I think Garber's plan was to leverage Austin to get a new deal in Columbus (and any possible new ownership would have been a bonus), with actually moving the team if such a deal couldn't be found as a less desirable option. That would be a pretty standard move from the US sports playbook. And then he became flexible as events warranted. I think he could understand that all the angsting over relocation might 'work' to concentrate minds in Columbus, and yet at the same time underestimate Precourt's ability to not give a shit. And I think he's been around enough sports leagues to know that most of the heated rhetoric around the possibility of possibly moving a team tends to fade away if you can get the deal done. (In Columbus's case, it will have wound up working to the team's long-term advantage. The Crew as an institution, as distinct from their owner, rarely ever got such good PR as in the past couple years, and future passers-by of the new stadium will realize that it exists because people in Columbus cared.) Precourt is unusual--in past practice it has been difficult to burn so many bridges as to be truly unacceptable going forward, and an orthodox move-threatening from a more normal owner probably wouldn't have resulted in that. So from the league office's perspective, their read on the situation changed. Instead of coming out with just a new stadium in Columbus, or failing that just a team in Austin, they wind up with a team in both cities. This costs the league parting with one of the remaining expansion slots for a little less money than they really wanted to sell it for, but this is probably not a huge price to pay from their perspective, assuming the Austin deal actually works out. (If it doesn't, then they'll have continued strife with Precourt, with the result of likely them buying him out for more than that 150 million they got, but being able to sell another expansion team. Still not that bad.)
That's on the level of Trutherism in its complexity and tendency to explain away the inconvenient. I mean, decent job collecting it in one place, but come on...
I think it's the most prosaic (to the point of being boring) theory available to say 'they meant to do what every sports league means to do in a situation like this.'
Ohio Governor John Kasich approves bill for new Columbus Crew stadium "Am Sub S.B. 51 (Skindell, Eklund) Authorizes the creation of a special improvement district to facilitate Lake Erie shoreline improvement."
Yes, Kasich signed the state's contribution yesterday. Franklin county commission approved their 45 mil on Tuesday. City council approved their 50 mil last week. So all the government financing has been completed.
This would agree. They just dismissed the Art Modell case. https://www.bizjournals.com/columbu...-dismiss-art-modell-lawsuit-against-crew.html
Just to clarify...the court didn't dismiss it. The judge didn't. It was the plaintiff, Columbus and Ohio.
https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2018...lam-edwards-families-operate-columbus-crew-sc MLS makes the announcement....
Very Happy for Crew Supporters today! And thankful that we can now all get back to hating your guts....
For what it's worth, the change of ownership won't be until January so Precourt is still in charge for a few more days. Tickets for 2019 aren't on sale yet.
I think a lot of credit is deserved by a lot of folks in getting to this point. Kudos first to the Crew fanbase for the Save the Crew effort and getting it so visibly around the league and in other public settings. But really, going from what might have been a vicious lawsuit with multiple rounds of appeals in state and federal court to quickly finding a new investor/operator group, which agreed to build a new stadium (in a "market" the league had been "lukewarm" about), and got agreement for government support for infrastructure from both local and state authorities (especially a state legislature and governor) - without a lot of controversy - is really remarkable! Think of the hurdles that had to be circumvented with getting Orlando City Stadium's funding arranged and MN Utd's stadium funding arranged - and the decades of the DC stadium saga. Really what has happened to save the Crew has been amazing!! With the Haslams' interest in having the Browns preseason training in Columbus, will there be efforts to build fanbase support for the Browns in Columbus and similarly build fanbase interest for the Crew in Cleveland??? Is their interest driven by some sort of synergy between the clubs and cities???
The Crew don't currently have a USL affiliate and Cleveland is working on joining USL so that seems like a good fit. Ohio's big 3 cities are doing well economically while smaller cities like Dayton, Toledo, Youngstown, and Canton are being left behind. There's been a lot of internal migration in Ohio from the Northeast parts toward Columbus. So Cleveland teams are more popular in Columbus now than they were 20 years ago.
I could see how it would make sense for the Haslems/Browns to build goodwill and support in Columbus - Cleveland has a small geographic opportunity for a fanbase, ringed in by NFL teams in Detroit, Indy, Cincy, Pittsburgh, and Buffalo. Holding training camp & making fans in Columbus makes sense. Hopefully they'll make great investor/operators for the Crew fans and find ways to add to the fanbase in Cleveland and NE Ohio.