would have had in two weeks of training. And he also felt that we have a lot of quality players with good attitudes and good motivations that he wanted to work it. So yeah, it’s going to be an interesting off-season."

Speaking of Perez Garcia, does his contract end after this season (as some have reported)?

PR: I think we’ve taken over his contract from San Jose, and I think we’ve got another year on it.

And will San Jose be covering the rest of his contract next year, too?

PR: I think he’s got another year, so we won’t have to renegotiate.

Regardless, he’s in the plans for 2017?

PR: Absolutely. You’ve probably seen, as a lot of the fans have seen, the quality that’s come out of him the last few weeks. He’s an exciting player.

Is there any rush to sell Cyle Larin, and how much do the league rules regarding transfer fees for Generation Adidas players have on any potential sale?

PR: Obviously, to a certain extent, we’ve got to take that into account. But most important thing for Cyle is that Cyle keeps developing. It’s easy to forget he’s a kid — he’s 20. He happens to be leading our line, and happens to be scoring goals for the past two seasons, so that puts him in a different category with people, but he’s a kid. He’s learning the game. He’s only two years removed from college — and he only did 18 months in college. So, he’s developing as a player — he’s developing physically, he’s developing mentally, he’s understanding the game, he’s understanding what he’s got to do, and understanding how to make the most of the talents he’s got. That’s an important thought process with Cyle, and I’ve said to him personally, right now he’s in the best place to develop, and if you take away the transfer fee and you can move into another situation where he doesn’t have the opportunity to get those minutes and develop like he can in Orlando, and he wouldn’t benefit from it.

So, the next move for Cyle has to be the best move for Cyle. It’s got to be the right move in his development and, right now, I think the best thing for Cyle Larin is to be here in Orlando City, where’s he playing every week and he’s scoring goals.

The stadium just recently had its last piece of steel installed. What’s the next big milestone in the project?

PR: Well, we’re on schedule. So if anybody’s got any fears about if we’re going to open in 2017, we’re absolutely going to open in 2017. We’ll be open by the beginning of the season — we’re actually going to move all of the staff from here over there probably in February. I’m really pleased with its progress.

From a milestone standpoint, I think the next big milestone people will see is the south end of the stadium has been open for a long period of time because of construction purposes, so that’ll get closed in in the next few weeks, so you’ll start to see a complete stadium as opposed to a three-sided stadium, and that makes a big difference visually. If you’ve noticed right now, there’s a big hole in The Wall — that’s also there for construction purposes — and that hole will close up, and it will look like a complete end. I think the third big milestone you’ll see is the offices and VIP entrances on the west side all start to get finished off and begin to take shape. Right now it’s a lot of steel and wall coverings, but you’ll see it start to take shape.

So there’s some big things happening in the next few weeks, but it’s all going according to plan and we’re excited about it.

Is the plan to get in a test event before opening day next season?

PR: This is the kind of stuff you go to experts for. It’s not every day you open up a stadium. Everybody tells us you’ve got to have a test run. You’ve got to flush the toilets. Do the faucets run? Do the security gates work? Do the scanners work? And you don’t want to go through that, and you’d like to get it right for your first game. So we’re looking at right now if we should hold some kind of event in the facility, and with timing you want to be able to finish then get a meaningful test. You don’t want to be like, 'what did we learn because we didn’t finish?' So timing is definitely going to be interesting. I would imagine some time in the preseason we’re going to get an event in there, which will be a test event more than anything else, and will give us the chance to hopefully iron out a few kinks.

Are you close to revealing a stadium name?

PR: We’re working on it. We’ve got three or four very interested parties. Obviously, I can’t comment on who they are, but I don’t think we’ll have a big issue in selling the naming rights. The branding of the club, the awareness of the club, the visibility is something there’s a lot of interest in being associated with, and I think we’ll find out sometime within the next six months or so, is my guess. We may not have it done by the time it’s open, but there’s no rush for it.

Where do we stand on the new training facility? Word is there hasn’t actually been much dirt turned yet since the announcement.

