Good Seats Still Available

Our World Cup fever has yet to break, and we spend this week reveling in some of the heretofore unexplored (at least on this podcast) nooks and crannies of modern-day American pro soccer history with one of its most unsung front office heroes.  In a career spanning over four decades, sports PR and event management executive Thom Meredith has proverbially “seen it all” across some of US sports’ most remarkable leagues, franchises and governing bodies – including remarkable (and sometimes dubious) assignments like: handling press for the woeful NFL expansion Tampa Bay Buccaneers of 1976-77; managing communications for Lamar Hunt’s World Championship Tennis circuit of the early 1980s; and directing a litany of events for the fast-growing (and World Cup USA-fueled) US Soccer Federation of the 1990s.  But it’s Meredith’s work across some of the most exciting (and exasperating) teams of the late 1970s/early 1980s North American Soccer League – the Tampa Bay Rowdies, Washington Diplomats, Philadelphia Fury, and Dall