Revolution Stadium Groundbreaking "12-24 months" Part VIII

For those who want to kill time or throw around stadium design ideas that as of yet live only in our fertile imaginations, Alex aka @deepinthefort created a site: http://revs-sss.tumblr.com

 

Let's not forget they've been measuring for the better part of six years now.

Season ticket renewers have been hearing 'we're SSS commited' for the better part of a decade. Who's impressed, besides our good friend rkupp, that they've shelled out $300k per year funding a consultant, printing costs for some slick meeting handouts, goodie bags filled with Pats Pro Shop swag, and several Bilello duck boat SSS runs through the city.

Me, not so much.

 

Sure they did. I'm not sure what you're going on about ...

BB said they've spent "close to $4M".

Hello? You are taking a different quote from a different event. I didn't go to media day, so I have no idea what they said there. But, I do know what they said at the season-ticketholder event and, unless you were there and were in a position to know better, you have no idea.

Did I say I was impressed? I just reported what they said - without commentary.

 

lmao rkupp is on the defensive. definitely a huge lie.

 

I'm willing to defend the org, as rkupp has a vast history of exaggeration.

 

Additionally, if - IF - the quotes are accurate, "spent over two million dollars on the process" and "they've spent close to $4M on the process so far" aren't mutually exclusive. After all, "close to $4M" is "over two million".

Though it does beg the question why the first quote wouldn't have been "spent over three million dollars on the process"?

 

On a related note, whether "over two million dollars", or "close to $4M", I'd be interested in seeing how - and how effectively - said money is being spent. For instance, does the $2M-to-$4M figure include the $150,000 the Kraft Group donated to help underwrite the study of Somerville's Brickbottom and Inner Belt districts back in 2008?

 

http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/artic...ng-view-stadium-hunt-urban-locationis-critica

 

Broken link, here is the correct one:
New England Revolution stick to long view on stadium hunt: "An urban location ... is critical"
March 7, 2013
Kyle McCarthy
MLSsoccer.com

In other words, they have spent $2M with nothing to show for it.

This reeks of damage control, following Garber's comments.

 

Thanks for fixing link. Agreed - I questioned the purpose of the article and its timing as well.

 

Pure PR.

I bet they sat around spitballing phrases until "The Harder Path" came up. Sounds almost spiritual, ascetic--The Harder Path.

It would be too easy to spend the hundreds of thousands we've got left under the cap and make the playoffs--we're on The Harder Path.

That could be the slogan for this entire decade in Revs history.

 

Wouldn't it make sense if "The Harder Path" also included an investment in a Ronaldinho/Kaka type? you know, a player with a recognizable identity as a brand in and of themselves, and one who could appeal to one or more of the region's ethnic groups, as well as to us die-hard U.S. fans and the soccer mom/group crowd. Wouldn't it make sense if "The Harder Path" also included a strong concerted effort to boost our public facing image in the area - i.e. dollars into marketing, media relations and public relations? I never got a Master's, but I am pretty sure that to get ROI, you actually have to make the I. Maybe those things are on "The Hardest Path" and though the Revs are prepared to work harder, they aren't ready to work their hardest.

 

I guess this settles it, from Kyle McCarthy:

 

If you're going to locate and research multiple sites and multiple partnerships, you're going to have to invest some money in some dead ends. That said, they still have some active options, so it's premature to think that it's wasted money.

That's a question for BB. Maybe someone who was at media day can explain the context was.

Settles what? That Bilello used two different figures on different days to different audiences in different contexts?

I'm not claiming that he whispered it to me in some private conversation - he said it on the podium into the mike with several hundred people in the audience. Were you or KO there to know that he didn't say it?

 

I think it's pretty clear that McCarthy said, "told season-ticket holders on Sunday." Is that a different STH event than the one you referenced?

 

We don't know what they have to show for it.

You're certainly not going to buy land for $2M. I'd expect the land alone in Sommerville to cost $20M

 

I didn't say it was wasted money. I said they have nothing to show for it, which is exactly what "has yet to yield any tangible dividends" means, without the wordsmithing.