PR: We’ve started the tree clearing, but we’ve really held back on that a little bit because we’ve got so many projects running in parallel, honestly, so we’ve got to be on the stadium, first and foremost — get that done, get it on time, get it done the way we want it done. And so a lot of our energy and our resources have gone to there to make sure it’s completed before we start up a new second project. It’s been delayed a few months, but it’s still very much in the plans to get it done next year.

Where do you expect OCB to be playing next season?

PR: We’d love for that to continue to be in Melbourne. Obviously, we’re coming towards the end of the season and we’ve entered into discussions again with Eastern Florida State College. We’ve got see, do they want us back? Does the community still want us? Do we want to be there? Do they want us to be there? But we’ll have those discussions in the next few weeks, but I think if we have our druthers that we’ll remain in Melbourne next year.

Would it make sense, logistically, to have three teams in the next stadium, if need be?

PR: It does. it can be done. It’s more, I think, a case of do we want to do it? Is it the right thing to do? I think there’s more than one decision. One is: can it be done? And I think the answer is yes, it can be done. Then the question is, do we want to do it? And that’s the question we don’t know yet. Do we? Is there a benefit for us to keep the footprints spread or to keep it closer? So that stuff we’ll weigh up over the next few months. But yeah, it’s certainly feasible.

What were your thoughts on the Forbes MLS evaluations ranking Orlando City fifth in the league in total value?

PR: At the end of the day, the people will tell you that the evaluation of a business is an art, not a science — it’s what multiplier do you do? Do you multiply it by revenue, do you multiply is by good will? It is an art.

That said, somebody’s going to put a value on you and people love league tables, so you’re going to be on a table somewhere. Forbes is obviously very well-recognized institution, they know what they’re doing. We’re obviously delighted to be in the top five — I think we should be in the top two, to be honest. I think when the stadium is done we will be in the top two or three, because that’s going to be added into the evaluation as well. If you look at all of the other measures — No. 2 in attendance, No. 2 in season ticket sales, we’re No. 2 or 3 in jersey and merchandise sales, we’re No. 1 in group ticket sales. We’re No. 1, 2, or 3 in every metric that the league has to measure.

So I think we’re a very valuable property, and it’s only going to get more valuable in its overall importance as we move into a new home.

Uncategorized

Reflecting on Eight Years with The Mane Land

A look back over my time with The Mane Land (so far).

Published

10 months ago

June 20, 2023

David Rohe

Nick Leyva, The Mane Land

As of last week, I have been a contributor at The Mane Land for eight years. That’s longer than I’ve ever been at any of my actual jobs in my life. There are literally only a couple of people who have been with the site longer, but I’m still amazed at how long it’s been. This is not to say I’m going anywhere, but rather I wanted to take the opportunity to look back at the past eight years, and look ahead to the future.

Unlike some, I didn’t come to be a supporter of Orlando City until it was announced that the club was joining MLS. At the time, I was contemplating picking a club to follow in MLS, but being in Tallahassee, there were no nearby options at that time. I considered FC Dallas and D.C. United, given the two were geographically closer in proximity to me than any others. Fortunately, it was literally while I was considering my options that the announcement was made regarding Orlando City’s jump to MLS. It was an easy decision.

As I do in many aspects of my life, I immediately started researching my new club, which led me to the content being produced by The Mane Land. There was also an article on the site titled “Join The Mane Land Staff.” I had often over the years internally bemoaned that I rarely used my Bachelor’s degree in English, and the desire to write welled up in me so much that I emailed the staff.

In response, one of our former editors, Andrew Marcinko, contacted me and said “I think your voice would be a great fit on TML.” He asked me to submit a Fan Post (those went away with our presence on SBN), and then another piece for review. Following that, our founder and managing editor, Michael Citro, emailed me to welcome me to the staff. I had no idea at the time how big a part of my life this blog would become.

I started out writing Monday’s Lions Links — often one of the more difficult days to write — and a feature piece. It’s been many years gone by now, but there was a time when the feature piece was “Pride Pub,” an ongoing series that paired craft beer and good food based on Orlando City’s opponent. I can tell you that the research for that was very enjoyable, and I still use some of the recipes I found to this day.

