Yup.

It's almost like the league should keep us around just as a reminder of our history.

 

This looks like a Kroenke/Rams situation to me. Precourt has already said that if he moves to Austin, the stadium there will be 100% privately funded. However in Columbus (a cheaper property market) Precourt needs help. There's something fishy there, no?

Now for how this relates to the Rams:
Kroenke (and now Precourt) threatened to move. Then Kroenke made a bunch of demands for a new stadium in St Louis (like Precourt is doing in Columbus). St Louis came up with $300 million, but surprise, surprise! $300 million in free money wasn't enough to keep the Rams in St Louis.

Kroenke moved the Rams to Los Angeles and is building a stadium with his own money (like Precourt wants to do in Austin)...because Kroenke was going to Los Angeles no matter what. Kroenke and the NFL just needed to save face by giving St Louis a "chance." Of course when St Louis offered a real deal with real money, Kroenke and the NFL had to tie themselves into a knot explaining why $300 million in taxpayer subsidies weren't enough of a public contribution for a new stadium, but that is exactly what they attempted to do...and did I mention they moved to LA anyways?

This isn't even a question of leverage, Precourt is probably planning to move the Crew no matter what. He wouldn't have even gone public this week if his plans hadn't leaked.

 

Thank you for this piece of writing.

 

Some cities have all the luck...

In this upside down time we live, a club with a solid fanbase dips it's toe in the River of Relocation while we in Philly are stuck with an albatross of a franchise that does nothing but carbon copy its inaugural season.

The entire project that was part of the stadium deal is marked only by the stadium and the matching set of new exit ramps on Commodore Barry Bridge. Yeah, they spruced up Second Street a bit, but the point is I find it ironic the Union franchise isn't the one moving.

Anyway, I offer my regards to Crew fans, who deserve better than this kind of betrayal.

 

Hey, but it's downtown. Chester.* Isn't that what MLS wants?

*I'm a Philly native too, but moved here 40 years ago.

 

If the title line happens to reflect a grotesque departure, then I would be fine with that, as well.

 

When ever I see this the only thing I can think of is this scene. You can start at 1:10 if you don't want to view the whole thing.

 

From what I can tell, nothing real has been done on Austin's end. There's been "talks" but no council meetings, no firm location, dealing with the NIMBYs, no assessment of the infrastructure involved--nothing.

If you look at it from Columbus's point of view, it looks like he's got one foot out the door and is picking up the other one, but if you look at it from the Austin point of view--well, let me put it's this way: if what's been done in Austin was an expansion bid, we'd be ranking it near the bottom of our ever-shifting expansion table, maybe one step above the vague hope for a Hail Mary to resurrect St Louis or San Diego.

 

The complete lack of planning here is what's amazing. Venture capital firms don't do this. Oil firms don't do this.

 

He has no assurance of being able to pull off the move to Austin but he is still scorching all of his bridges with Columbus (their fans) by the way and timing of the announcement.

 

Dan is not famous for chirping the praises of the One Percent. His views in favor of franchise/single entity are, as I understand it, about the overlap between benefits of this model to the owners and benefits to the fans, one of those being stability. This particular mistake is bad for both owners and fans, because it undermines the willingness of both potential investors to pony up extravagant franchise fees and the taxpayers that subsidize them to pony up for stadia on the one hand, and the trust of longsuffering, loyal fans on the other. Pro/rel doesn't fix the latter and makes the former worse.

 

https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-daily-post/austin-major-league-soccer/

Texas Monthly chimed in on this one, and their conclusion was:

 

I'm not sure that Anthony Precourt needs to be too worried about burning his bridges in Columbus before finalizing the team's move to Austin. Should the move fall through, he can sell to one of the eight expansion finalists that fail to get a team in the next two rounds of expansion, at the going rate for an expansion team, I'd guess. And laugh all the way to the bank. If I was a bit of a cynic, I'd believe that this is why it looks like he is actively trying to burn those bridges.

Peace.

T

 

If Precourt is reasonably clever, this is the long term plan. But there was no need to do anything. Just wait for expansion bids to be approved and approach the one or two who were close but fell short. The potential market, ownership, and stadium plans would be vetted, and if the weakest current market team moved to the strongest candidate after the current stadium lease is over, then there will be just a few mild complaints outside Columbus. We'd all shrug and say, "These things happen, even in MLS." The other owners wouldn't be annoyed or embarrassed. They'd be secretly glad that someone was moving, so that any hints they make in the future will be taken seriously and the league will be improving its overall profile just a bit.

But this makes no sense. I can't imagine that moving to Austin temporarily will make the franchise more valuable or reduce costs before reselling it to someone else and moving yet again. The only extra value would be if he's building in a good site in Austin for a good deal, or has a buyer lined up there already, and there's no indication of it right now.

