Sounders’ Chief Loyalist Ditches His Disciples, Pursues MLS Dream

About a month ago, Sean McConnell logged on to SounderCentral.com, a Web site dedicated to his favorite professional team, the Seattle Sounders. McConnell is a member of the Emerald City Supporters (ECS), a group that can typically be found at Sounders home games wearing team scarves and leading chants, cheers, and jeers.

On SounderCentral.com, McConnell, who coordinates game-day color for the ECS, participates in message-board threads under the handle "Sounder4Life." But this time, when McConnell punched in the site's URL, a strange thing happened: Instead of entering the edgy, ECS-focused site he'd helped design, he was redirected to something called GOALSeattle.com, a general soccer site that appeared to be more interested in discussing the possibility of bringing a Major League Soccer (MLS) franchise to the city than in Sounders goings-on.

This switch in the site's focus is the handiwork of David Falk, another member of the ECS. Through the years, Falk has been one of the most strident supporters of the Sounders, who play in the United Soccer Leagues (USL) First Division, a league one rung below MLS on the pro soccer ladder. In 2003, Falk created SounderCentral.com, which quickly became the destination of choice for Sounders fans looking to keep up with the club. As the one with control over the site's domain name, Falk has been the primary caretaker of the site.

Falk's unannounced maneuver took Sounders diehards by surprise, and has made him persona non grata amongst fellow ECS members, who chafe at the elimination of their primary virtual meet-up spot and the new site's relegation of the Sounders to a topic of secondary importance. "'Sounder 'til I die' doesn't mean 'Sounder 'til they mention another team,'" says McConnell.

If anyone should be wedded to the Sounders, it's Falk. A fan of the club going all the way back to its North American Soccer League days, he's faithfully followed the Sounders through the glory years of the 1970s (the team regularly sold out the Kingdome), the lean times in the 1980s and 1990s, and finally its latest incarnation, when Adrian Hanauer, whose family owns Pacific Coast Feather Co., purchased the team in 2001. Since creating SounderCentral.com, Falk has poured thousands of hours and dollars into the site, and also collected photos of more than 5,000 pieces of memorabilia for an online Sounders museum, located at GOALSeattle.com.

Falk says his turnabout was the product of a private, long-standing battle over what he believed was best for soccer in Seattle. "What do you put first, your city or club?" Falk says. "What's better, the continuation of the USL Sounders or an MLS club? It's difficult for anyone to argue that continuation of the Sounders is best for Seattle soccer."

Though the Sounders have always been competitive on the field, Falk became more and more disillusioned with the front office, which he thinks isn't making enough of an effort to raise the team's profile. And it's hard for Falk to accept the fact that any of the great players the team develops—such as U.S. National Team members Brian Ching and Marcus Hahnemann, and Preston Burpo and Maykel Galindo of MLS's Chivas USA—will never be long for Seattle, returning only with their new clubs for exhibition games.

"It's no longer enough to have a second-division team and have players we develop come back and kick our ass every year," says Falk. "Thanks, but no thanks. It's taken me years to reach the boiling point that we're just fucked."

In May, MLS announced that it had sold its Pacific Northwest franchise rights to Southern California real-estate magnate Michael Keston, who's stated that Seattle and Portland are the two markets he's considering. He's expected to decide between the two sometime this summer.

Falk says that despite numerous efforts to increase participation, the ECS has stagnated at a few dozen members, resulting in a clubby vibe on SounderCentral.com. Meanwhile, Seattle's competition for an MLS franchise is home to the Sounders' USL rival Portland Timbers, who boast a 1,000-strong "Timbers Army."

So when MLS came winking at the door, it gave Falk the impetus to recast his Web site. "I decided that I could live with myself best by steering away from the Sounders, embracing MLS, and getting new people talking about soccer," he explains. "I was not willing to say nothing and have that perceived as a lack of interest in MLS."

Though Falk says he's at peace with his decision, he understands the reaction from his friends at the ECS, as voices like his in the small community are rare. "It could certainly be interpreted as being disloyal," speculates Falk. "They think I should be bunkered in my little Sounders world, the little mouse flipping off the elephant before he gets squashed."

Fans like McConnell, however, view the big league's most recent overture with a healthy dose of skepticism. The 1997 referendum that created Qwest Field was passed on the backs of soccer fans, as Paul Allen secured more than $300 million from taxpayers by pitching the stadium as a football and soccer facility. The MLS commissioner at the time, Doug Logan, even sent letters to Sounders season-ticket holders, insinuating that if they voted for Qwest, they would get an MLS team. The referendum passed, 51 percent to 49 percent, a margin of 36,780 out of 1.6 million votes cast.