News: Expansion Bid News - catch all thread

Governor Elect Greitens dealt a major blow to Saint Louis' MLS hopes by saying he has decided that there will be no funding by the state of an MLS stadium in Saint Louis or any stadium in the state period.

The Chief of Staff of the Mayor of Saint Louis said that without state money there would be no money from the City.

Jim Kavanaugh the face of SCSTL said that without public money the group more than likely would no longer pursue a team.

 

Governor-elect Greitens and SC STL met for the first time yesterday. As far as I can tell, nothing substantive came out of the meeting (ie Greitens still doesn't want to provide state money for the stadium).
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/...cle_0241a848-7238-584a-bfe5-eabf6cb53aee.html

Another thing that caught my eye from the article:
SC STL has done three rounds of public polling on whether the city should provide up to $80 million in stadium financing...
“The polling came back in a range we were comfortable with moving forward,” Peacock said.

 

It seems like St. Louis's bid for a MLS team is going on life support as bill's sponsor for city funding asks them to lower the $80 million request.

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/...al&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=user-share

There are still two weeks for SC STL and the Alderman to come to an agreement, but if the $40 million from the state was a deal breaker, I can't imagine lowering the city's contribution helps much.

 

At this point, they really need to bite the bullet and take the Foundry group up on the offer to help fund the stadium. The Rams leaving town was the golden opportunity STL needed for getting an MLS team, and if they don't get a plan B solidified now then I don't think there will ever be enough momentum in the future to get an MLS team to the city.

 

Good. If the ownership group doesn't want to pay for the stadium without having their hand out to the public coffers (which include many taxpaying residents whom aren't even interested in sports, let alone soccer), I hope this MLS bid dies. They barely support lower division soccer anyway. Give it to Cincinnati.

 

The rest of your post is passable, but you're talking well out of your ass here. They've been #4 (2015) and #6 (2015) for attendance in a nearly 30-team league, and are running at nearly 90% capacity of their stadium (4900/5500) on average. There are multiple sellouts and over-sellouts. Not to mention the stadium itself is waaayyy out in the suburbs. If there was a better stadium to use, they'd almost certainly be near-filling that one too.

 

Lower division support is a HORRIBLE indicator for whether or not a market is worthy of a MLS team.. The two highest season ticket selling expansion clubs in MLS history both had below average support for the lower division teams that were located in their markets... Yet Seattle sold 21k season tickets their inaugural season and Atlanta is well above that number for their season ticket sales.

Now, obviously Seattle and Atlanta had advantages that most MLS expansion clubs haven't had (connections to an NFL business office willing to spend the time necessary to get the sales), but the number one driver of how well a MLS team will do is the front office and not necessarily the markets ability to support a lower division club.

What should be troubling people is the willingness of the ownership group to tank the bid if they can't get the $120 million in state and local funding (heck, they were willing to tank it if they didn't get the $40 million in state funding). That speaks to a "cheapness" in the ownership group and is more likely to end up with an expansion more in line with Philadelphia than the other, more successful, expansions of late.

 

I know its turf and all but in the meantime, why can't they at least temporarily play at the Dome at America's Center until they build their own park? Isn't that place empty now that the Rams left?

 

The turf isn't the only bad thing about it - it's generally just a bad facility. It's not completely empty because, being attached to the America's Center, it's used for conventions and such. Besides, the issue right now is cost to build, not time to build. It's not like "out stadium will be ready this time next year, so we're here temporarily" - it'd be more like "well, we don't have the funds to build our stadium, so we're here indefinitely" which would be much worse.

 

So for 15 games a year they can't play in it at least temporarily? The Quakes could play for 7 years at Buck Shaw, is playing a year , two or three years at the dome until they get something worked out? Don't see why it would be a major issue.

 

MLS is at a point where sub-optimal stadia aren't going to cut it any more (especially such a shitty venue as the Dome). If San Jose was trying to apply to MLS right now and were suggesting Buck Shaw, they wouldn't get in unless they knew they would be out of it in a year or two. And as it currently stands in STL, they wouldn't *know* they would be out of the Dome soon, it's not like there would be an option to "work something out" any time in the near future. MLS will not want a team in the Dome indefinitely while the stadium issue is completely stuck in the quagmire like we've seen in Miami.

I personally would love to see the Cardinals extend an olive branch, because Busch could work (like Yankee Stadium is passing for NYCFC). But the Dome would not, it's too bad. Remember that the state of the Dome was the driving reason for the Rams leaving.

 

I'm struck by how we are beginning to see the newer, "modern" buildings reach "obsolescence" already.

Edward Jones Dome - opened 1995
Turner Field - opened 1993
Ballpark at Arlington - opened 1994

It's one thing to go to the public and ask for $$ to replace a 50-75 year old building, quite another to replace a building that still seems new, even if flawed. It will be interesting to see what new financing trends take shape.