Unless there's a triple ultra top secret plan...

 

Good point, and the other part is, yes,everybody generally acknowledges that Crew Stadium was built on the quick and on the cheap, and is nearing the end of its lifespan, which is to be measured in years and not decades. But it is still years plural. And if he were frustrated with his inability to get Columbus officials as a crisis, perhaps that's because. . . there is no crisis.

And in Austin, he'll find making his manufactured crisis into someone else's crisis harder than he thinks, if that was his plan. Chances are, the Mayor's private thoughts mirror his public ones, where were something to the effect of "oh, we're getting a pro soccer team? Neat. I hope they're not expecting me to make it happen."

Yeah, getting stuck in a bad stadium situation in Austin only weakens his hand by making him the desperate one. Out of all the cynicism involved, there's a perfectly plausible scenario where he loses money from this whole move.

. . .

 

He was too impatient to wait that long. He's used to having what he wants and having it right now. Spoiled brat basically.

 

Don't want Columbus to move, or for MLS to be in the business of screwing communities like the NFL, NBA, etc.

But I can't help but wonder where the moral outrage was when the Austin Aztex were allowed to move to Orlando then immediately accepted in MLS. It's like a part of the collective soccer brain has been removed and no one wants to talk about it. We all LOVE what Orlando has become but it came at the cost of Austin, plain and simple.

 

The first part of your reply is what I meant. The second part, about moving to Austin, will be the litmus test. The fact that he has stated his intention to explore the possibility of moving to Austin - and thereby creating a ton of ill will in Columbus - BEFORE nailing down a stadium situation is what suggests to me that Austin may not be the end-game, or will only be the end-game if Precourt gets really favorable terms there on a stadium deal.

If Precourt can't get a stadium deal done in Austin on terms that are agreeable to him, he winds up with no landing spot after having burned his bridges in Columbus, but with an asset that is worth 150 million, or more, to eight ownership groups that just missed out on the current expansion. All of them, to various degrees, will have all their ducks in a row, and will all have figured out how to pay 150 million for a team. I imagine SOMEONE would end up paying significantly more than that, as there will be eight groups that covet the same, single asset. Regardless of the terms of the Crew's current lease, and regardless of any money they may lose next year or in succeeding years in Columbus - after having soured their relationships with their fans there - that's a lot of money.

Time will tell.

Peace.

T

 

First, it was the minor leagues. Weirdness happens there. We saw a minority owner pull up an artificial playing field so his business partners wouldn't sell it out from under him. And there was the outright criminal behavior of Traffic going on at the same time. While not out in the open yet, when Austin relocated, people knew something was going on there. And being minor league in the first place means lower profile as well.

Second, the Aztex were replaced. If Columbus gets a new team and San Antonio is compensated for its commitment to the city and any other money it has spent, I may not be thrilled with how it went, but I'll be fine with the result. I think most of those who are now upset would agree.

 

Sorry man, but the Aztex were never replaced. The mom and pop organization that operated for about a year was in no way a replacement for what was being built in the community under Rawlins.

If Rawlins gets to move his team and become a smashing success in a new town, so does the ass in Columbus.

If the only difference is that Austin was "minor league" and Columbus is "major league" - well, it seems like that is going to change.

Either clubs belong to communities or they belong to the owner, only hypocrites would pick and choose when to be outraged about this. If Columbus moving is wrong, so is Orlando SC in MLS.

 

But the Aztex were never going to be an MLS team in Austin. Fact is, that owner likely gets an expansion team either way in Orlando. And the replacement had more pressing stadium issues (like none) than does Columbus.

Wrong in USL? Fine, I get that. But replacing a USL team is relatively easy. It's not and never has been a closed shop league. There's probably been 300 teams in its existence.

 

Why not?
There was momentum. Team had it's largest crowd ever in May 2010. There was talk of MLS and a stadium. Team moved in October.

Again, I don't think the Crew should move, but neither should have the Aztex. If Rawlins gets to pick his city then why doesn't Precourt?

 

Again MLS to USL is an apples to oranges comparison. There's been talk about MLS a lot of places. If the market were good, the new Aztex would have flourished.

Folks make this same mistake here in Columbus when talking about the Chill vis-a-vis the Jackets. Sure the Chill sold out--and they were fun. But they were filling a 6K building. Not 22K. And at far less the price. MLS has a restricted number of franchises. USL does not--never has. So what it seems that you're telling me is that Rawlins actually knew what he was doing and the new folks didn't--so that's owner dependent and not fan or market or team dependent. If Rawlins left town without the team, would you have ended up in the same place?

And Austin played two seasons. TWO. Not 20+ Biiiig difference.