News: Screw you Lucy - Buzzard Point Stadium News Thread

Count as what? I don't understand the comment. The $150M in infrastructure upgrades provided by the city to the area wouldn't be part of the modeled investment. The city did not "give" us anything. If you're trying to model this deal from the owner's perspective, your uses are $150M, and your sources total $150M through debt and equity. It's not a $300M investment with $150M from the city because the return is only based on the $150M you put in.

 

Interest rates are still very low. It makes sense to pay for big projects like this with someone else's money and keep yours where you can earn a higher return while you pay off your cheap debt. They're being cheap because they either don't see the ling term ROI (unlikely) or they want to dump the team when the 5 year period is up. Your profit would likely not change much with a jazzier stadium so you might as well risk less.

 

Looks to me like they are putting 20% down - pretty standard, eh?

 

That would make sense. We don't have any hard evidence either way so anything we put up on this board on the topic is speculation. Either way, as a fan, I don't really care too much. Who owns the team doesn't matter as long as I get a good value for my soccer entertainment dollar (excepting extreme cases like a Daniel Snyder).

As for the stadium itself, I care about things like viewing angles, noise levels, concessions, merch store accessibility, restroom accessibility. I don't really care what materials are used on the exterior veneer. I care that the field has good grass so the players can move the ball around without bad hops. I care that I can yell and scream in the supporters' section now but then take a child off to the side until they're old enough for a PG-13 environment. I think PPL Park is a pretty good stadium and I'll be happy if ours is as simple as the Union's. It's a solid example of a mostly no-frills SSS where the field is at ground level.

I'm still pretty excited that DC United is getting a stadium built as we type. Remember how recently the team was in danger of being moved to another city or dissolved. From the fan perspective, that means that DC United will continue to play pro soccer soccer for decades regardless of whether or not the current ownership group sells or continues to operate it in five years.

 

This is the important part. The rest is just icing.

 

Except that to believe that part of the stadium story, you might have to believe all the other stories about what the stadium will look like, etc., most of which have been debunked.
So, yeah, maybe if it was true and a move/dissolution came close to happening it's a big deal - but I'm just not sure that's ever been all that true. It was definitely used as a bargaining chip.

 

What other MLS teams play in large stadiums they don't own?

 

I'm not saying there was NO truth to what they were threatening, might have happened eventually, but was it imminent? So a grain of truth maybe but a grain does not make a full loaf, as my baking grandma used to say.

 

There was indeed tons of truth to it. More than enough for a full loaf, as you say. If Will Chang hadn't agreed to keep the lights on and the engine running back between '09 and '12, the team would have been dissolved. Remember that that by '10 the league no longer needed United for its core marketing as Seattle and Toronto had become photo-ops and the face of MLS 2.0. The only reason why AEG propped up United between 2002 and 2007 was because the league had no other fanbase with such boisterous supporters' group yet.

At the time, the only thing the league (i.e. the other owners) still wanted DC United for was the media footprint and size/affluence of our market. No major league would want to pass up a top-10 media market and the highest median income metro region. However, it wasn't willing to lose tens of millions of dollars per year to do so.

Will Chang kept DC United running out of 1) sentimentality and 2) hoping to find other investors to help add value to his investment. He should have a plaque at the new stadium. Without him, DC United would have dissolved. He lost tens of millions on margin calls for four years before Mr. Thohir made him whole (presumably) this year. His experience as a part-owner of the San Francisco Giants also taught him that he needed other owners to share the workload/PR burden and someone with local political connections.

In a way, it was dumb luck that Jason Levien's time as an NBA executive ended around the time he bought into DC United. That way he had his whole schedule to do all the behind-the-scenes work with the city, architects, economists, political/neighborhood outreach, etc. to get the deal that allowed for groundbreaking. Back in 2013/14 the league was still sending out surveys about whether I'd go watch a team in Baltimore and whether I'd see a relocated United as anything other a totally new team from a different region.