Eventually, I started contributing more match coverage and analytical pieces. Staff came and went, but I never thought to leave since I was enjoying myself. Sometime after that, I was promoted to senior columnist, for which I’m grateful. I can without reservation say that I’m a better writer thanks to my time with the site, and from working with such excellent staff.

In November of 2016, Michael asked if I wanted to give co-hosting The Mane Land PawedCast a try. My first recording was for Episode 71. We just recorded Episode 354, and with the exception of maybe two or three episodes, I have been on every single one of 283 episodes over the last six plus years. Michael and I have spent a lot of time talking on and off the podcast over the years, and I’m proud of what we have produced and to call him my friend.

We recently added an Orlando Pride-specific podcast called Skopurp: An Orlando Pride PawedCast. For years we wanted to give the Pride the time and attention the club deserves. Now, it is a reality, but one that I ask you to listen to and share. I’ll even put out that although Michael and I are the current hosts, we merely consider ourselves stewards and are hoping to get others to come onboard and eventually take it to the next level.

When I started with The Mane Land, the site had just made the move from a free WordPress site to the SBNation network. It was a big deal, and for many years it was a good partnership. Of course that all came to an end not too long ago, and our blog went the independent route thanks to the incredibly generous support of our readers and listeners. In fact, if you want to be one of those supporting our efforts, please go to our Buy Me A Coffee site to become a member. The move has allowed a flexibility we didn’t have before, but I really want others to have the same sense of joy and accomplishment that I have as a member of our staff.

At one point we had nearly twice the staff that we do now, and as you know, many hands make light work. The opposite of that is also true. I genuinely believe that there must be others out there with the same passion for Orlando City as I have — with the same desire to have their voice heard, whether through the written word or on a podcast. I promise you there is an opportunity to contribute here with us. Our internal discussions are informative, engaging, and often funny. Please consider joining us, as I did eight years ago. I haven’t regretted it and I know you won’t either.

I want to thank all of those who contributed to The Mane Land over the years. There are many that I am still in touch with, though they are no longer a part of the staff. Of course, the current staff are a pleasure to work with, and I appreciate their dedication to what we are trying to do.

Finally, I want to thank the readers and listeners over the years. From those who regularly comment on our articles, to those that I’ve personally met at matches or even randomly on the street, you are a big reason that we do all of this. You are a big reason why I’ve been doing this for the better part of a decade. it is always a genuine pleasure hearing your thoughts or simply sharing a moment of joy together — U.S. Open Cup final, anyone?

So, thank you. I look forward to many more years of this journey together.

Orlando City

The Mane Land Announces Membership Program

Maximize your Mane Land experience with our new TML membership program while supporting our independent efforts.

Published

12 months ago

May 4, 2023

Michael Citro

Hello, readers of The Mane Land and listeners of our podcasts. Before you start reading this, please note that the most important part of this post is at the end. So, don’t stop until you get to the bottom.

You may recall that when we left SBNation to become independent, we really weren’t sure the best way to go about that. Many of our readers and listeners generously offered to help us make that transition, but we still weren’t sure the best path forward, so we took a poll.

The poll was pretty much split down the middle between those who preferred a one-time, Kickstarter-style campaign (which we did, and those of you who stepped up to help completely blew us away!) and those who favored a Patreon-style, subscription-based membership with extra perks. In fact, the member subscriptions option got a few more votes in our poll.

The folks who took part in our GoFundMe fundraiser were fantastic and are now immortalized on this very site on the “Our Founders” page. But we had always planned to give folks the option to choose whichever method of support they preferred and we tried to communicate that throughout the process. It took a little longer than expected to get up and running, but our membership subscription program is now in place! (You may notice the fancy new banner ad about it on the home page, echoed below.)

*Supporting TML helps build a better TML for you to enjoy, so you’re really subscribing to your own Orlando soccer fandom.*

Part of that delay was thinking up something that didn’t encroach on the benefits we gave our Founders. Those folks helped us get started and deserve the exclusivity of the perks they got. The other part of the delay is that there just aren’t enough hours in the day. (However, for you guys, I’m willing to be cloned.)

