Sounders FC soccer pyramid

He means REAL teams, not Robin Waite (crack) pipe dreams. The land he has targeted for his stadium has wetlands on it. He's going to get the EPA to approve his destroying wetlands, to build a soccer stadium? FOOMCBASL! The Port of Seattle CREATED 50% more wetlands (on land they own in the Kent/Auburn area) than they destroyed, to build the third runway, and it took them three years to get the EPA to approve THAT plan.

 

The latest on Kitsap stadium:
http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2008/apr/10/new-site-eyed-for-proposed-soccer-stadium/

 

A third site? I see why you didn't take me up on my bet in the USL sub-forum thread.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=...22.663212&sspn=0.038943,0.080338&ie=UTF8&z=16

I also wonder why he hasn't pursued upgrading the facilities at the main Olympic College campus?

 

Might as well build new.
That stadium is too narrow for soccer and wide open to the neighborhood.

School district actually owns the land (also home of BHS Knights).

People can be just as skeptical as they like, but as long as a guy with $$$ is digging away, there's a chance it will happen.

 

Um - why build new in the boonies when there are community partnerships that could be built up in the major population center for the peninsula?

Would the lack of alcohol sales by being on school district property really be a problem for a family club?

Also, there's plenty to be skeptical about since, well, it's not like there's any actual digging going on. He could be Bill f'ing Gates and I'd be just as skeptical of his plan since he's obviously - just read the article! - woefully underestimated costs.

To be tedious, he's gone from a site with 90,000 (70k from the Bremerton area and 20k from Silverdale) of the 250,000 people on the peninsula in a fiveish mile radius to a site with 10,000 people (BEING QUITE GENEROUS HERE) in a five mile radius.

Being at the college at least puts it at a landmark but it's still out in the boonies comparatively speaking.

I mean, let's just flip this around and say that some guy was going to have an Eastside USL-1 team since getting across the lake is such a pain. His first site was going to be in Issaquah close to Pickering Barn but that fell through and he's since moved out to Snoqualmie with a land swap supposedly in the making. Would you be pitching these softballs at that sort of development?

 

Oh, I am skeptical about this, always have been. However I am far less skeptical than I normally would be because a millionaire wants it to happen. Doesn't mean it will, but it has a slim chance rather than absolutely no chance.

I support the idea, but that is different than believing it will actually happen. Why do I support it? Because if it is done right, it can work, even in Poulsbo. The question is whether or not Waite can 'do it right' buy building a good stadium and investing in the community and the club. People here are used to going to events in Poulsbo. It's closer than Tacoma for some and there is no bridge toll. Can he get 4k to go on a regular basis? That's the question.

I was told that at Sunday's Sounders pre-season match that someone involved with the Tacoma Tide wondered about Waite's way of going about this. Waite was characterized as 'trying to cut corners' get get it done 'on the cheap.'

I do think Tacoma is the far better USL-1 market, and as a Tide fan I would love it if they could move up. They just don't have the money or investors to do so right now, though they are looking.

Robin Waite has connections and money. He doesn't want to use them in Tacoma (so far). Maybe he'll change his mind if the league says 'no' to Poulsbo. So far he has gotten no indication whatsoever that the league won't let him take the (former) Sounders if he builds a stadium.

I was talking with fellow Sounders / Tide fans in the car yesterday coming home from the pre-season match. We all agreed that supporting MLS, the Tide AND USL-1 in Kitsap would spread us pretty thin. I'm not terribly convinced we'll ever have to confront such an embarrassment of riches.

 

I think that "no" is really the only reasonable answer to that question. When's the last time you went to Poulsbo for some event personally? Getting a lot people to a once a year event like Viking Fest is pretty easy but asking a huge chunk of your potential fanbase to do forty mile round trips fourteen times in the summer is something else. As in it's something else that won't happen.

Yeah, cheap, good or fast. Pick two (at most).

I don't think Tacoma is that great shakes either with MLS in Seattle. For PDL maybe, but the crowd threshold for profitability is lower when you don't have to pay players or get on jet planes.

 

"When's the last time you went..." is not a question that washes well.

Why? Because if there were a USL-1 club there, the answer would be "almost every home match." You can't base how many people would go to soccer matches there only on how many go to Poulsbo for other things right now. You'd need surveys. (However, Poulsbo is and remains a destination area for the North Kitsap community).

Regal opened the nicest, biggest movie theater on the entire Kitsap Peninsula...in Poulsbo. 12 screens, a few with stadium seating. That was a few years ago before the town / area got as big as it is now.

Either they are gamblers, or their surveys said people in the area would support it. Sure enough, it is consistently the busiest theater in the county, and draws people from Port Townsend, Bremerton, Silverdale, Port Orchard...

(Without USL soccer, I make it up to Poulsbo about once a month.)

 

Yes.
Using the Rainiers-Mariners model. Problem is, MLS owners can't have investment in USL-1 clubs, so they'd have to set up some kind of player reimbursement model without helping with cash flow. I'm pretty sure the Mariners send cash along with players to Tacoma. Couldn't happen between MLS-USL-1.

Teams in the PCSL come and go. Hibs & Caley Saints were a Seattle tradition in that league, and some of those people are now involved with the Sounders Women (Mitalas). There was also a club called Skagit Rapids up until a year or two ago. They are now in Bellingham as PSSA. Last year FK Pacific played out of Starfire. They are not in this year, thought they haven't 'folded.'

www.pcsl.org

It has actually been happening the other way around. PSSA and Wolves 'branched out' into indoor to make their programs year-round.

 

It is a question that washes well - if asked of enough people, it establishes a pattern of behavior. Expectations of which direction people will travel. What you'd do once there was a team isn't wholly relevant.

Well, multiplexes require lots of land like stadiums, I suppose.

People drive a lot out there and it's a bit of a captive audience. Even here on the Eastside, I could not imagine driving 20 miles (one way) to go to see a movie.

There we go. And how do you think that compares to the surrounding population? How often they go to Tacoma or Seattle? How often people in Silverdale go to Bremerton and vice-versa?

 

The question is how many would go to matches if a pro soccer team was there.

You can't answer that and neither can I.

We can speculate, and you are speculating not enough to make it work, right?

I'm speculating that if it were to happen, you'd be pleasantly surprised.

 

Two things to consider:

1) The site that Waite is looking at isn't "in" Poulsbo, it's right off of Highway 3 by the new Olhava development. Very easy to get into and get out of, which is not something that Poulsbo is well-known for.

2) I'd drive 20 miles to see a movie. Hell, I used to do it when I lived in Seattle.

 

the apex, the climax, the vertex of the Seattle soccer scene are the

EMERALD CITY SUPPORTERS

 

Hey, LOOK! There's a team playing out there on the pitch!

 

yes and they are...

ECS FC!!!!!!!

 

As soon as Le Toux joins a supporters group for ECS FC, I think you'll have it made.

 

le toux is part of ECS.

he is on our boards all the time. NOT ON GOALSEATTLE!

 

Do you even realize what "ECS" means in French?

I didn't think so.