Look, when NYC and Orlando have more progress to show the fans of teams that aren't even in MLS yet, it is very hard for me to swallow what Bilello is pouring down my throat.

I understand the Boston real estate market is unique. But to go from "putting shovel in dirt by Dec 2012", to zero "tangible dividends" is a HUGE step backwards, and skepticism is warranted.

If Kraft proved to be a committed owner is some other aspect of this franchise, maybe I wouldn't be so skeptical.

 

Bingo!!!

Its so transparent that it is ridiculously pathetic, or pathetically ridiculous. Take your pick.

 

"Memories... light the corners of my mind,
Misty watercolor memories...
Of the way we were."

City exploring soccer stadium for Revolution
By Sasha Talcott, The Boston Globe
July 14, 2006
© 2006 The New York Times Company

Boston wants the New England Revolution to make the city their new home.

With the soccer team looking to build a stadium of its own somewhere in the area, Mayor Thomas M. Menino yesterday sent a letter to Major League Soccer officials expressing his interest in locating it in the city. Menino said he will form a task force of prominent business and sports leaders to look into the issue and identify possible locations.

"I am excited by the opportunity to showcase Boston to Major League Soccer and look forward to a long productive relationship moving forward," Menino wrote to soccer's commissioner, Don Garber. "Soccer is truly a universal game -- no matter what language you speak or what team you are rooting for."

The Revolution currently play in Gillette Stadium, home of the New England Patriots. In building a new home, they would join a growing number of soccer teams in cities such as Dallas, Chicago, and Los Angeles that have constructed their own stadiums or have plans to do so.

Though league officials like the idea of a stadium in downtown Boston, they also have received letters of interest from several local suburbs, which they declined to name. The Revolution have not determined whether to ask for economic incentives or public financing for the project, the team's chief operating officer said, but the league's commissioner, Don Garber, said he supports building soccer stadiums at least partly with public funds.

"I believe strongly in public-private partnerships for these facilities," Garber said. Public financing, he said, "speaks to the commitment we're both making to each other. It also helps the community feel this team is theirs."

Menino said he said he is not a fan of using public funds to build a stadium, but he would consider a plan to reimburse the city for any money it puts out, similar to the tax on hotels and rental cars that helped finance the new convention center in South Boston. He did not offer more details.

"That model has been so successful," he said. "We could use that model once again."

The new stadiums generally seat between 20,000 and 30,000 fans, smaller than Fenway Park. They often double as concert venues.

 

That was the most painful thing I've read in weeks.

 

So, to review...

Almost six years ago, the mayor of the City of Boston contacted Major League Soccer to express interest in having the New England Revolution site a soccer-specific stadium for the franchise in said municipality.

The league, either feeling bullish about its prospects for playing communities off against one another in competition to land the Revolution, or hoping to pressure the City of Boston into committing "public funds" towards the building of a soccer stadium for the Revs, made it known that it had "received letters of interest from "several local suburbs". Oddly enough, league officials "declined to name" said communities and no concrete evidence of talks between the Revolution and Boston suburbs regarding construction of a soccer-specific stadium cropped-up until a year later when news surfaced that the Krafts had expressed interest to Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone about sites in East Somerville.

The cynic in me is of the opinion that the league fabricated the early interest from suburban communities in an effort to wrangle the best deal possible out of the City of Boston. However, we'll never know, as Boston's mayor - Thomas Menino - made it clear early on that "he is not a fan of using public funds to build a stadium". Sure, shortly after the July 2006 story broke there was some spit-balling about a Revolution stadium in Roxbury, but nothing came of it.

Why? Well, it could be that Menino and MLS officials could never agree on what they felt constituted workable "public-private partnerships" to build such facilities. That said, it could be that the Krafts have never truly felt much urgency to get a soccer-specific stadium built for the Revolution.

I mean, after all, as Brian Bilello said to Peter Gobis of the Attleboro Sun-Chronicle three years ago:

"[W]hy should we spend 100 million on a new stadium and have our attendance increase only 10 percent and have to pay that off?"