You're the only team that had to pay a fee to continue to be in the league once you already existed. I mean, Austin is the expansion team, right?
If the San Jose Earthquakes are a continuation of the ClashQuakes, why did they participate in an Expansion Draft? It's all silly.
Park the who-paid-whom thinking. It doesn't really matter. Yes, Austin is an expansion team. You're an expansion team if you joined the league after 1996 and didn't play the previous year. You're an expansion team if the number of league teams expan....I mean, increases when you begin play. You're an expansion team if you're in the expansion draft.
The important thing that truly matters is not whether the Crew are an "expansion" team or not. The question that matters is whether the Crew were "Saved" or "resurrected". How about you all spend the next three pages of the stadium thread debating that key topic, then I can have a well informed opinion. Thanks.
I’m offended my post was modified. No way would I voluntarily refer to Columbus’s former owner by that horrible moniker!
Ownership changes all the time and there is always money exchanged. What is embarrassing is embracing a trust fund kid from SoCal that just tried, and failed, to crap on another fan base. Yet you sit there with your mouth open.
There was no resurrection. You have to actually die before you can be resurrected. The Crew never died. They were saved. #SavedTheCrew.
And it would have been worth every penny at twice the price to be rid of the guy who's going to be running the Austin team.
Well, agreed it is all wordplay based on the fact that the league wanted to split a franchise/expansion fee (whatever one wants to call it) but not charge Precourt again. In response to your question, because they did not have any players, since it was years since they had competed. You can keep your honors & history & colors after your owner skips town (like the Browns did). If there is a break in play, then the new incarnation/continuation is an expansion team. But the Quakes are both. An original member AND an expansion team after the break in play.
I've always assumed it was a tax dodge. If the Haslams had simply bought the team from Precourt for 150 mil and he used that money to buy an expansion team in Austin, he'd be liable for about 17 mil in capital gains taxes for his profit on the sale of the Crew. Not sure if a 1031 exchange was an option for him.
I actually like the idea of a 1031 being involved, but usually its an exchange in equal value, and the Haslams got a stadium and Club history/IP in the exchange as well. Haslams still would have had to pay for an expansion fee first.
Because the whole team had moved to Houston. Precourt didn't take the Crew with him, just his golden ticket.