By "soccer people", I think he was referring to people who know how to build a competitive roster and hire competent coaches. AEG, Don Garber, and most other MLS owners and executives don't have a clue how to do that properly, hence the need for "soccer people" to handle those things. It's the same in other sports, where owners have their experts of the game running the game operations.
No, it was painting with a broad brush. Guilt by association sort of thing. This is 2018. We're pretty much all soccer people now. But old insults, insinuations, and slurs die hard.
How? His original post said the AEG executives are not experts in the game of soccer, which is almost certainly true. They hired "soccer people" to run the on field product, and those soccer people have not been doing well. Is that not accurate?
The only AEG executives mentioned were Pete Vagenas and Chris Klein. That was backed away from "Anonymous" executives is a dodge. Give us some names. Assuming that anyone at AEG involved with the Los Angeles Galaxy is not a "soccer person" at this point - 23 years since the club was designated - is a dangerous assumption.
You are not reading his post correctly. No need to waste anymore time on this. I deeply apologize for offending you sensitivities to AEG
Your math doesn't really reflect the net effect though. You do have to provide services (school, fire, police etc). Besides just the additional run rate operational expenses ( maybe high6/low 7 figures?) on those city costs it entirely possible that a large multi use complex on the site (plus all the other developments around) trigger the need for all new construction on all three which costs could easily surpass the gross figure you mention. Imagine this site could bear a good allocation of any new city sites. The positive about a stadium is you dont have to provide most of those services. Plus you do get sales tax. That is the spreadsheet comparison I would like to see. Like I said before one view is another big development in Austin is not that desirable because they got all they can handle on that front anyway. Seriously doubt any of the developers (who have only given very contingent LOIs) make a big stink if the stadium goes through because they know suing is probably a loser from a legal standpoint (lawyers comment?) and will realize its costly and bad for business long term in Austin and elsewhere. There is always another deal to do.
The suit won't actually be that expensive and doesn't have to be a winner to accomplish it's goal. Tying the site up in a suit until the end on the year would likely mean that MLS doesn't approve the move for 2019. The cost for doing this will probably be $20k or less. The gamble is whether that would result in Precourt losing interest in the move. If he does, then it accomplished it's goal.
They are giving millions to the Foundation Communities in Austin by putting the stadium there. Foundation Communities even held a joint event with them yesterday. Austin is all about saying they will do things for affordable housing, but never actually doing it because nobody would willingly vote to increase their taxes to help poor people. This is a concrete plan to help affordable housing which is more than any other proposal on the table.
PSV promised $125K annually for housing assistance. Over the 20 year lease term, that comes to 2.5 mil. Or the city could sell the property for market value and have more than that available for housing or any other priority they wish. What does $125K buy in Austin? Can you get even a studio apartment near a transit line for that?
Fair points about extra expenses incurred by alternative uses. There's a forest/trees issue whereby the soccer supporters want the question to be "Does Austin want to be a major league city with an MLS team" and the opponents want the question to be "What's the best use for the McKalla tract". If PSV were willing to buy the property at fair value and put it on the tax rolls, they might be able to get a deal done in 2 weeks. Of course they'd still have to figure out the traffic/parking situation...
I don’t think the city council is worried about it. The land has sat empty for years and they know the other offers are from competing groups.
Well, back in 2016 Capella seemed to be negotiating for acquisition of McKalla but the city employees they were working with are now gone.
Most of the city council seem to be on board last I checked. I doubt they would go for another high density apartment shopping in an area that already has the same. There are too many businesses and groups in support of the stadium at this point.
Thank you. As far as I know, anyone that lives in Austin translates "ACC" as Austin Community College.
Yeah, the Precourt ad in the Chronicle seems a bit desperate. Maybe he has this thing wired and is looking to give his puppets some political cover. Or maybe he's really hoping that he can gin up some interest. The phony stats in his proposal about over 50% of Austinites being avid followers of MLS didn't help his cause.
Yeah, his proposal had results of a survey of 3K people in the greater Austin area, with over 50% being avid plus an additional 30% being casual fans of MLS. Of course he didn't claim it was a random survey of the public, it seems to have been taken from among members of soccer leagues. The woman fronting for Epstein had a scientific poll of about 400 people in Austin. They overwhelmingly don't want public subsidies for soccer and want the team to pay its own costs, including buying the land and paying property taxes.
Even there, everybody knows that when you're talking adult leagues (O-30 and up) there's no possible way that half are "avid" fans of ANYTHING except the local American football team. And in Austin, I'd expect about 20% avid LigaMX, with 90% of that group being mutually exclusive with giving any level of shit about MLS.
I probably shouldn't even address his blatant trolling (that he guilty of on a regular basis) since anyone with the tiniest amount of reading comprehension can understand what the meaning behind my statement was, but I guess I'll spell it out. AEG (the people who write the checks) are not "soccer people" in that, they are not soccer experts, and don't make personnel decisions (except Beckham). They hire people for that, and the people they hired are Peter Vagenas and Chris Klein (two people I have respect for, as a Galaxy fan). Unfortunately, those two haven't been doing a great job. What's my point you may ask? Well, the Galaxy are still bankrolled by a great owner, they just need more competent "soccer people" as in, the people who make difficult soccer-based decisions. The "it's 2018, we are all soccer people" is the most asinine thing I've seen in the last 15 minutes... (and I was reading Youtube comments 12 minutes ago! yeeesh) You ready to run a team @AndyMead ? If not, your comment was pretty meaningless in this context.
Where you start is often where your heart attitudes are formed. I've lived in Columbus for 40 years now--but my attitudes are still largely from my Philly roots.