Revolution Stadium Groundbreaking "12-24 months" Part XV

You know Rick Connor? LOL

 

That's great to hear, didn't know it was common knowledge back then. If that's still the case, my apologies, I guess I shouldn't assume everyone is as ignorant as me. I know it was historically one of many used during the Revolutionary War and it was specifically used at Bunker Hill (thanks wiki). I had never come across it in any parades or in any history books.

It's safe to say it's not common knowledge among the revs' target market of 18 to 34 year olds. You can infer it has something to do with the American Revolution since the team with the same name adopted it. Few people (non flag experts, drum corps etc) look at that flag and go "OH YEAH! Of course that pine tree means flag of New England! That was on my AP History exam!" It's an interesting but obscure bit of local history.

Maybe we should ask Jay Heaps if he knew the flag Pre-revs? He's New England born and raised and graduated early from Duke as a history major. I will ask my friend who runs a flag company if he knew it.

 

I've known Rick Connor since 1957. He was in the Cambridge Caballeros, taught many area drum corps at a very high level. I marched with him in an "old farts" drum corps back around the turn of the century. On the subject of the flag, I'll admit that my mother was a history teacher, and I also majored in history. Mom dragged my brother and I around to every significant historical site in the region, and across the country, when we took the occasional trip. So perhaps I was a bit more into things than the ordinary citizen.

 

This was all I needed to lock in my 2017 season tickets.

 

I am sure Jonathan Kraft's kids will eventually be telling us the ground-breaking will be announced in 12-24 months.

 

I fixed your quote

 

I only post the following because many of us can remember the KC crowds that were so small they made Foxboro crowds feel immense in comparison.

==============================================

Andy Edwards

✔@AndyEdMLS
90 straight #MLS sellouts at CMP. 19,249 here tonight. #SportingKC #SKCvCOL

 

Atlanta opened their new training site today. It is beautiful. $60 million dollar facility will house first team and the full academy.

• First team locker room with 22-foot ceilings and 14 elevated windows
• Six Academy Locker Rooms
• Full service kitchen and dining room with balcony access
• Show pitch featuring a 2,500-seat stand and separate Pavilion for viewing
• Sport science facilities including double height gym and two hydrotherapy plunge pools

http://www.atlutd.com/photos/2017/04/11/introducing-childrens-healthcare-atlanta-training-ground

 

For God's sake someone take this thread out back and put it out of it's misery.

Kraft's "12-24 months" quote was probably the most epic (but unintended) trolling of revs fans, ever.

 

Jesus the video on the Atlanta training ground is incredible. It is like we are not even playing in the same league as some of these other teams.

.@ATLUTD's new Training Ground is UNREAL!

Check out FOX Sports South's all-access tour with @BrittanyMArnold #UniteAndConquer pic.twitter.com/15hwSgqQCd

— Bally Sports South (@BallySportsSO) April 12, 2017

 

Portland's plan for their privately funded $50m expansion. Looks really nice

http://www.timbers.com/post/2017/04...-park-add-approximately-4000-new-seats-modern

 

I would say that this is not a positive development:

UMass Officials break off talks with Kraft Group about soccer stadium

 

sigh...well at least this one seem to advance to the stage where people could complain about it. In a way I guess that is as much progress as has ever been made in the past decade.

Some day we will get to the stage of an actual vote which almost always fails on the first try for MLS team historically.

The amount of years we have between us and a new stadium has not decreased one iota since Sonny uttered his famous words.

 

I'm telling you...at some point, the Krafts will pull the plug on the idea of a new soccer stadium, and they'll announce some sort of major renovation to Gillette that will make it more "soccer friendly", among other things.

 

Yes, probable.

Word has it that the plan to do so is comprised solely of re-printing and re-dedicating the SuperLiga banner.

But, it's not too too faded yet.

 

The Revs in MLS are a "dead" franchise--no chance for a new stadium, no USL team, no spending on the starting 11 compared to most other teams.

This is just a ghost ship moving forward, there's nothing there in terms of ambition or urgency.

Nothing will change or can change until the Krafts sell.

 

No Bayside stadium. Lucy pulls the football.

 

Did anyone really think that this would happen? Maybe I've grown too cynical, but I didn't see anything other than lip service and posturing. Too bad, it could have been a nice setup.

Two things I have no doubt will happen:

1. New Yourk City FC will play their first game in their new stadium (with a grass field, somewhere in one of the 4 boroughs--Staten Isalnd doesn't really count, since it's really New Jersey)
2. The day the Revs play a home league game somewhere other than Gillette Stadium is the day that the Patriots have decided Gillette is too "obsolete," and they build another super palace, which of course "will be built with soccer in mind."

 

we can at least hang our hat on our gorgeous training facility that our first team and academy share. No on else in the league has this.....

I will go cry in the corner now

 

A few thoughts after reading the article:

In retrospect I am surprised that the Kraft family did not try to buy the land themselves in 2010 when UMass bought the land for $18.7M, but I cannot recall what the world (MLS, soccer, finance, number of SSS, push/requirement for SSS, etc) was like back then. I only say that because of Bob Kraft's long play for the Patriots and land in Foxboro.

If the BTU was the only issue (it is not) I would be surprised that the rest of MLS would let that sticking point become a deal breaker. Whatever the difference is it is certainly no more than the cost of every team chipping in to but a Dempsey, Bradley, or an Altidore and would have a much, much greater long term impact on the league.

 

Taking off my "Revs Fan Hat since 1995", I am starting to wonder if we deserve a team any more.

There are numerous cities/ownership groups all over the country that are trying hard to get into MLS. The Krafts have had 20+ years to try and crack this market and we are no better off today than we were in in the late 90's IMO in terms of relevance in the market.

At some point some one has to realize that the market is never going to work with the "break even" strategy.

What I mean by the "break even" strategy is that I am fairly convinced that the ownership keeps their hands relatively off the team as long as they maintain a certain level around break even at the end of the fiscal year.

But I can't ever see overcoming the apathy in the market with this strategy. Other cities around the league have used a more proactive approach to building their team (on and off the field) and much of that revolves around spending money before your revenues can support it.

Jones is probably the only time they tried to be a little more proactive and it seems clear that it must not have made fiscal sense when all was said and done, even if things felt different around the team from a fans perspective.

Now we just seem to be fully entrenched in MLS 1.0, with 6000 people in the stands on a weekday night.

The worst part of the "break even" strategy to me is that is likely prevents anyone from being interested in purchasing the team with the intent to keep them in the area.

 

He's running out of places to fail.


Six places Bob Kraft has tried — and failed — to build a soccer stadium

 

I agree with much of what you post. I think the roster spend/roster quality issues are nearly completely independent of the Revs stadium situation, but hey, having a new stadium is nothing to sneeze at.

Regardless of stadium, let's have the Revs get a winner onto the field - ANY field.

In regards to them being proactive with Jones - many would argue that action was not proactive; that it was instead driven by Krafts for once being substantively stung by negative publicity. It was one of the rare times that they had no air cover, and the years of standing pat caught up to them in the eye of public opinion. See this thread -
https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/boston-magazine-the-krafts-are-the-worst-owners-in-mls.2002331

At about that same time, like you I also wondered about the detrimental effects of the long term lack of quality stewardship of this franchise. I worded it more strongly, folks had some strong reactions on both sides.
https://www.bigsoccer.com/posts/29921041/