We have utilized the popular Buy Me a Coffee platform to run this program. You can find the basics here. The Mane Land premium membership program includes three tiers of membership, as well as the option to click on the “Support” tab for those who just want to help us out whenever, without joining the program or adding any recurring “appointment-based” payments to their budgets. We love that feature of Buy Me a Coffee (or “Buy Us a Beer” in our case…you drink what you like).

For those who do choose to become members, we hope we have provided value and we are planning to add benefits along the way, in addition to providing special giveaways, events, etc. (more on that below). We have also provided subscription options — with monthly or annual memberships. The annual cost essentially gives you 12 months for the price of 10.

Current Benefits

The current membership benefits depend on which level of support you choose — Homegrown Player, TAM Player, or Designated Player level. Each level includes all benefits from the lower tiers, with additional benefits for each higher level.

Homegrown Player: This is a basic set-it-and-forget-it level of support for The Mane Land, providing a way for our readers and podcast listeners to contribute to the success of TML‘s independence goals. We want to compensate our current volunteers, replace lost income of those who previously received small stipends from being part of the SBNation network, add photographers, attract new writers, and expand our coverage. Additionally, each Homegrown Player Level member will be recognized in a Lion Links column, which is still typically our most widely read post of each day and one of the top daily links columns among soccer sites. Homegrown Player Level members will also be included in any future prize drawings we have or events we host and may be subject to future benefits as they are added.

TAM Player: In addition to Homegrown Player benefits, TAM Players will receive a new weekly e-newsletter in their inbox (unless you opt out…some people hate email). These will be informal missives from myself, other TML writers, or a combination, discussing what’s on our mind regarding Orlando City, the Pride, OCB, or soccer in general. Think of it as an extra post from our site that may cover multiple topics. Additionally, you’ll get a 10% discount from our web shop items that we control (presently, that means everything except our listed MLS Shop items). We will definitely have more benefits coming for this level soon and will look for opportunities to include additional benefits as they become available.

Designated Player: This limited availability level of support includes all perks from the Homegrown and TAM levels, but it goes beyond. Your discount at our webshop (for items we control) will be 15% off. Additionally, we’ll send you Zoom links to watch us “make the doughnuts” whenever we record the podcast. This includes when we interview guests. You’ll see how the sausage is made behind the scenes and everything that we say, some of which will end up on the cutting room floor before the final podcast is sent out. This includes both The Mane Land PawedCast and SkoPurp Soccer: An Orlando Pride PawedCast. And after two months of membership you can commission a bonus episode of either podcast simply by letting us know what topic you want us to cover. Think of this as an extended Ask Us Anything. We’ll do a whole show about your topic and you can even join us to discuss it if you wish.

The DP Level will certainly have additional benefits tacked on as we move forward. It is currently limited to 40 members but could be expanded slightly depending on demand and our Zoom attendance.

Future Benefits / Benefits Under Consideration

While we won’t be able to schedule these due to the random nature of items falling into our hands, there will be periodic prize giveaways in drawings that include all of our members, regardless of level. The catch is that you get one entry per level of support, meaning Homegrown Player Level members will get one entry per prize drawing, TAM Player Level members will get two entries per drawing, and Designated Player Level members get three entries for prize drawings. Some of the kinds of items we have come across in the past include match tickets, trinkets, posters, scarves, and so on.

We are planning to add a message board to our website, well…soon-ish is the word that comes to mind. The plan for the message board is to build our community and further the discussion about the club. As part of this, we’re planning an exclusive, members-only area of that message board that TAM and DP members can access. This will be a place our staff can share informational nuggets we can’t necessarily write stories about for various reasons and interact with our members on a daily basis.

Other things in the works include meet-and-greets/watch parties where you can chat with TML staff members and catch a road match with a bunch of like-minded Orlando City/Pride fans while we all cheer on the team together. There may also be other informal outings with one or more members of the staff, organized fantasy leagues, random Zoom calls for Q&A sessions, and perhaps even some organized group outings for Orlando City / Pride matches, national team games, etc.

The Most Important Part of This Post

Remember at the top of this post, when I said the most important part is at the bottom? Well, that seems like a long time ago, now, so it’s OK if you’ve already forgotten.

