Toronto FC

I was a season ticket holder for the first 5-seasons of the Toronto FC MLS soccer team. The team failed to make the playoffs each and every year. After last season I refused to renew my tickets and received several phone calls from team officials, promising that the team had turned the corner and was headed to the playoffs this season.

In the end I purchased a half-season of cheap end zone tickets which I share. Instead of a $2,000 investment I pay $300.

TFC have lost an MLS record 8-games to start the 2012 season. The worst franchise in MLS history is off to a pathetic start. The club is the laughing stock of the entire league. Run by MLSE, the worst ownership group in North American sport. They own teams in the NHL, NBA and MLS. None of their teams have made the playoffs in years.

Toronto FC regularly sold-out all of the BMO Field's 20,000 seats. At one time there were over 10,000 people on a waiting list to buy seasons tickets. All of that has gone. The losing seasons have resulted in the waiting list disappearing and non-renewals of existing seat holders. Next season I expect that close to 50% of ticket holders will not renew. MLSE destroyed soccer in Toronto.

MLS League Commissioner, Dan Garber, should consider stepping in and having the league run the franchise, until the team can be sold to a responsible party. Years ago the NBA took over the Cleavland Cavaliers and more recently the NHL took over the Phoenix Coyotes. If Dan Garber cares about soccer in Toronto, he should step in and take control of the team.    

You know a team has lost the city when people stop talking about them. The casual fan has walked away and only the diehards remain. TFC has slipped to the Toronto Argos level of indifference to the average sports fan in the region. I don't believe the excitement will ever return.

Not only have MLSE run an incompetent franchise, they have constantly removed the off field fun aspects of attending a game. They covered up the beer garden, enforced stricter alcohol rules each season. Not because of unruly fans. They have an almost temperance attitude about alcohol consumption. The in- game experience has deteriorated each season. They killed the excitement and presented an awful on-field product, in a way that MLSE is famous for.