Yes it was a bargaining chip, but not in the way you were referring. It was a bargaining chip from desperation due to the large possibility that United wouldn't get a stadium in 2009-13 and from the not-probable but non-zero possibility that the stadium deal would fall through between '13 and groundbreaking this past February.

 

Jason Levien is pretty much a one-man show on the stadium front. He is not a construction engineer and he's probably learning as he goes on how to communicate cost-benefit tradeoffs with the architects. He has a budget. He's trying to get as much as he can from that budget without being anything close to an expert in construction engineering. Now, why that may be the case is a whole other discussion for better or worse.

Stuff changed on the City Center project throughout the process and that property is funded by Quatari oil barons! Whine about the stadium's rendering changing all you want. Just remember to have a little context.

I'm not here to be an apologist for the ownership. I just want to point out that there are real world reasons for why things may be the way they are. There is good and bad to this project, just like any other. I'll take the good as keeping my favorite pro soccer team outweighs gripes about roofs over the stands.

 

Don't be silly, clearly it is cheapness, incompetence, and ineptitude.

 

Good points. You almost had me convinced . . . and then I remembered that during this same timeframe, Thohir spent $475 million buying a controlling interest in Inter Milan, and Levien spent $90 million on Swansea.

A "budget" for Buzzard Point? Try "breadcrumbs".

It's their money, mind, but we DCU fans can at least wonder what "could have been" in terms of stadium and team roster . . .

 

The points about Will Chang keeping DCU afloat can never be repeated enough.

 

Those are all fair points. The better question is why are things are the way they are and can we do anything to improve it?

I'm not much of a "what if" kind of guy. I'm more of a "how do I improve on what already exists?"

I agree there is plenty of room for criticism of the ownership. I just want to focus on what should be criticized rather than going in circles on architectural renderings.

My criticism is along the lines of:

1) When are they going to actually tell us where the supporters' section will be and for how much? When can I put down a deposit on a season ticket?

2) When are they going to announce that they gave Coach Olsen enough resources to retain good third assistant and goalkeeper coaches. United has lost a couple of them in recent years for better paying jobs at other MLS teams.

3) Are they going to have some sort of talent exchange with Inter? Maybe send some of our academy players there to learn new training and tactical techniques.

4) When are they going to add scouting staff?

5) When will they fully staff the front office? Right now, the front office staff is stretched way too thin.

6) Are they going to be able to stand up to the other owners/the league minimizing DC United? The league is trying to replace the Atlantic Cup with the Hudson River Derby! The Red Bulls fans don't like it any more than we do. Our team is a very storied franchise that has been merely above average in recent years (making the playoffs and winning the first round half that time counts as above average). Market the heck out of it! They were voted down when the Loons and 5-stripes came in the league (I refuse to call either of them "United.") and will they press the issue to get something in return from the rest of the owners?

There are others I can't think of right now.

 

Thohir doesn't own a controlling interest in Inter Milan anymore.

 

Really????????

 

Cool, hope you enjoy

 

As a native Californian (born 1950) I remember when Banc of California was Bank of California. Poseurs. And "safe standing" -- really? Let's bring back the good old days, of terraces, diptheria, polio, etc. Shit -- there is such a thing as progress, all those seats at RFK never kept the supporters from standing all match. Does this generation of Californians need a lack of seats to realize they can "stand" in the supporters' section? Good grief.

 

Personally, I think we should start a new trend - Dangerous Sitting. I'm open to ideas.

 

I'm hoping you are just yerkin off with the Polio crap, if not you are the leading asshat in DC and that is quite an accomplishment

 

I didn't get any good photos on Saturday when they were still assembling another crane that they were also doing on Friday. It was too dark when I went out a couple of times on Sunday. I took a few tonight, but there isn't much to see since the wall on the west side is more complete. I don't believe it was on site on Saturday, but there is some black steel on site now.