I think Philly was suggested back then only because Philly was near the top of any expansion/relocation "wish list" locations of that era. From the Paul Oliu group that tried to secure an expansion team in Trenton - that was shot down by Nick Sackiewicz and the MetroStars because it "was within their territory" until the Sugarman group finally secured the stadium deal in Chester, Philly was always kind of in the list. Sort of like Saint Louis, San Diego, and Phoenix are today. There's a team available? What about Philly. - I believe those thoughts exist. But Lamar didn't put the Wizards up because of "languishing attendance". He new he was dying, and that if he didn't sell the Wizards before that, Clark would soon after. Lamar was loyal, and of the three teams he owned, the Wizards were his favorite. He wanted them to remain in Kansas City. Overseeing the sale in his lifetime was the only way to guarantee the clubs continued existence in the City of Fountains. Half of OnGoal's ownership had actually been working with Lamar for a couple of years doing site work and analysis for a Wizards stadium in concert with a project with the NSCAA. There was always an inside track to keeping the team local. Those venture capitalists - who were into Lamar's plan because of the larger plan, saw buying the team as part of the cost of doing business to get the rest of the development done. As it happened, there was a second group, which included then-SUM head (and KC native) Doug Quinn's brother that was also interested. The real hold up was much what Sacramento is facing. The bid groups were wealthy, but not uber-wealthy. It was the addition of Illig and Patterson from Cerner that finalized things. That and HSG agreeing to sell the team share of SUM. Any post-December 2004 relocation rumors were just that. Rumors. Fallback plans. Opportunistic plans. And, yes, the league office did work on some of those. All the better to keep the heat on the negotiations in Kansas City. The real relocations possibilities. The ones with meat, were the Rochester Raging Rhinos and the Murstein/San Antonio that predated Lamar putting the team up for sale. If the OnGoal group hadn't come together, and the other Worlds of Fun/Quinn group also wasn't able to finalize things, then all bets are off. The team would've been sold and almost assuredly relocated - never to be replaced.
This Philly thing is a bit bizarre. This board is really rumor central, and if there were serious consideration of that idea, there would be people here who would remember it. I sure don't, and it looks like other reliable sources don't either. I do remember the idea of Tampa being moved to Rochester, and people thinking they would be "just like the Green Bay Packers" because they were drawing like 11,000 fans a game. And Chivas were destined for Houston or San Diego or any other flavor-of-the-month city with a large Mexican-American population. Yeah, things have changed a lot since then.
The amazing thing though is how Rochester went from being Option B every time MLS talked expansion or relocation, to a town without soccer,fans or hope, and it's a tale that resonates in terms of Philly. The Rhinos were clipping along, drawing 11,000 people in the middle of an engaged community. Rochester had a rich NASL history and a massive amateur community. All the signs were there. They had a beautiful location picked out for a stadium on the west side on Elmgrove Road, easily accessible by road and interstate from anywhere in the county.Then the local government got involved and insisted that the thing be built instead in a blighted inner city neighborhood in order to spark economic revival. So they did,and what they got was a place with almost no parking, so that you had to find a spot on the streets, sometimes a dozen or more blocks away in a less than desirable neighborhood. Some people actually came, drove around a bit and decided against leaving their cars there for two hours, since it was obvious to everyone that you wouldn't be back until the game was over. Then the financing collapsed as banks backed away from the project, forcing the developers to eliminate things like suites, amenities,offices, etc. The Rhinos were run out of construction trailers parked next to the stadium. It was worse than I can describe. People came at first, were horrified and never came back. They killed a terrific soccer town as dead as Julius Caesar. Really tragic.
I don't know if a full accounting will ever be done on the late period of the Raging Rhinos ownership. From what I can tell, it was closer to a pump and dump stock selling scheme than a real boom. The duRoss/Donner/Economides ownership group was a house of cards. Not quite a Ponzi scheme, but definitely playing some games. A lot of small businesses were left holding the bag for the Raging Rhinos and the (hockey?) team when it all collapsed. I don't think we'll ever know what the real paid attendance was. One can't deny that the sellouts at Frontier Field back when Rochester was ruling D2 and winning a USOC over MLS teams were packed stadiums full of enthusiastic fans. One can wonder how much house papering was going on given the looming financial collapse that was looming on the horizon. The real scary thought is how messy it would've all ended had Clark sold the Wizards to Frank and the financial meltdown had occured with an MLS team and not a D2 team. It likely would've been a lot worse than what happened with Horowitz and Miami - which was merely undercapitalized, as opposed to suspiciously shady. I always felt that Rochester was betrayed by the ownership group, and deserved better.
