Columbus Crew to Austin Texas?

My personal experience with being a GM in USL here in Houston where Austin LoneStars was one of our long time rivals and my personal experience with the STYSA officials here in South Texas and as well as having gone to Aztec home games over this past decade to witness what the modern vitality of pro soccer is like in Austin, I might have better insight than most. Perhaps what you speak if is correct but I seriously doubt Austin will be a better MLS market than what already has been established in Columbus Ohio.

 

This was in the works for many years. As already pointed out, there was an escape clause to move to Austin in the purchase agreement. Also, DG did not encourage Austin to submit an expansion bid even though he had mentioned it as a possible city. He must have known something was in the oven.

I feel the Columbus fans are getting a lousy deal. The issue with the STH is disgraceful and is black eye for the whole league. Give them a refund if they want it. This coming year in limbo is ridiculous. If he wants to move, then move immediately. A year of empty seats hurts him, and the whole league.

Owners will do what they want. To a billionaire, a team is a toy. Perhaps Columbus was a failing business model due to lack of government and media support (compared to NHL team), the lease, the stadium, the attendance, tv revenue, sponsorship and moving was therefore a reasonable business decision. Perhaps it was that the new owner had an obsession to get a team in Austin and this was easier and cheaper than expansion. Either way, or both ways, it is bad for the fans and MLS.

 

Fair enough. It is not the Austin people, city or even fans that caused this problem.
It is clearly Precourt and Garber at the least. But I also guess that there might be a local sponsor or partner that is willing to throw a lot of money into this deal. And my guess we will find out within a year who that is.
Again the timing seems fishy however on why Austin did not submit a bid with the other 12 cities if there was a real interest to build not steal.

 

Garber?

And, again, cities don't put forth bids for teams.

 

The question for Austin was always "who is the ownership group?". What rich guy with ties to the area thinks that owning a soccer team would be cool?

Before there was no answer. Now we know about one in Anthony Precourt. Austin didn't make a bid because there was no ownership group that wanted to make a bid. I certainly think that Precourt has been talking to Austin under the table to some extent, but I don't think that it is a grand conspiracy on Austin's end.

I think the mayor's statement was accurate. Austin thinks an MLS team would be successful and great for the city, but funding and organizing the effort is not a priority to the city. That will be up to the owner.

 

If they were worried about any conflict of interests, he never should have been on the expansion committee to begin with, considering he had this "secret" clause to move (only) to a city that was at least in the long list of potential new markets.

And you have to wonder what's going on with San Antonio, if Austin was covertly in the mix for a long time. If this was a matter of when, not if, the SA group have been wasting their time and money. Coule each market stand on their own and both cities get teams? Maybe, but with a whole bunch of other places competing for limited numbers of teams, it might be hard to justify if other deserving cities get left out.

 

I keep saying this, but I'm sorry, this is such a non-story.

I don't recall San Antonio asking for Austin's permission: "Hey, is it cool if we make you guys being sort of close to use one of the primary components of our expansion bid?" Getting an MLS team in San Antonio is San Antonio's problem. They aren't entitled to be the only possible location for a 3rd team in Texas just because they submitted a proposal. There is no technical reason that the MLS can't have four teams in Texas.

 

Sure, they can, but how likely would the SA group be to agree to the $5 million payment if they don't get a team, if they knew that Austin was already getting in through the back door and the League knew full well about this clause, but (it seems) very few other people did?

 

One other thing I'll point out. Columbus 20 some years ago was Browns country in a big way (which MLS may not realize)--and the ties were deep given that Paul Brown had been the head coach at Ohio State. Older sports fans here have been through this before.

 

How is the MLS's problem if SSE agreed to some dumb business deal. The MLS is a private business. It doesn't have to announce to the world every detail of every conversation. San Antonio should enjoy having a team in what their brilliant expansion bid claimed was a single metro area.

 

You can't be this dense...

 

I thought I read Rawlins was slowly transitioning towards a retirement type life.

 

Dude...

 

Yes fine
An Ownership Group who would location an MLS team in or around the Austin limits or a surrounding area. I will shorten that from now on to OMG Austin.

 

By that theory the Jets would be playing in an empty stadium.
I think you're confusing "fans" with "spectators".

 

I've been very consistent on this issue, literally for years.

