MLS2ATX is a community of supporters working together to bring Major League Soccer to Austin, TX. Join the Conversation and Grow the Movement #MLS2ATX Latest News Precourt Sports Ventures Considering Relocation of Columbus Crew Soccer Club to Austin http://mls2atx.com/
Let's just be clear on who all you're dealing with here. And yes, there are some sour grapes, but wham I'm about to say is 100% accurate. *When asked multiple times by multiple people (including the Mayor on day 1, and the Columbus Dispatch beat reporter just last year) if he was keeping the team in Columbus, his response has always been "absolutely". In fact, when the Dispatch beat reporter (then Adam Jardy) asked him last year, Jardy wrote that Precourt looked kind of annoyed and pissed to have to keep answering the same question. *Columbus Partnership offered two separate times in the last few months to purchase the team at either a full stake or a 50% stake to help keep the team in Columbus. He refused both offers. Precourt denies that these were "serious offers". *He wanted assistance from Columbus to build a stadium downtown, but says the city is unresponsive to requests for help. The Mayor's office says they've asked repeatedly for a list of requirements to see where they could help out. *He has cited declining attendance as one of the reasons for wanting to move. However, data shows that 2013 (when he bought the team half way through the season) through 2016 were historically the best in terms of attendance to capacity ratio. Technically, the top three years in attendance were in the first 4 years of the stadium but capacity has been lowered twice (2009 for the stage, 2016 due to fire code changes to the east stands). He also failed to mention the sales and marketing budget cuts year over year over year from 2015 - 2017. The team has done virtually ZERO advertising to the extended area and Arica Kress (VP of Marketing and Communications) admitted that on a podcast that I can't find right now. They stopped marketing to suburbs and started marketing to the city residents. *All of the things that Precourt says that Austin has (which are plentiful), Columbus already has. *Precourt had a clause in his purchase contract to not move the team in the first ten years (he's owned it for 4.5). There was an out in that clause for Austin. This has been planned since 2013. *Precourt's company, Precourt Sports Ventures, created the MLS2ATX-dot-com and presented it as a grassroots "community of supporters working together to bring Major League Soccer to Austin, TX" I say all that to say this (and if you're still reading, thank you)....be careful who you get in bed with. He's had this move planned since 2013 and long conned all of us. Repeatedly lied to us over beers, tailgates, twitter feeds, etc. Yet, he didn't even have the courage to come to Columbus and announce it to his own players and office staff. Nevertheless stand in front of those same reporters and supporter group leaders and answer why he lied to all of them. He called into his conference call for 10-15 minutes and left his main stooge, David Greeley (who single-handedly forced Peter Wilt out of and killed Chicago Fire) to face the firing squad. Again, he didn't even have the courage to tell his own employees face to face. They found out via social media on Monday night or in an all staff meeting Tuesday morning. At the end of the day, he talks about "MLS 3.0". He's used that term so much in the last 3 days. He wants MLS 3.0, but he wants it for MLS 1.0 money. Buying the Crew organization for $68 million (which was reported to be an overvaluation at the time) was his way of getting around the $150 million expansion fee. That's your guy. It's a done deal. Senior staffers at the Crew are being asked quietly if they'll relocate with the team. Frankie Hejduk has reportedly confirmed the move to spectators at the high school team he coaches. I'm going to miss the Crew. I was shagging balls for Bo Oshinyii when I was in college at Ohio State. Literally walked by the stadium, saw they were practicing, stood behind the goal and shagged balls for him and David Winner. One of the best soccer days of my adult life. I was there when Crew Stadium opened. I've been two three US-Mexico matches there, and multiple other WCQ's there. I've seen the best that MLS had to offer. I was one of the many that ponied up for Season Tickets that helped make Columbus Crew the very first team in Major League Soccer. I was a STM again when our owner, Lamar Hunt (RIP) helped SAVE MLS in the late 90's. I'm still a STM. I've made so many friends and memories through this organization. Our players were the model for how to interact with the public. McBride, Stern John, Thomas "Red Shoes" Dooley, Brad Friedel, and the list goes on and on and on. I will miss this more than I can ever recognize right now. Good luck.