 

Hopefully cities tell more teams to go ******** themselves.

The Ballpark at Arlington is incredibly nice. Replacing it at taxpayer expense is a sick joke.

 

Yeah, it's sad... Though maybe not surprising, considering how little these days (in any aspect of life) is "built to last" like it used to be. Appliances have shorter lifespans so you have to purchase them more often, houses are built at minimal cost to developers more focused on building and selling entire neighborhoods than on making study homes, etc.

 

The notion of a soccer team in St Louis wasn't even thought about until the Rams moved out of the dome back to LA. My nephew tried out for the Sounders and he said despite all the fans in Seattle, its not like CenturyLink Field has a great turf. If anything he hated playing on it and it was pretty bad. Sigi complained about it as well. I'm not sure if its any better now but by looking at it on TV, I have my doubts its all that great. If anything, they can always turn the Soccer Park into a makeshift venue. Still don't see a huge issue and if someone really wanted to put forth a team with a committed plan, I don't believe a temporary solution couldn't be worked out.

 

If that's your thought, you clearly haven't been paying attention. I'll leave it at that. Try reading around a bit more.

Stop focusing on turf. Turf is just one problem that a stadium can have. As I said earlier, there are many, many other problems with the Dome aside from the turf - which is very much a different case than all of the good things about CenturyLink.

 

I see you edited while I was typing.

Not gonna fly either... even a temp venue would probably need at least 15k seats to pass MLS's muster, and that would mean tripling Soccer Park's current capacity. Even if they had a plan to do that, you'd need another temporary venue to use while SP was being upgraded that much.

No one is arguing about the committed plan, or a viable temporary venue. The problem is that the temporary venue has to 100% be temporary, which means having a viable stadium plan already in the works, and that's where the current plan is hanging up. If the proposed stadium plan was approved, then maybe the Dome could pass for a year. But they aren't going to use the Dome if there's no better venue in sight.

 

If that is the case, why even mention St. Louis at all? I mean if there is no commitments and/or hope from any owner to put forth a team, its time for MLS to forget about it and focus on expanding in another city.

 

You're missing the point... The problem is not that there are no commitments or that there's a lack of capable owners. The problem in this whole situation is that the current ownership group banked on getting public funding and don't (publicly) appear to have a plan B for their permanent home. If you've been paying attention, STL was ranked as the #2 or #3 most likely candidate after Sac until the funding bomb went off and dropped STL down to 6th or 8th or whatever on most pundit's expansion power rankings.

And if you'd been reading up on the situation previously, you'd know why they were fairly confident they could get public funding. Not only did they have the support of the city AND had been working behind the scenes with MLS directly for months on getting the plan ready, they were coming in the wake of a nearly $1b proposed dual-use gridiron+soccer stadium that had been the hopes of keeping the Rams in town. After seeing a proposal for a stadium north of $800m, their initial SSS idea for just $100m was candy in comparison. Plan A was perfectly viable until the double whammy of the new governor and the city balking a bit.

Also, don't be under any delusions that MLS isn't or hasn't been looking at other cites. I mean that's been the whole discussion for the past months/years on how there have been more potential candidates than potential expansion spots. STL had its time as a favorite, but trust me that no one thinks they are at this point in time.

 

LOL.....You've now entered the "Falvo Zone"

 

Ah. X-D Good to know.

 

Must have missed it....

I never believed MLS hasn't been looking at other cites.

FYP!

 

Is San Diego an expansion candidate? A stadium may be opening up there tomorrow:

Report: Chargers plan to announce relocation to Los Angeles as early as Thursday. https://t.co/6ASm2a4x0Y pic.twitter.com/r5cyl8AiJL

— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) January 12, 2017

 

The former NFL Dome stadium in St. Louis would require $100+ million in renovation costs to be able to host whole seasons of soccer games, according to the convention center authority. The MLS would never want to use that s*** stadium anyway, especially with no clear path (at this point) to a new soccer specific stadium downtown. The Dome and the adjacent convention center need some renovation to more effectively host large conventions, which have been declining in number. The city council may be more inclined to spend political capital on convention center renovations than on a speculative stadium project. Conventions will come to St. Louis if the facilities are great. Getting a new soccer stadium just had too much uncertainty, and needed too much government funding. Citizens and policians seem to be on a 'hate the stadiums' kick since the city was abandoned by the Rams. Some people, of course, just hate all sports and they shout the loudest when stadium proposals come up. If the would-be MLS owners increased private funding, it might work. Time is running out for St. Louis' MLS bid.

 

It's still on in St. Louis:

http://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2017/...sc-stl-provide-update-st-louis-stadium-search