General question, not just a response to this.

Let's say San Antonio somehow gets granted an expansion team in this. Would other expansion candidates who don't get a team then also have legal standing to sue under the assumption that San Antonio probably jumped them as a bribe to curb their lawsuit?

 

Cleveland, Cincy, and Columbus are all very similar in metro population size. But Cleveland is still considered a much larger media market (19th largest in the US vs Columbus at 34).

Interestingly, Cincy is below Columbus in media market size now.

 

Reminder, $68 mil included the stadium, which was built for a little under $30 mil. Not sure what it's evaluation was at the time of the sale, but you have to figure it was somewhere in the 15-40 mil range.

Some will say the stadium was probably fully depreciated, but the stadium is a money maker, so it's had to have a valuation in there.

 

Debt is usually considered as part of the purchase price. I.e. if Hunt owed 5 million still on the stadium, and Precourt bought the team/stadium for $68 million, than he really paid $63 million to the Hunts and assumed the 5 million in debt

 

As best we can tell, he just thinks Austin is cool and hip. He likes hanging out on 6th street and going to SXSW. It's all an exercise in vanity for him.

 

This is the most infuriating part of it from my money-guy perspective. This decision to move from Columbus to Austin is seemingly based on feelings with no actual business analysis. It's amateur hour.

Austin doesn't seem to be a better money-maker than Columbus. It looks like it's about the same on the business end with similar TV market, similar demographics, similar urban form, and a similar legacy sports scene (major state flagship university with high-profile football team; the only difference is that Ohio State plays men's soccer). I doubt he's done any research to see if ATX has a better chance of getting sponsorship, especially if you don't bother to actually reach out to potential sponsors. So far, Austin's city government seems luke-warm at best. Even a fully privately-financed stadium needs help with things like land acquisition, zoning, and infrastructure.

Meanwhile, Precourt would be burning money on the relocation expenses, stadium construction, and rent payments at a temporary facility. There is always the inherent risk that the fans in Austin might not actually show up. The main business reason why an owner would want to move a team in a mid-market is to boost the franchise value by being in a larger market. That was the NFL's Chargers' owner's thought process. He didn't think about the stadium situation, or that there aren't fans who would show up. However, Spanos was at least smart enough to move to a top-10 media market from the #29 market, rather than from #34 to #39 (source: wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_television_markets)

If Precourt wants out of being the owner of the Columbus Crew, I can think of two ways he could do so at a profit rather than at a potential loss: 1) sell the Crew for more than what he paid for it to local ownership, and use the proceeds to start an expansion push in Austin or 2) Move to a larger media market that doesn't have an MLS team like Detroit or Baltimore (Baltimore is also willing to build an MLS team a stadium that's on light rail in its urban core). (This is my money-guy side talking, obviously my soccer fan guy side prefers choice 1.)

What he's doing now is just burning money and opening up the league (of which he is a part-owner) to litigation from San Antonio. He's also making all the moves to prevent himself from being able to get out of burning money. I just don't get it. The Portland Timbers owner's tweet implies that the other owners don't really care about the move to Austin but they do care how Precourt's bumbling is hurting the profile of the league while also opening it up to litigation. What a mess

 

...and, I'll note, has also put a few players into MLS.

 

For your league to be truly considered big league, you need at least one bumbling owner who embarrasses the league.

 

It would be hard to show that it was a deciding factor. If it was clear there were four better candidates than San Antonio, it would actually be pretty easy to omit them from expansion without increasing legal liability, and Precourt would be thrilled.

But there won't be four clearly better candidates. San Antonio has a first rate owner, municipal support, own a SSS site in the most accessible part of its city, and solid support for a current USL club. Their major potential liability is market size; if bigger cities were as or more prepared, there would be solid grounds for exclusion. But that doesn't look likely.

 

The only way to do this in a way that is less sleazy (but still sucks) is to leave the colors, name, and records in Columbus and have the Austin team start at zero as if it was an expansion team. Would be even better if the league were to promise restart the Columbus team a few years later the way they did with San Jose. Somehow i get the feeling that ain't gonna happen....

 

Well we already know the team is starting from zero in Austin. The scarfs Precourt made up for Austin have a different color and logo from the Columbus Crew. It will be interesting to see if the Crew "leave" their colors, name and record in Columbus. That's what happened when the Earthquakes became the Houston Dynamo. Doesn't the MLS technically own all the team trademarks? If so, it's up to them.

 

If Crew leave Columbus does that mean also that the USMNT will no longer be playing there as well? I think back through the years at all the USMNT games that have happened there through the years... I have to guess that US Soccer would probably not want to play in an abandoned stadium that is not cared for and allowed to slowly crumble...(flashback to RFK... dont know how DCU managed to do it for so long) unless of course Columbus would find another use for the Crew's stadium and thus have a reason to upkeep and maintain the stadium. If the Crew's stadium were simply abandoned it would be an ignominous end to the first SSS in US history.