Also, not only has he been planning this forever, but he's had an office in Austin since March, 2015.
Not wishing for CC to move, nor am I a fan of the cheesy name AzTex. But going on some fan supporters color pallet. Id prefer Lone Stars being a name generic or official.
Wouldn't that make you guys The Slave Owners or at least Pro-Slavery? The greatest disaster in US history was the number of racist white southerners who were left to take over the south again and set this country back for... well we don't know exactly how many years because it's still going on.
Big local soccer faan are we? So big that you don't know that "the Aztex folks" gave up on Austin after only a year, moved to Orlando, became the Lions and joined MLS? You claim to be a soccer fan but you don't know this? Really? So no, " the Aztex folks" are most definitely NOT "involved". They'd rather eat mud than have anything to do with you.
I'm not a huge fan of the Aztex name but the Aztex that left in 2010 and became Orlando City were only the first Aztex. The name was revived in 2011 by a different ownership group that started out in PDL. The new Aztex moved up to USL in 2015. They always had stadium problems and when House Park, the high school stadium they were using, was damaged in the 2015 floods they wound up with no place to play. The high school stadiums never met USL standards and they were on a waiver that was going to expire anyway. They never found a stadium solution and they officially went on hiatus in 2016. They eventually folded the team at some point after that but held the franchise rights. The second Aztex owners eventually sold their USL franchise rights to the group that is building a stadium at the racetrack in suburban Austin. I don't think they are involved with Precourt.
If I presented that in my urban planning class It’d be graded a failure on the parking alone. The city council will see right through that tragedy.
That's... nowhere near downtown. That's almost the suburbs. That's the opposite side of the city from San Antonio.
it is implying that you will park in the domain mall, 1-2 miles away, on the weekends, in the sweltering heat across that concrete morass. thats a bold strategy cotton, lets see if it pays off for them. Most of austin cant make it the length of Rainey street even while innebriated. so that is a TALL ask
I see you live in North Carolina. That location is within walking distance of four brewpubs and a commuter rail stop, and a short distance from what is becoming a second downtown. Yes, it's on the opposite side of downtown from San Antonio, but it's also pretty much the only City owned property that Precourt could talk his way into getting for a $1/year rent (or whatever very, very low price it will be). Austin being virulently NIMBY, the other locations (downtown, and east of downtown) were parks that were shot down very quickly. Not that I support stealing the Crew. I hate it. But if a stadium were to get built in Austin, that's pretty much the only good place it could happen.
Since you do live in Austin and I don’t, can you answer a few questions that have been reported differently from biased (on both sides) sources? The rail station is a mile from the site? And is a very low volume system, around 200 people every 15 minutes? Is that true? If the above is true, with no real parking at the site, is it realistic to believe the businesses of the Domain will allow enough parking? Will people really walk 1/2 mile plus in 90 degree heat? With their families? No snark, just wondering how realistic it is.
All reasonable questions. If people will sit and watch a game in 100 degree heat (it won't be just 90) they'll walk the half mile. There are a lot of people (I'm not one of them) that love the heat, many of which move down here to get away from winter. The rail station is really a half mile from the site. Just checked google maps. https://goo.gl/maps/UisfX7krvkH2. The stadium will be in the empty lot between the rail line, Burnet Road and W. Braker Lane. As to capacity for the commuter rail, I've done some googling but haven't managed to find details. I know that the number of trains during rush hour was recently increased from 3 to 6, and they're adding (or have already added) a car to each train. But compared to other cities, it is a pretty low volume system, limited by being single-track in many places. There is a plan to go to double-track, which will allow a greater capacity, but I don't know the timeline on that. That said, they do add runs when needed -- during SXSW and ACL Fest, among other things. So game-day runs don't seem out of the question, coming from both directions. As to whether the Domain and closer parking will be allowed -- can't say. But if you switch the map to satellite and look east around Kramer, Braker, and down Metric, you'll see lots of warehouses surrounded by parking lots. There's easily 10k parking around all those buildings plus the Domain lots. It'll take coordinating with all those owners, which seems like a bit of a task, but on weekends and evenings, they're almost all entirely empty. Not exactly picturesque, but it will meet their needs. That said, I think they should make a parking garage instead of a lot. If they have room for 1,000, they could make a garage for 4,000. That would help. Next questions?
