Houston ready to seize opportunity?

[Hustletown]

I know some of you have speculated on whether or not Houston could conceivably enter the MLS in 2006 or 2007. How has the collapse of San Antonio's plans (http://soccernet.espn.go.com/headlinenews?id=335275&cc=5901) changed your thoughts, if at all, on that? Are we ready to step up and seize our opportunity for a club sooner rather than later?

Reports of three investment groups (Club America, AEG, ?) visiting Houston with stadium proposals have hit the press in the last month, and I also wonder how close any one of the groups is to pulling the trigger on a deal.

I have to think this is a great chance for our city. San Antonio's crash and burn, and the fact the Astros aint satisfying anyone's sports fix right now, have me on the edge of my seat at the prospects of getting the MLS here sooner than we expected. Obviously, a lot of things need to fall into place but I like the position we are in right now.

[Bayern1986]

Yes we definetly are in a good position right now, the MLS wants to come to Houston, and Club America wants a team here, but the only thing thats missing is the stadium issue once we get that resolved Houston is a lock for 06.

[anderson]

And if the timing's right, then America can hire Leo Beenhakker away from T&T just as they're eliminated from WCQ. :D

[yure323]

Do MLS want to expand in 2006 or are they gonna wait until 2007 ?

[anglophile]

Is MLS still looking to convert an high school football stadium (Tully?) into a soccer stadium?

UH's stadium would be ideal for MLS, save for the ugly red-and-white checkered endzones come football season. :rolleyes:

[wufc]

Do MLS want to expand in 2006 or are they gonna wait until 2007 ?
Garber has said 2007, 2006 is just for possible relocation of KC and/or SJ.

[Eastern Bear]

Is MLS still looking to convert an high school football stadium (Tully?) into a soccer stadium?

UH's stadium would be ideal for MLS, save for the ugly red-and-white checkered endzones come football season. :rolleyes:

Not Tully (Egads I tore my ACL on the North side endzone in HS), but Delmar. Tully is definitely too narrow for soccer anyway. There wasn't enough room on the sidelines for a gridball game.

[anderson]

From today's Houston Chronicle:

MLS team in Houston on front burner - Club América interested; sports authority, Delmar site part of mix (http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/sports/3229449)

Oliver Luck, CEO of the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority, who has been working with Club América and other groups interested in bring MLS to Houston, expects a resolution to Club América's plans by the end of next week.

"By then, we should have a better idea of whether this is going to happen," Luck said. "But even if this push doesn't make it, there will be other folks. There's enough interest out there. If anyone wants to be ready for an April 2006 start, there's a window that is still open. But after the next month or two, it would be hard to launch a team next season."

[Drum'r Boy]

I could live with Club America de Houston either as an expansion team in '07 or as a transplanted SJ team. I'd rather MLS leave San Jose where it is, but either way, as a Dallas fan, I'd love to have an I-45 rivalry.

[yanks02]

Allright! 1-2 weeks here we come!

[anglophile]

As part of the agreement, the Frisco ISD has use of the stadium Thursday and Friday nights during the high school football season.

Does this mean that the Frisco will have unsightly football gridlines come autumn? :eek:

[Drum'r Boy]

Does this mean that the Frisco will have unsightly football gridlines come autumn? :eek:

Probably. But it is a small price to pay for them to pony up 55 of the 65 mil.

[texgator]

Does this mean that the Frisco will have unsightly football gridlines come autumn? :eek:

To an extent....but since FCD will have ground maitenance control they can do several things to help the situation.

1. Unlike most other shared fields, the soccer lines can take precedence over the gridiron lines. Paint the gridiron lines on much lighter for easier removal.

2. We know from the stadium website that the grass length for soccer will be 1/4 inch lower then for football......so, after a Friday night HS game the grounds crew will have to mow that 1/4 inch down for a Saturday night FCD match, which should lighten up the gridiron lines, if not remove them entirely. Then they would repaint the soccer lines, making them stand out more.

3. Paint the gridiron markings in light yellow and the soccer lines in bright white.

See, where this is different is that this is a soccer stadium that will occasionally host gridiron games.....not the other way around. Big difference.

[anderson]

I hope it works out this time. Remember that Houston also appeared all set to become the home of Chivas USA. Of course, one key difference is that Vergara never really wanted to come here and always wanted to go to LA. The league tried to convince him to come here. In this case, America looks like it really wants to be here if it can get a stadium deal done and finalize terms with MLS.

In the long term, we're probably much better off having a team affiliated with America. America and Televisa have deep pockets and if all the talk about MLS starting to spend more money and acquiring marquee players and so forth actually indicates anything serious about the league's future plans, then I think we're really better off having owners who have the means, and probably the willingness, to get on the more spending bandwagon. If Lalas is doing more than just a bit of his own puffery when he talks about building a "superclub" that's "good enough for New York", then America probably wouldn't be one of the other owners who have to be "dragged kicking and screaming" into that future.

