The MLS Stadium Thread

Yes, and no. It gave the judge the ability to create a framework for interested buyers to pursue the team, but I'd rate it below 1). Tony's bumbling in Austin, and 2). Willing buyers for the Crew.

Probably mid summer, the league knew there was no way Precourt could play in Austin in 2019. He didn't have anywhere to play - they didn't even want him in (or he couldn't afford) Round Rock. He was struggling to land the toxic waste site. The league also knew he poisoned the well in Columbus. There was no way Precourt could have done anything but shut the Crew down or lose a boatload of money (he probably couldn't have afforded to lose) playing in front of 25 random people in Columbus in 2019. A dispersal draft in the middle of an expansion war would have been very bad Optics, and more... Lindner might have asked for a rebate on FC Cincinnati... The judge would have questioned them shutting down the team and not accepting a local ownership group, and forced a sale... Who knows... The league may have had to accept Sacramento's underfunded group's bargain basement price.

The Haslam/Edwards group were willing to buy the Crew and field the team. It was a win-win for the league.

Modell meant the league had to take the phone call from the Haslam's and Edwards, but nothing more.

 

OK, so maybe he did say "screw" but it sure seems more like a slip of the tongue than a deliberate attempt to insult a team at their finest moment of glory.

But I do remember some Brit magazine "taking the piss" out of MLS in 1996, with a snarky parody of each team. They used that term for Columbus,but showing their in-depth knowledge of American culture and history, the reasoning behind it was their claim that Columbus was the port capital of the US. What's the matter, couldn't come up with a witty one-liner about insurance actuarial tables?

 

FYI, there is an easy way to link to a youtube video at a specific time stamp so people don't have to manually skip. Just add &t=number of seconds to the end of the URL. so this one is &t=190.

Also to me he is pretty clearly saying "Columbus's Crew"

Edit: never mind on my youtube tip. It doesn't work with BS embed feature. Dang.

 

That's some revisionist history.

 

Nothing was ever tested in court. The judge stopped the clock on the purchase period (I forget the legal term), but when the clock started (and time ran out) and other issues that may have foiled the law were never tested. It wasn't even a sure thing that the judge could have placed an injunction that would have prevented a move at the time. The lawsuit was Hail Mary by the city, but it was part of the picture.

The rest of the stuff around the move meant that the law never needed tested. But, at the end of the day, without Haslam's coming forward, the law wouldn't have stopped the move. Precourt's issues in Austin made it in the league's interest to sell the team instead of testing the law.

But, all indications at the time was that the league was more than willing to go to court over the law. Heck, they brought in the NFL lawyers for the fight.

 

"Never tested in court"? What the heck are you talking about? A lawsuit was filed and all of MLS' legal machinations (with "NFL lawyers for the fight") to have it stayed or dismissed failed in front of the trial judge, as did an interlocutory appeal, as I recall. MLS capitulated rather than having to provide discovery revealing its inner-workings.

Just because there was no jury verdict or final ruling from the United States Supreme Court does not mean MLS did not as a practical matter lose the lawsuit filed pursuant to the Modell Law or that the lawsuit was not instrumental in saving the Crew.

You're not a lawyer, are you?

 

Ancient history (10 months ago), but apparently we need a refresher around these parts:

HUGE #SaveTheCrew news breaking today: We just learned that Judge Brown has denied MLS & Precourt's motion to dismiss our lawsuit to keep the #CrewSC in Columbus. This is a big victory in a long legal battle, and we are reviewing the judge's decision now to determine next steps.

— Columbus City Attorney Zach Klein (@CityAttyKlein) December 3, 2018

 

Big victory in a long legal battle.

Sure, it was a important to the outcome as Indiana Jones was to the plot of Temple of Doom.

If Precourt had somewhere to play in Austin, MLS would have had something to fight about. He didn't.

If the Haslam's hadn't come forward, MLS could have run out the clock on Modell and the team would have moved.

I'm being generous by saying the law encouraged the league to take the Haslam's call.

 

Er, no.

The Modell law gave local residents or local governments the right to buy a publicly supported team which wanted to move. The local resident in this case is Pete Edwards Jr, longtime Crew team doctor. The Haslams split their time between Cleveland and Tennessee.

MLS initially fought the law and lost. Their NFL lawyers made the interlocutory appeal and the 10th district court of appeals laughed it out of court, denying them even a hearing on their appeal and sending it back per curiam. That made sense legally as some of the issues were new and the law hadn't been tested so the CoA preferred to see the record developed below.

