Is this Russia? This isn’t Russia.

You may or may not have read an article posted on our site Wednesday evening about the St. Louis Ambush and their owner Andrew Haines. They are pretty upset about it and ended up giving it a lot of traction. It has been viewed many times in just over 24 hours. Looking at the traffic stats, I would think it was a Cardinals article about how they just re-signed Heyward or something. If they just ignored it, it would have easily been buried by other local sports news. You can find the article here.

We have many different writers here at Arch City Sports, some write more than others… and the best part of it is that we all have different opinions on topics. That makes for some great conversation amongst ourselves that inspires articles to get written and such. We encourage all our writers to write about any topic they choose and to do so passionately. Matthew Bird is a huge soccer fan. I met him a couple times while I was shooting the Saint Louis FC games. He wrote me earlier that day asking if it was okay if he posted something about the Ambush that he vented about something controversial with the Ambush. Opinionated pieces are my favorite, they generate so much more conversation than simple recaps of games. Whenever one of our writers messages me asking for permission to write something, the answer is always yes before they finish. It tells me that it is something they are passionate about. I personally don’t blog much at all, unless I feel like I really need to get something off my chest. I run the site, the social media, the behind the scenes stuff, and am a photographer. I leave the writing to the skilled passionate writers and/or journalism students we have on board here.

I think what we have created here is something very special and it only continues to get better. It was a small idea in the beginning with no real plan, but has grown a pretty substantial following.  I remember one Cardinals fan telling me that changing the name of my facebook page to Arch City Sports was a stupid idea and a dumb name that would never fly.

Anyways, back to the Ambush article.  Jim Fossell, who sends out press releases for the St. Louis Ambush, contacted me not long after the article was posted on Wednesday night and said that the GM (Brian Roth) asked that the article be taken down. I personally hadn’t even read it yet as I was just getting home from the gym.  My first thoughts were not to hurry up and read the article to see what the fuss was about, but that of deja vu. I have been here before… the exact situation… with the exact same owner.

In 2013, I was one of the stats guys for the Missouri Monsters indoor football team during their inaugural season (who would later be rebranded as the St. Louis Attack), also owned by Andrew Haines.  Arch City Sports was just getting off the ground and only a few months old. In March of 2013 the Monsters were already on their 4th head coach before a full season had even been played. I posted info from their press release about the hiring of their new head coach and then added quotes I had gotten from the previous head coach and also mentioned that it was their 4th head coach already. One of the quotes mentioned something about players not being paid and not being fed if I remember correctly. I can’t go back and look it up to give the exact quote because I deleted the article. The GM and PR guy both had their jobs threatened if they didn’t get me to take it down. They were both great guys who worked very hard at their jobs. I didn’t want them to lose their jobs over something so petty on my little blog.

I thought it was weird that Andrew never came and talked to me about it or why he got so upset about something that didn’t seem like that big of a deal. It was truthful, not opinionated. He never said more than a handful of words to me in person that season. It was always awkward with all the things being said about how he moved from town to town creating teams and leagues only to leave and do it again somewhere else. We googled his name and saw all kind of stories from other cities. Seemed to be super nice to fans and a bit of a jerk to employees. I had also purchased a customized team jersey with my name and number well before the season started. We went to Shamrocks for a pre-season party. Everybody there got their customized jerseys but me. It took all the way until the final week of the season for me to get my $100 refunded and ended up with no jersey after being told numerous times that they would get it in their next order of jerseys.

I don’t have anything against the guy, that’s just my personal experience. I definitely have nothing against the team. I think naming the team Ambush was a great idea to capitalize off of. Bringing back an old team name, colors, former players. This town loves its soccer. If it were me, I probably would have went the Steamers route, but that’s showing my age. I thought changing the football team’s colors to match the Ambush was a good idea too.

The guy has a history and reputation… history keeps repeating itself. While Matt’s article was mostly opinionated, it did include some facts that shouldn’t be ignored.  He included financial information that is publicly available and things that have happened in the past.  You can stick your head in the sand and just be a fan if you want, but Haines hasn’t stuck with any of his teams for more than three years and this is the Ambush’s third year.  Googling his name, STL Sports Ventures, Missouri Sports Holdings, and Haines Creative paints a pretty clear picture. You can also talk to people with other sports organizations in town, businesses, present and former players/employees… if you really want to do the research on how he treats them and pays them.

His website had this quote on it:

“Since 2001 the Haines’ have started over 30 minor league sports teams in indoor football, hockey, and basketball. In addition to sports team ownership, the pair also has owned several minor league sports leagues in indoor football, hockey, and basketball.”

That definitely sounds like somebody ready to settle… in Missouri.

So while some of their fans are calling us “misguided trolls” and saying we want the Ambush to fail, that is simply untrue. The more teams in the area, the more we have to talk about. We would never wish a team to fold. Now wishing for different owners is another thing. Don’t get me started on the Rascals.

Jim Fossell said he was going to send me an email breaking down Matthew Bird’s article and what he thought was wrong with it. I waited all day for the email but it never came. Then around 9pm I got a Facebook message from him saying:

“It would be a pointless waste of my time. You’ve clearly got an issue with us/Andrew too and you don’t really care about what’s on your site, so I am done talking about it.”

I have met Jim twice in person and talked to him a number of times via Facebook and email. He always seemed like a genuinely nice guy. I never could really get him to say what was so bad about the article… though both he and their GM seemed to keep pointing out that attendance was higher than 1500. I know that he loves indoor soccer. Maybe he is just naive or doesn’t want to believe that it’s true.  I tried to respond to that last message from Jim to say that I didn’t think it was a waste of time and that I like to hear both sides of every issue… but I was promptly blocked on Facebook after he sent the message. What?

I never argued with him or disagreed with him… I only said that I can’t censor my writers by taking down their articles simply because somebody doesn’t like them or wants info out there. That First Amendment thing, ya know? We are not on the team’s payroll as a PR firm to only pump out stories about puppies and rainbows. We have this many followers/likes because we aren’t like some media sources who show bias and because we bust our asses working on growing ourselves…. not because we ‘buy fake likes’ Mr. Haines.

Just the other day, November 7th to be exact, Jim told me:

“We greatly appreciate the coverage.”

Now because he realizes they can’t control what coverage we give him, he is upset?

Is this Russia? This isn’t Russia.

How about stop scamming people rather than asking people to not point it out?