The most important part of our membership program is you. We want your feedback so we can make this program something that interests and excites you. We want to know what you like and dislike about this program. We want to know if there are some things we didn’t think of that interest you. If you like what we’re offering, tell us! If you hate what we’re offering, we want to know what you’d prefer instead or in addition. If you want to go drinking with Dave, we can probably arrange that, but it’ll be a unique tier and we’ll have to figure out the cost of that.

No idea is too crazy to suggest, even if it’s too insane for us to actually offer. Let us know what you want from your subscription and we’ll see if that’s something we can do. We’ll make it easy for you by putting the form right here below this post, which is now concluded.

Uncategorized

Welcome Home!

Published

1 year ago

March 31, 2023

Michael Citro

Where do I even start? When we were told in January that SBNation was pulling its support of The Mane Land and other MLS and NHL blogs — and many podcasts — I was devastated. The site had become my new baby in September of 2014 and after eight and a half years, I wasn’t ready to let it go.

I was in a pickle. I couldn’t afford to lose the monthly stipend I had been getting from SBNation to manage the site and provide a steady stream of content. It wasn’t that it was a huge monthly sum, but it mostly covered my car payment. That car was purchased when my salary was higher. The pandemic hit my day job like it did to many, and after a four-month layoff, I got my old job back but not at the same rate. So, imagine taking a pay decrease at work and then, on top of that, losing the amount you spend per month on your car payment. There was simply no way to launch The Mane Land independently, I thought, because I simply couldn’t cover the startup costs. Even with some generous offers from the staff to pitch in, there simply wasn’t a way.

Once we took the news public, there was an outpouring of support on social media. We appreciated both the pledges to help out that we got from the community and the signal boosting that the national media gave blogs like ours. Those national folks rely on local reporting for background.

Encouraged by this outpouring of public support, I met with the TML staff and we threw some ideas around. We polled our Twitter followers to see how our community would prefer to show their support. We got pretty close to a 50/50 split between those who wanted to provide a one-time donation via a Kickstarter or GoFundMe crowdsourcing effort, and those who would prefer some sort of premium subscription add-on service like Patreon or Buy Me a Coffee.

We didn’t get a lot of responses to that poll, but we decided as a group that since the results were so similar, we would offer both and let the public choose one path, the other, or even both. (Stay tuned for news soon-ish on the premium subscription level, but rest assured, everything you’ve been getting for free at TML will remain free!)

I was, admittedly, skeptical that we could raise enough startup money to create a private business, pay for hosting a new site and two podcasts (having long wanted to give the Orlando Pride their own unique show), registering a domain, paying for some design work and consulting, and any unexpected expenses that might come up. However, I thought we’d at least give it a try.

Then the amazing Orlando City, Orlando Pride, and TML community got involved. You guys pushed us past our bare minimum goal in just four and a half hours when our fundraiser went live on March 1. We reset our goal and you met that by midnight. We reset our goal again, to the dream total we discussed on our initial staff Zoom chat and you met that by that first weekend.

Stunned. Humbled. Amazed. Touched. All of these words apply to how that made us feel, but they don’t quite cover it. I think we all felt an enormous responsibility, as well. We felt a mandate to provide you the best site and the best coverage we can.

We got everything we needed to run the site for two years, even if we don’t earn a penny after our launch — and we plan to try, via advertising, a Patreon (or similar) program, an online shop, affiliate links, and anything else we can think of. But we decided to leave the GoFundMe open through the end of March, just in case there were folks who wanted to contribute but needed to wait for payday, or if more people wanted to become founding members of this new site.

Now, here we are. You guys did this. We’re here because of you. And this site isn’t quite what it will become. I’m still learning my way around WordPress, after being away from it for years. There’s more to build, and some of the things you’re seeing on this site now will be improved in the future. We’ll continue to tweak it, add things, and upgrade as we go.

For now, I just want to welcome you to your new online home. On behalf of our entire staff, I thank our founding members, who are now immortalized on this site in our founders section. If you weren’t able to contribute to our transition from SBNation’s network to an autonomous and independent, new version of The Mane Land, you can thank the folks on our founders page, because without them, we wouldn’t be here. And if you still want to help out, we’ve got more things on the way.

Vamos.

Michael Citro
Managing Editor