Once Judge Brown froze the clock, there was no chance of the team moving to Austin. The city or county could have used their sovereign powers to take the team via eminent domain. That would mean a jury trial to determine the fair value of the team. Business which consistently lose money as Garber claims MLS teams do aren't worth very much. If the jury had come back with a valuation of $75 mil for the team, stadium, and SUM shares, that would have hurt the league's quest to get $150 mil expansion fees. Discovery would have been painful for the league.

MLS made the best of a bad situation for them and kept their skeletons in the closet, welcomed another NFL owner to MLS, and got a new downtown stadium out of it.

 

No it wasn't Williams. Arena once tried to discover Stern John who was training with the Crew as his cousin Ansil Elcock played for us.

The player I'm thinking of (and whose name I'd have to look up) was a 2 way midfielder who made something like 300K which was a large salary in MLS back then. But after selling John and McBride (and Friedel before them) we had some credit banked with MLSHQ. There was no allocation order or DP rules then. It was a midseason signing.

Garber has said Screw on other occasions too. As one of the original small markets, along with KC, we've seen a long line of league favoritism toward bigger teams.

 

Yeah, the whole thing worked out pretty well for the league. They got a new stadium for one of their original teams, a new owner to run that team (who will surely be better than the previous one) and a new market in Austin, where, theoretically, a new stadium will be built and maybe if we're lucky, someone else will buy out Precourt.

The only real losers in this would be San Antonio, who were trying to get their own expansion bid off the ground without even knowing about the back-door deal with Austin. Austin should have gone through the same hoops that other cities had to in order to get a team. And that is why a lot of neutral fans are going to end up hating Austin..

 

I looked up the Nats rosters to remember the player Garber vetoed for us. It was Cory Gibbs.

 

Discovery claims were a bit of a free-for-all. In the early years a player had to be on a salary of $75,000 or less to be a discovery, so you couldn't go out and get George Weah, like the Metros tried to do. Hey, he was seen in public wearing a Yankees hat, so that is all the proof you need!

I think Robert Warzycha was your first Discovery player, and I wondered how you could "discover" a guy who had like 50 caps for Poland!

And the irony of ironies is that the only front-office move Mike Burns was successful at was waiting until someone was just about to sign a player, and then he'd swoop down and put in a Discovery claim on him. The other team had to buy out his "rights" from the Revs for $50,000. He did this twice, Sebastian Leggett in LA was one of them and I don't remember the other.

 

There were many many moving parts involved in the Columbus resolution. So many that there is actually very little in the way of take-away knowledge to be gleaned from it all.

And in the end, that's the result MLS and their lawyers, who as noted have been the NFLs litigation house for decades, wanted .most of all: an outcome without broader application.

 

I'm not even sure about this. During that time frame, 10 other expansion bids shriveled on the vine never to be heard from again. Even Sacramento's, which is now in its third incarnation since that time.

San Antonio's bid could have died of natural causes. We'll never know.

 

I mean Houston ended up with a team in much the same way. San Jose was just dealt a harsher hand than Columbus ended up with. Strange to think two of the three TX teams are the end result of relocation shenanigans with other city’s franchises.

 

The Modell Law bought the most important thing in the #SaveTheCrew saga, and that was time.

Time to organize a very visible and vocal opposition.

Time to find support in the Columbus business community.

Time to find a deep-pocketed owner.

Time to show the world how horrible Don Garber is.

Time to show how incompetent Precourt is.

Without time, which was the direct result of the Modell Law, all would have been lost.

 

I think one clear takeaway would be that cities or states should pass their own versions of the Modell law. It would reduce the civic hostage taking from owners threatening to move.

 

Yes, but if the lawsuit had been swiftly dismissed, as MLS tried to accomplish, the time purchased would have been insufficient. The law was vindicated by legal rulings. They are non-precedential, which is MLS' (and the NFL's) saving grace, but the law spanked MLS hard, and not merely by buying time.

 

We'll never know but SSE being the owners meant they had the money, experience, and local connections to start up a MLS team. Quite successfully.

More than most teams of late.

 

But it wasn’t swiftly dismissed, which was my point.

 

Even if the Modell law had been overturned, the city and county still had their eminent domain powers in reserve. They'd appeal the dismissal and while that was pending, start condemnation proceedings against MLS. There's no question under Ohio law that public governments can own sports teams (the county government owns a pro baseball team) and that intangible property can be seized as well as tangible property. The only requirement is to pay fair compensation.

 

I don't doubt that the could have met whatever requirements MLS had, and could have done it. I question whether, once they looked at the opportunity, they decided to not pursue it for any of a number of reasons. Likewise, MLS could have decided to discontinue discussions. Deals like this fall apart all the time.

All in saying is the situation in Austin isn't the only explanation for San Antonio not getting a team.

 

I know you are but what am I?