I am doubting they will ever relay all the details to the public. Not saying they should. It would be very interesting to be a fly on the wall in these discussions.
At the risk of inviting wrath, this reminds me of some of the things AP did in the early days that I was excited about. He brought new energy and enthusiasm, did a rebrand that actually doubled down on and solidified the existing brand - whereby he insisted on calling the Crew a SOCCER club , gave us one goofy kit for the ages, but most importantly his hiring and commitment and faith in Gregg Berhalter has been a really positive thing for MLS and US Soccer through the dark demoralization of the Klinsmann era. It's awesome how people have jumped on the #SaveTheCrew bandwagon, it's the best bandwagon around. But maybe they don't know part of the Crew's vulnerability came through years of indifference from ownership to their actual competitiveness and brand of soccer (among other critical areas of neglect.) The Precourt era soccer has been great.
I hope A: The Crew gets the kind of ownership/direction they deserve and become a somehow even more MASSIVE club. But I also hope, for the sake of American soccer, Precourt gets Austin off the ground successfully, and gets some bigger, better partners who crowd him out.
It's somewhat complicated. The main guy behind the Columbus efforts is Alex Fischer,CEO of the Columbus Partnership, basically a club where everybody is a CEO or owner of a major corporation in Central Ohio. He's been the driving force behind the Columbus process. He's originally from Nashville, and there's this whole friends and family thing with him and Jimmy Haslem as well as his brother Bill Haslem who is Governor of Tennessee and John Ingram who is the new owner in Nashville. Basically they're all thick as thieves. Who originally approached who, we don't know, but we're told- and our own eyes confirm - that buying into MLS is suddenly all the rage among NFL owners. They say that Haslem has been interested in the idea for some time. Who knows. We do know that Garber recently had dinner with Governor Haslem in Nashville and, presumably, they discussed the Columbus situation. Did it help grease the skids? Again, it's all speculation. My guess, and that's all it is, is that when Fischer went looking for deep - deepdeep - pocketed locals(more or less) to buy the Crew one of his first calls was to Jimmy, the billionaire he knows well from a couple hours away in Cleveland. One interesting aspect is that Haslem has been wanting to move the Browns spring training facility to Columbus in order to sort of stake out the territory for his team and close out the Bengals from getting a bigger foothold there. Now, it seems almost certain that he will combine a Crew practice facility with a Browns one near Columbus and get the best of both. But it's all tea leaves. No question that the announcement was premature, probably by a week or so. But word started leaking out on Friday and everybody was hustling to come up with a statement that said a little but not too much since there are still no signatures on documents.Maybe if they'd waited we would have more background.
Austin, MLS, and all if soccer in North America would be better off with Epstein & Dell running the show in Austin. I think that would be the best long term solution. PSV fails and gets booted/sells to another investor. San Antonio takes that slot with Spurs ownership group & joins St. Louis as #27 & #28. Austin is a great city and deserves better. Dell & Epstein snag them one of the soon to be anmounced four additional slots to get us to 32. Along with Detroit + 2 more.
Sure. It's still interesting to think about. It addresses the broader issue of how owners see this issue. Or maybe it's just that really rich people don't worry too much when they spend $150m to buy a team. While obviously team owners don't like the Modell law it's also not clear to me how much local governments like it and so I'm not sure what the equilibrium outcome is. Maybe everyone enacts it and so teams don't take local subsidies (which sounds fine to me). Or maybe the owners play hardball and will not move teams to cites that have such a law, causing the cities to choose not to have the law. Are there lessons from this?
Lessons (which should be) learned: (1) Don't mock the legal process or the rule of law. After the Modell Law was unearthed but before the suit, there were many people on Big Soccer -- including many sympathetic to saving the Crew -- who scoffed at the idea of invoking it, and still others who discounted the suit's chances even after the suit was initiated. They were flagrantly wrong. The Modell Law was highly (and predictably) effective, and it remains presumptively constitutional. (2) MLS is run by cowards. They (predictably) blinked first. If they went hat-in-hand to Haslam rather than the other way around, it merely underscores the fact of the league's fear of testing its legal position. MLS's arguments were dishonorable and absurd (and in a just world would ultimately have been severely sanctioned by the court). Meanwhile, the Save The Crew movement was positive and honorable at every stage of the past 12 months. The City of Columbus played softball and still defeated MLS and its hardball tactics. (3) Every jurisdiction needs a Modell Law. See lessons #1 and #2 above.
Actually the Hurricanes did play at least one season in Raleigh before the arena was completed in Charlotte.
