Crew to Austin in 2019..(Maybe)

Not true. The City of Columbus may be growing faster than the City of Austin, but the Austin metro area is growing much faster than is the Columbus metro area.

 

Just saw a banner ad that is promoting our next "home game" as being the 29th, so that is cool.

 

Why the hell does this always crack me up?

 

hi from NYC.

 

Another thing of note:

Friday at 3pm, Common and T-Bone will be broadcasting live from the Short North Homage location.

If you're in the area, go there and thank them for their support of #SaveTheCrew.

 

But the biggest question:

Why isn't the "north root" pointing up?

 

Do you have anything to show that? I haven't seen anything like that since 2016 or 2017. Everything I have seen from a metro perspective has them pegged at basically the same population at the end of 2017 and basically the same quarterly metro growth numbers for 2018. Austin was growing quicker from 2010-2017 but then their population growth stalled.

Also if MLS is looking for urban core teams/stadiums, doesn't the City of Columbus growing faster than the City of Austin make that point?

Again these are the city not metro numbers but you can see the shift in the growth rates here:

Austin
http://worldpopulationreview.com/us-cities/austin-population/

Columbus
http://worldpopulationreview.com/us-cities/columbus-population/

Also, our forecasted Gross Metropolitan Product is higher in 2018.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/183808/gmp-of-the-20-biggest-metro-areas/

Again why the hedging? I am not saying Austin hasn't grown rapidly or that it isn't growing. Just that Columbus is growing rapidly as well, especially in the city which is where MLS is trying to target people.

 

Tell NYC I said hello back.

 

NYC told me to "fook off"

 

Anyone notice that their charge for tickets went to Crew Soccer Stadium? I admit I haven't paid attention to this in the past, but I find it interesting that the money flows to the stadium *first*. How much/when does it go to Team Columbus LLC or the team itself?

 

if you go on a helicopter tour let us know so we can track it.

 

This is also the payee I was told to write when I took my checkbook to the stadium ticket office last week.

 

My guess is it is just the shell entity they use for tickets and payments. Like Stadium Co. in Austin which is the PSV entity listed as the developer of the stadium on the Terms Sheet.

 

Because Bailey is endearing and hilarious. Timeless, really.

 

Could be, but how/when does the money go to the team? How much does the *stadium* take out? How are the profits calculated for the team itself?

edit: not everything is a conspiracy, but I'm interested in the how/what/when/how much because most of us suspect that the stadium is enormously profitable at the expense of the team itself

 

well, I do declare! How rude.

 

This is why Precourt has invested so much money into Columbus Crew and has lost so much money. He had to pay stadium co (that he also owns) so much money for rent and use of the stadium, and, therefore, lost millions on operating the Columbus Crew.

Stadium Co charges the crew whatever they want for using the stadium. It's like Garber Bucks, er "Precourt Bucks". He has a spreadsheet somewhere keeping track of it, but it isn't really all that real.

 

I agree with the bottom line argument that if MLS wants to be the country's fastest growing big cities; if they want to be in cities with the strongest growth among millennials; and if they want to be well represented in the Midwest, then it would be monumentally stupid to abandon the Columbus market. Columbus is a poster child example of the kind of city MLS would want to be in.

Now about those stats...

It can be very hard to decipher reporting on population growth. But what I'm looking at are the fastest growing large metro area/MSA populations in the country. The Census Bureau puts out periodic snapshots of all sorts of things, such as the fastest growing MSAs (I saw that listed this spring), but not necessarily "large" MSAs (so you might get Madison, WI, but that's not considered a large metro area). Then, of course, you get articles about the fastest growing "cities" - like we've been talking about - which may refer to cities proper, of metro areas, depending.

Anyway, this is the kind of data I'm referring to (from March '18):

https://www.bizjournals.com/columbu...ing-columbus-region-moves-past-cleveland.html

If you get past the paywall, it quotes Census data tracking population growth in metro regions of greater than 1 million, from 2010-2017. As it states:

It notes that:

When you click on the slideshow of a ranking of the fastest growing metro regions of 1 million +, number one is:

Austin-Round Rock, TX
2010 population: 1,716,320
2017 population: 2,115,827
2010-2017 change: 23.28%
Change rank: 1 (of 53)

Next comes:
Raleigh (just the Raleigh MSA, by the way, not the Raleigh-Durham CSA)
Orlando
Houston
San Antonio
Dallas
Charlotte
Nashville
Denver
Phoenix
Las Vegas
Seattle
Jacksonville
Atlanta
Tampa
Miami
Salt Lake City
Oklahoma City
Washington, DC
Portland

And clocking in at #21 during this time frame: Columbus, OH, with its 9.29% growth rate. Ahead of San Francisco, San Jose, Riverside/San Bernadino/Ontario, Sacramento, San Diego, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Indianapolis, New Orleans, Richmond, etc., etc., etc.. So not bad at all. And, as I've said, I saw stats from last year that showed that Columbus was the 13th fastest growing metro area in the country more recently. Still, Columbus metro hasn't experienced anything like the growth rate that Austin has.

 

Important distinction: it's a blog. You don't need any journalistic training to write a blog.

 

My sweetheart of a ticket rep emailed me to let me know I was charged for my 2019 season tickets.

 

I get the Austin growth but everything I read and am told is that Austin's growth is peaking.

I think I mentioned that my company was looking for office space in Austin. Space was about 2x the price it was for San Antonio and lower grade. Our retail realtor said Austin is running out of space to build in given their present infrastructure. His take is that Austin needs an official outer loop or a mass transit system upgrade. For the outer loop the 130/45/360 goes around sort of and is two lanes in most places. Traffic is slow. The joke was it is easier to get to Houston (2 hrs away) then across town.

In addition most affordable housing is in Pflugeville, Round Rock and even Georgetown. I can't remember if it was flooding or something else but building in other areas for affordable single family homes is light. They started building more higher rise condo type building but in areas that already have traffic problems so the problem is rise and repeat.

I think the whole CodeNEXT that the Austin mayor was pushing was supposed to help with all this but it looks like from comments, it is not. Not sure if it needs more time or money but I see Adler getting beat up by it a lot. I think that is part of why he wants to cement his legacy with a soccer team.

 

On a complete side note, I keep hearing that PSV picked the Green of the Mexican team in the thought that it will draw usual LigaMX fans to Austin and the MLS. Chivas 2.0.

 

Again totally agree with everything your saying and its all totally accurate. The latest update from the USCB I saw from Q2 had Metro Columbus maintaining basically the same growth rate of 9-10% while Austin Metro's growth slipped to 7-8%.

In terms of comparative growth; From 2010-2017 Austin Metro grew 23%, which is just insane as a growth rate. However, they are now slowing down in terms of growth (which makes sense after a solid decade of it), they aren't shrinking but its not accelerating at 20% either. Conversely, Columbus didn't grow as fast from 2010-2017 but in 2018 is growing much more rapidly. Basically, they are both are experiencing booms, Austin's just began in the 2000s and is tapering off while Columbus's really began over the last couple years and is just now gearing up. At least thats my two cents. Again though I agree with everything your saying from a historical perspective.

 

In your infinite notice plan, the owners of the Bengals, Indians, BlueJackets or whomever would have to give public notice that their team was for sale. That's not likely unless the owner really wants to move or sell the team.

 

Side note, today is September 18.

MLS released the 2018 entire season schedule on January 4, 2018, and the home openers for each club on December 19, 2017.

We are 108 days away from the full schedule release (if it gets released the same time as last year) and we are 92 days away from when MLS released the home openers for all teams.

Still no word on next season, and we are getting charged for tickets. Madness.