[Eastern Bear]

Do you think Club America would follow a marketing strategy similar to Chivas and just rebrand their name w/ a "USA" tag? or would they start fresh? It seems to make sense to start fresh because they want to go after the non-hispanic crowd too. Houston sports teams (especially the Astros) always seem to play the "hometown" angle a lot.

[wufc]

I've heard rumours that CA isn't going to follow Chivas in going for an all-latino team. So, I guess there would be no point in calling themselves Club America USA (what a weird name). Club Houston sounds like a pretty nice name.

[anderson]

I agree that adding "USA" at the end of a name just sounds goofy. Of course, Dallas fans had to deal with a team named "the Burn" for nine years and Columbus fans still have that Village People logo, so it's all relative. :D

Chivas actually started used the term "Chivas USA" to describe their potential US project well before they finalized their deal with MLS. In contrast, America has been talking about coming into MLS for over a year now and I don't recall ever seeing them use something like "Club America USA" - rather, they always seem to just refer to something like the "project in MLS" or "project in the US."

I also hope that Snrs. Perez-Teuffer and Villafranca understand that "Club America USA" would sound exceptionally goofy. It may also be a good sign that the team in Mexico that often serves as a developmental team for America is called "Real San Luis" (the other RSL ;) ), not "Club America San Luis." Other teams in Mexico affiliated with a bigger club use names like "Cruz Azul Oaxaca," "Chivas La Piedad," or even "Pachuca Jr." Since they haven't used it in Mexico, one would hope that America and Televisa wouldn't feel compelled to use that sort of naming convention in Houston.

All that being said, the term "Club America" is probably one of the two most valuable soccer brands in Houston. It just doesn't make sense to me that America and Televisa would spend tens of millions of dollars to acquire a team in MLS and redevelop a stadium in Houston and then not try to leverage their most valuable asset. But I think most of us could certainly live with "Club America Houston" or even just "Club America."

It would still be a good thing to emphasize that a team plays in Houston by having Houston in the name or logo. But spending serious money to bring a team to Houston, redevelop a stadium in Houston, and market that team in Houston are also all very good things that most of us would probably appreciate well enough.

[swedcrip34]

If they call it Club Houston and use Eagles as an unofficial nickname, won't they still get most of the benefits of the brand? Use similar colors and logos, and then what Mexican or Mexican-American in the area won't recognize the connection? Especially with the same ownership and the influence of the TV connection?

I think Club America would be wise to use some (if not all) of the 7 international spots on Mexican players (right now San Jose only has 1 IIRC in DeRo if that's the team moved) and then build the rest of the team like any other MLS team would. Go after local players like Burciaga in trades. Round out the later rounds in the draft with local players, but otherwise just go after the best players available (something Chivas didn't do at the start).

[anderson]

If they call it Club Houston and use Eagles as an unofficial nickname, won't they still get most of the benefits of the brand? Use similar colors and logos, and then what Mexican or Mexican-American in the area won't recognize the connection? Especially with the same ownership and the influence of the TV connection?Well, I'm not sure that "Club Houston" would be a good idea - run "Club Houston" in Google and see what link comes up first. We may want to avoid the obvious jokes. :o

But your point makes sense. So long as the connections are fairly obvious, most people will get it.

I think Club America would be wise to use some (if not all) of the 7 international spots on Mexican players (right now San Jose only has 1 IIRC in DeRo if that's the team moved) and then build the rest of the team like any other MLS team would. Go after local players like Burciaga in trades. Round out the later rounds in the draft with local players, but otherwise just go after the best players available (something Chivas didn't do at the start).It also may be feasible to pick up a couple of the Houston area players already in MLS (e.g., Arturo Alvarez, Nelson Akwari, Rusty Pierce, Josh Gardner, Ricky Lewis, etc.). You wouldn't want to build a team around just players from Houston, but adding a couple of them to an existing MLS roster would make for good press and create some very useful local connections.

I also agree that it would be wise to add some Mexican players among the foreign slots, but America is well-known for finding foreign players from various places, including Cameroon and Zambia. Their fans in Mexico expect to see foreign players in key roles, so they have a lot more room in that regard than most teams (and obviously a lot more acceptance from their fans to pick foreign players than Chivas USA may have thought it had when building their team).

[Drum'r Boy]

Club America de Houston has a good sound to it, imo.

Bottom line, though, I just want you guys to get a team. All this traveling (12 hours to Colorado, two days to Salt Lake, eight hours to KC) is killing us!

We need a nice, solid, 4 hour drive and a good rivalry. It's Texas, so I doubt we'll have trouble with the latter.