Thank you for the reply. Do you have kids? I know when my kids were young walking 1/2 mile in 100 degree heat, sitting for 3 hours then walking back would be a hindrance. What demographic do you think would be filling a 20,000 seat stadium? So expanding capacity and infrastructure is something you think the city would be willing to foot the bill for? For Ohio State Football games we have private businesses that charge for people to park on their property, so I can see how that would be feasible. Having said that, I know AP was making $$ on parking, which he wouldn't be if the majority of the parking is on private property. Do you think this loss of revenue, in conjunction with financing $200M for the stadium and who knows how much for infrastructure, will allow for the "community benefits" PSV has been touting? I guess that last question goes toward how believable you think the claims PSV have been making are.
Austin can do what Houston does, ALL home games in summer at 8pm. June, July, August, my kids (7,10,16,and 19yrs) and I walk a half mile to a mile from the car to the stadium and back. Never 90-100 degrees, kids never have a problem. We do it often.
I don't have kids. Though it's only one data point, I'll point to antnee's comment above. Austin is getting more dense along the rail line, which is how public transportation is supposed to work. So the expanded capacity and infrastructure is pretty much expected. So the city will foot the bill for it. But I don't think they (or PSV) will foot the bill for moving the stop. My guess is that Austin's growth rate and demographics are such that he won't care about the lack of parking revenue. He's looking at other revenue streams. That's the only way the numbers can make sense, as far as I can tell. But I'm not a billionaire and know crap-all about big money projects and investments.
Are there already plans for expansion? Or is it a situation where they are exploring it? Austin's growth and demographics aren't much different than Columbus. Missing parking revenue, in addition to making debt payments on the proposed $200M stadium don't seem to jive with the cheapskate slumlord running the Columbus Crew now. Is there any concern AP won't follow through on what he says he will do? Or that his plans have been vague from the start?
My memory is that there's already plans. Exactly how far along those plans are, though, I don't know. I'm pretty sure the double-tracking has been discussed seriously for at least a couple years. There's one significant demographic difference: Hispanics. Just did some poking around through http://www.austintexas.gov/demographics and https://www.columbus.gov/uploadedFi...m_Related/About_Us/CHAPTER_2_Demographics.pdf. Austin is around 35% Hispanic (the PSV guy said 40%). Best as I can tell, Columbus is less than 10% Hispanic (PSV guy said 'and shrinking'). Not that I think that means anything, and said as much to the PSV rep. Unless things have changed since I quit paying close attention, MLS still struggles to capture the Hispanic market in any meaningful way. To my eye, it's more selling the simplistic "all Hispanics are soccer fans so they'll show up" tripe. As to whether there's concerns about AP failing to follow through -- yes, there's plenty of it from folks that aren't MLS in Austin. I had a nice conversation with one of our City Council members last night and they're plenty skeptical. They're quite aware of AP's sketchiness and are struggling to weigh the benefits vs. working with, to use your terms, a cheapskate slumlord. Here's a related example. A few years ago my wife and I visited Providence, RI. Our friends stayed in a hotel that fronted on a lovely very European plaza with a beautiful fountain. Restaurants were around it with tables out. My friend knew the part of town and told me about how much the Mafia ran things as it all used to be/maybe still was run by people that had control over the longshoremen. And I found myself having the tiniest understanding of how graft and mafiosi can also produce benefits to the community. So, that's what our Council is weighing. I was going to say that the scale isn't as bad as the Mafia. But then again, as I look at more of what determines who gets to do things where, I'm starting to wonder. The lines are really blurry. I will repeat that I think it's horrible what PSV is doing. I saw a quote somewhere in the past day or two where AP said "I always wanted to have a team in Austin." He really is a duplicitous shit. I'm answering your questions as best I can, looking at what I know about the situation here. But when my Council member asked me "Nutshell, where are you?" I said I wouldn't support the team and don't think they should come here. Even though it's very likely the only way Austin will get a team, and I've been a big soccer fan since before there was an MLS. If it does happen, I'll go for an FCD game since that's my team, but that's it.