 

That's pretty obvious. We've said so from the beginning of this. There are no other venues that can host a national team game of consequence as Ohio Stadium is too narrow. Sure, they may try to put another European team game here like Madrid vs PSG. But those are really wastes of time and a money grab--what you end up watching is some guys wearing the colors of the team who will likely never see any first team action--or at least that's what we got. Essentially a counterfeit. Not worth my time.

 

Austin doesn't seem to be a better money-maker than Columbus.

Austin's TV market is about 20% smaller than Columbus', for starters.

 

Exactly. Smaller tv market. Almost identical population. Both are known as university towns. Both have other clubs nearby ish.

 

The reverse is also true.



Thx,

Jay!

 

BA, the piece's main photo of the TIFO Monopoly man is a thoughtful touch.

 

It's never easy to see a fanbase lose its team. Even as a pro sports enthusiast since 1968, it still surprises me at times that a club with solid support is moved. I'm not naive - I know the reasons. But Columbus seems like the last town that would see its MLS team leave. It's akin to the St. Louis Cardinals moving to Birmingham, Alabama for example. Nothing against the Magic City, you just don't think of a charter franchise relocating.

Well, I'm with the Crew fans on this. It's just wrong.

Best of luck to you guys.

 

I don't see why not. Usually I'd expect a league to put sore-loser clauses in the bid process, but Precourt has blown that to pieces. Bribing San Antonio with a team just kicks the fraud can down the road.

Or rather, creates about nine or ten other cans and kicks them all over the country.

One of the enduring mysteries will be why Garber allowed a move during the expansion process. Madness.

 

Well, the American League has had 5 of it's 8 charter franchises move (albeit two after the first year).... Not that I disagree with your main point.

 

I should have mentioned that one of my past hobbies was franchise histories. I'm very much aware of all professional franchise relocations. However, my point was to convey that despite what I know, it still isn't easy to accept a franchise abandoning its fanbase no matter how the owner uses the ledger to justify a move.

 

Some thoughts from Texas:

1) The Columbus Crew should not move. No community should lose its sports team. Teams should be part of a community and not subject to the whims of rich guys looking to make more money.

2) Columbus and Austin are both the kinds of markets MLS should be seeking, young, growing rapidly, highly educated, etc. MLS should be in both these places, not one or the other.

3) There appears to be real support from the Austin city government for using city-owned land for a soccer stadum. Austin City Council is expected to talk about that on Nov. 9. The two spots they are talking about are a lightly-used park near the new Oracle offices just east of downtown south of the river, and more amazingly, a small park located on Lady Bird Lake known as Butler Shores. It's located between the more famous Zilker Park and Auditorium Shores - which puts it at the absolute heart of the city. If Precourt can get that location donated to him, it would be nearly impossible to fail. Thousands of people could walk to that location and it's surrounded by restaurants and food trailer parks and such. It would be one of the best stadium locations in the league.

4) In this thread, and almost everywhere, people write off Austin because it lost its USL team. Do none of you see the hypocrisy in this stance?

The Austin Aztex under Phil Rawlins were building something strong in the community and set city attendance records the year before he moved the team to Orlando seeking more money. He was then almost immediately granted an MLS expansion franchise. Is it any surprise that support for the crappy Austin clubs that have followed has been sparse? How is what Rawlins did better than what Precourt plans to do? How do any of you support what happened in Orlando at the expense of Austin?

Again, and to be clear, I do not support the Crew moving to Austin.

 

I'm not sure why this is continuously being brought up. I don't remember anyone outside of Orlando supporting this move.

 

Seconded. I certainly wasn't cheer-leading it. If I even knew of it, It probably elicited a shrug. Perhaps that makes me a hypocrite. The difference, at least in my mind, is that only 1 MLS team has moved before (+3 being contracted). 2nd and 3rd division teams in the US are constantly shutting down and moving. You can't keep track of them all. Plus, they're a lot easier to replace.

At this point, pretty much all of Columbus would be happy with a San Jose type situation where PSV can move the team and Columbus gets a new expansion team within a couple years.

Worst possible outcome for the league right now is the Crew stays in Columbus with Precourt as it's operator*.

*Despite what Twellman has claimed, Precourt doesn't "own" the team. He's an investor in the league and operates the team.

 

Well, that's not exactly a good solution, as we would lose all of the current players (including homegrowns) and it would likely be rough on the associated academy teams. Who knows if they really could jumpstart a new team here?? It was a lot easier back in the day (cheaper too).

What I fear is that MLS will make the offer of "consideration" for an expansion team--without really meaning it.