I think San Antonio is a decent MLS expansion market with or without a team in Austin. I think that having four teams in Texas is not only entirely feasible, but not at all redundant. I would even argue that it might have additive effects thanks to the Cascadia-like rivalries that it would create.

Austin and San Antonio are completely separate cities that are too geographically far from each other for one city to offer significant support to the other. There is no large group of soccer fans living in the areas between the two cities would be wasted by having a team in each city.

That said, I think the people that put together the San Antonio bid were a bunch of tools for trying to piggy back off of Austin being 80 miles away. And if there is a perception that Austin "blocks" San Antonio then it is their own damn fault. Nobody associated with Austin has every tried to claim San Antonio as our territory in MLS expansion.

 

You don't get why San Antonio would be pissed off about the crew moving to Austin?

A team in Austin severely hurts a bid in San Antonio.

It has nothing to do with Austin being mentioned in San Antonio a bid.

When San Antonio is competing against all the other expansion bids another MLS team that close and a total of 3 teams already in Texas severely cripples their bid.

San Antonio spent money and time putting forth that bid and MLS never told them about this possibility...

San Antonio definitely got screwed because they aren't operating on an even playing field and MLS new that but never disclosed that to them. They should have.

 

I am angry that this is even a thing.

The only benefit of Single Entity, in my opinion, is Stability. Risk sharing between high and low performing teams (financially and otherwise). Socialism amongst a bunch of rich owners. As fans, we are supposed to benefit from this by being able to sleep at night knowing that the league or our team is not about to implode. I think MLS is making a grave error if it leaves Columbus... while it is certainly not among the best supported teams in the league, it is passable, and an original.

I did not shed any tears when Chivas imploded. So yeah, I think there are limits... But Chivas had been seriously abandoned by their fans, and they felt like a "second rate by design" team in a 2 team market. San Jose --> Houston was perhaps more similar to this, but at least that has now been rectified, and that happened in the aftermath of league contraction. Does anyone believe that MLS will ever return to Columbus if the team moves now?

This is a breach of trust between the league and not just Columbus, but *all* MLS fans. The league is healthier than it has ever been, so there will be no logical argument that this is being done for the health and survival of the league. It is now about allowing new owners to buy teams as vanity possessions, to be moved where ever the new owner likes. And it sounds like this is exactly why Precourt bought the team in the first place.

And once the precedent is set, it will be hard to argue against this happening to anyone else. Images of the Seattle Supersonics haunt my dreams.

 

Says who? Why is this accepted as fact? I don't get it. And since when is a franchise in American sports moving a crazy event that can't possibly be foreseen? What is that MLS knew exactly? It's even happened in MLS before.

I agree that it is extremely similar to what happened with the Sonics. (The one difference being that it's at least a lateral move market-wise, whereas Seattle to OKC was a clear downgrade).

It really comes down to this, however. If a team is moveable and can be acquired for $68 million with no long term contracts, and the expansion process is an insane dog and pony show that costs $100+ million. Why wouldn't you do it this way?

Precourt is a sociopath, but from a business standpoint it's pretty hard to blame him. I think MLS is partially to blame for making the expansion process primarily act as a revenue stream, rather than an honest attempt at putting new teams where they ought to be.

 

At some point, allowing owners to move teams around like NBA, NHL, MLB and NFL teams may threaten the legal fiction that MLS is a single entity league.

 

Riddle me this, then: If, in the next round of expansion this December, it is announced that Miami will begin in 2019, and Sacramento and FC Cincinnati will begin play in the 2020 season, do you honestly think that Columbus would even be considered as an expansion team for the next set of two?

 

I think Precourt's clarification tweet is very telling and really odd that he specifically clarified what he deemed a typo.

His first post was "I really do feel for you Crew fans. Its an uncertain time I recognize, and I take full responsibility for the situation I have put us in."

He then replied to that tweet to point out he made a typo and said ""Put you all in, not us"

It means he really doesn't see himself as a part of the Crew fanbase and family. It shows even more that he really has no feelings of relating to the fans. IMO, it would have been much better if he had not clarified to say that he didn't mean "us". The dude is crazy if he expects a single Crew fan to give him support now. Insane.

 

Thanks. This is the N&A forum. Definitions and words matter here.

 

Why? I don't follow your reasoning.