As much as I love all this legal stuff, it's now time for a Crew stadium thread. From my DC experience I can testify that it's a rich vein of very enjoyable bitching, complaining and second guessing. I'll stake ground for the new thread with this assertion: The only acceptable location for a stadium is downtown. Downtown is defined as within 1/4 mile of the state capical. The only acceptable site is one accessible by subway, rail, and bus, and close to at least three interstate highways. It must be surrounded by excellent and affordable bars and restaurants, as well as acres of free parking. p.s I had no f-ing idea that Columbus has a population of nearly 900K with over 2 million in the metro area. No wonder MLS doesn't want to let go.
What? They played 2 years in Greensboro before the arena here, in Raleigh, was built. Dude, I live in Raleigh.
Is the lawsuit still active? Seems like it would be prudent to keep the proceedings going until the transaction to solve all of this actually happens.
I'm pretty sure it is. Judge Brown seems to have (predictably) slow-walked MLS' dismissal motion for the better part of a year without rendering a ruling, and I suspect he knows how to keep the suit in suspended animation until the league follows through on getting the deal done.
Wow. Been out of town/regular internet connection for almost a week. I've almost completely stopped following MLS outside of Timbers matches on DVR because of this whole ordeal and was truly considering giving up on the league entirely after this season. I'm a Timbers fan but the first soccer jersey I ever bought was a Crew jersey in 1998. I'm a Bengals/Reds fan transplanted in Alaska since '76 and had only 10 teams to choose from when MLS kicked off. I loved how MLS slowly went from 10-12,000 people mostly spread out in 80,000 seat stadiums to supporters groups selling out sections in smaller sold out stadiums. I loved how over the years they moved from marketing to soccer moms to the drinking age crowd. I loved watching MLS grow after David Beckham signed (expansion and new stadiums approved during a recession). I loved watching new markets explode onto the scene and all of it was fan driven. I. Loved. Don. Garber. I thought he was the best commissioner in all sports and held him in the same light as Pete Rozelle. And then some twat with a little bit of money destroyed everything I loved about MY league. He saw an opportunity to buy a franchise, drive down it's value, move it to a new place, get a stadium built off of the excitement of a new team coming to a growing city, sell it after a couple of years, cash out/bro down. And Don Garber was going to be the chauffeur for the whole ride. MLS Now looked like the league of the privileged. MLS looked to me like a league that now catered to people looking for a quick buck instead of the league I bought into with owners looking at the long game. I felt lied to, but most of all, I truly felt sick for the Crew supporters. Now an even worse tragedy has struck as I have to now do what had been previously unthinkable. I have to heap praise on a Browns owner. Congratulations Columbus and congratulations Crew supporters. It still remains to be seen but I may care about this league again.
I don't understand this line of reasoning. Precourts plan was to pull up stakes,vacate the stadium and move his rights to Austin. OK fine. Move. What MLS chooses to do about Columbus afterwards isn't really his business and he certainly isn't entitled to get paid. In this case MLS chose to sell a new group an expansion team. If MLB decided to sell an expansion team to a new group in Montreal would they owe the Nationals something? They wanted out, they got out.
The Hurricanes play in Raleigh. Tbey are a Raleigh team, not a Charlotte team. They have never played in Charlotte. (Their farm team plays there.) They did play in Greensboro for a year when they first moved to North Carolina, but not in Charlotte.
There is another related question... What happens to the lawsuit if the deal falls through and the sale isn't completed? "Opportunity to purchase" or something else?
He was planning on taking the team with him. Now he isn't. That is the difference. In your mlb scenario there would be no team/roster being traded hands.
I would think (though IANAL) that if the deal falls through, PSV and the league could now legitimately and validly argue that they have fulfilled their requirement to provide an opportunity to purchase. Wouldn't make a move for next season actually possible, though, as there just not enough time.
If the deal falls through, MLS could and doubtless would argue all that -- but not validly, because its non-consummation would almost certainly be due to MLS deliberately torpedoing it. As I understand it, there was a second bona fide bidder that MLS rejected in order to favor Haslam, a member of its old-boys club of interlocking ownership with the NFL, whom it's been plausibly observed MLS may have induced to enter the bidding. The "opportunity" contemplated by the law is illusory unless the second bona fide potential investor/operator group gets its chance, as well. Not to mention the six months clock may never have started since any previous "notice" of the alleged move was obviated by selling 2019 season tickets in Columbus rather than Austin. So, I don't think MLS can successfully make such a facile argument of compliance with the law based on what we know about what has transpired thus far.
What about DP's salaries and academy? To act as if there is no value in having a 23 year established team as opposed to an expansion team is odd IMO.