Was glad to read your post but I think things were even more rotten in Denmark. Seemed obvious to me that Lew Wolff (and Fisher) - whose major sports ambition at that time was to claim the South Bay - didn't just happen to discover this Quakes thing right after the team was moved 'cause they couldn't find a new owner. Thanks to Quakes fans, committing the foul deed of whimsical relocation was a longer, more torturous process than maybe AEG and the league office were thinking when they started that ball rolling. It was some pretty bad P.R. on all fronts - except I guess Houston - and SUM had to recognize shitting down the throat of an enormous soccer market wasn't the greatest long term strategy. Wolff (and Fisher) took advantage of this timing to buy a dirt cheap corpse and be spun as saviors. They could have made their appearance before the team moved. But that wouldn't have been very moneyball, would it? We're still Fisher's team.
Without getting into politics, is he involved with Michael Cohen and/or Donald Trump? I know the investigation has found a bunch of shady stuff in the NY taxi medallion world.
I don't think it was his grand plan but I am noticing a clear pattern. Let's not forget that some of these owners are NFL people and the Baltimore and Cleveland franchises happened in 1996. Cleveland moved to Baltimore but kept its history and Cleveland eventually gets an expansion franchise with history. Both franchises survived the terrible PR and low and behold got a stadium. Sound familiar? Oh and who did Garber use to work for? Listen it might be far fetched but so far almost every franchise has more now than when they took the PR hit. Looking at the promised Columbus investment by the potential new owners is amazing. Meanwhile Austin fans now don't feel like they are stealing a team. Also I don't think this would ever happen if Anthony Precourt was still just happy being the owner of the Crew. https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2018...cil-unanimously-approves-proposal-new-stadium
Your pat, incomplete description of how things went down regarding the Browns is...well...not very deep. Or good. The Browns have been miserable for nearly 20 years. Huge droves of fans stopped giving a damn altogether. Still others (a disturbing amount) did the unthinkable and became Steelers fans. Others still took up with the Bengals. The climate in Northeast Ohio is nothing close to what it used to be. Two decades of ruin. The entire landscape changed dramatically .
That isn't really my point though. The point is long standing teams were able to move and move back in some form, while improving the situation for the league. All I'm saying it is a strategy and one that's been used in other leagues in America and now maybe MLS.
Just a point to note: We've wandered very far afield of #SaveTheCrew or #SavedTheCrew... Has this thread ended useful life?
The state senate passed the appropriation for the Crew 29-2 tonight. It passed the House 66-25 on Tuesday.
Garber may have worked for the NFL, but it wasn't like he was Pete Rozelle Jr. He ran NFL Europe, and that was actually good experience for running a league in a sport that was extremely popular, but not necessarily on the continent where they had teams. Not like he signed off on the whole Browns to Baltimore thing. And once that became a "thing" there were lots of other examples of an existing team moving and being replaced in the same market by an expansion team with the same name, or some other variation of "replacement." If anything, it was probably the Raiders moving to LA and the lawsuit that tied the NFL's hands and let the Colts move to Indy, more than anything Garber did or did not do.
Well, theres not much left in the way of suspense or surprises any more. Everyone now knows what the end result is going to be in Columbus. MLS has imposed a December 31 deadline to close the deal, and all sides agree that theres a lot of work left. Not that there are big problems but this is a $650 million project with a shitload of moving parts and getting all the details nailed down isnt a quick and easy process. Ive been saying all along though that since nobody wants to have to work between Christmas and New Years - or if it cant be helped, nobody wants to work 14 hour days then either - that the date to look to is Christmas.
Having moved here last year, I am no local and only know this history from arm's length (though I will claim some cred for being one of the very few people in attendance at what remains the Rhinos' last ever match. Not even the local paper can claim that.) I will say, though, that two major impressions I've gained of Rochester are: 1) that people here are more or less obsessed with parking; and 2) wide at least perceptions of crime in areas in and around downtown. I can't give a full account for why the Save the Crew movement has been so meaningful to me (probably has something to do with being a Rapids fan, knowing the same possible fate could be on the near horizon), but, sadly and tragically, the Rhinos have disappeared from Rochester with scarcely anyone in town noticing.
Dude, Christmas is on a Tuesday, and no one will work more than a half day on Christmas Eve Monday. It's gotta be done by next Friday.
...and we all know how much MLS sticks to their deadlines, says the guy who freaked out three years ago about a July 1 deadline for the Loons to get their stadium deal done.
Isn’t there something about 60-90 days that gets thrown around in MLS or is that exclusive to announcements?
In terms of timing, I agree with Miki, 10 days or less. The owners are chomping at the bit to get going. They want to announce the deal, rhe stadium deal, Mapfre repurposing, tout some community benefits both projects bring, & clarify that no public $$ is going into the stadium. Plus, they want announce the coaching hire, TD hire, and start selling season tickets. Preseason starts in January. Roster decisions need made. Etc. And they want those announcements made before everyone tunes out for Christmas. I would say we get the whole kit and kaboodle next week, after the last vote on Tuesday. Yes, there are a lot of moving parts to go, but I think most of them are done and the others at least to handshake stages. Wed or Thur.