No. Universally loathed would be more like it. Did Blank ever threaten to move the Falcons if Mercedes-Benz didn't get built? Because that's what we put up with for more than a decade with the Wilfs. If you can did up the old Minnesota expansion thread, you'll get a lot of the background, including the pre-existing soccer culture here that, to be honest, Atlanta had nothing like. Fans here did NOT want to play in a dome. Yeah, we don't draw 50k a game. But 20k a game isn't bad.
Our matchday view from our new home @allianzfield 👌🏻 #MNUFC #MLS pic.twitter.com/fTQWaNeEHX— Callum Williams (@CalWilliamsComm) September 28, 2018 Looks like they have put in the some of the loon wing seats on the east side of stadium.
Pretty interesting distinction though, right? Especially since Zygi, Mark and Leonard Wilf pretty quickly joined MLS investor/ownership anyway. So they weren't considered pariah by the league.
Leaving Wednesday on my annual fall soccer trip. This years menu= Thursday Oct 4 US - Mex Womens World Cup Qualifier at the home of USL side North Carolina FC Sunday Oct 7 DC- Chicago, check out new Audi field Tuesday Oct 9 Nashville- TFC2, check out the "pre MLS" soccer scene in the Music City. - A little more of a mix than all MLS teams, but with the number of new teams and stadiums coming on line, all of that will keep me busy for next couple years !
============== I went to a game at Bobby Dodd and was very impressed. I am not really in a rush to get to the dome, I can catch it when i hit Nashville or Miami stadium trips. Was there ever any thought of the soccer team getting the old Braves Stadium when they moved up north side of the Atlanta Metro area? Are the modifications Georgia State made for football rule out soccer there? Could United and State have shared? Or because of Blanks Falcon ownership and relation to getting the Benz Dome built, it was pretty much a forgone conclusion United had to play in the dome.?
When Blank bought the rights to the franchise I'm sure it was conditional that he could put them in the new dome, and in turn he made sure the stadium in every way possible could be United's as much as it is the Falcons. The soccer teams have their own dressing rooms, the promotional stuff is all equal, and the gate revenues stay with each team. There's even a large soccer ball statue outside as a counterbalance to the large falcon sculpture. As to Georgia State stadium, while that idea has a bit of merit there were several things against it: - First and foremost, the ownership and revenue potential would be dramatically lower, and odds are united would not have been able to match the amenities and soccer touches made in the new dome. And as a soft matter United chose colors in part to mirror the Falcons, so they'd be a red team in a mostly blue and green stadium or they'd have to match the Panthers (awful) blue. - The Panthers, via State funding, are doing the renovations on the cheap. Yes, it will still be far better for them than what they could afford from scratch, but part of that comes from building over time (which would've impaired United's scheduling) and because they weren't changing much about the venue physically apart from the one length of new stands. So it would be better than, say, Yankee Stadium but still a highly compromised venue. MBS has its obstructed views of near corners from the bottom tier, but apart from that it's an optimal venue. The opening production for United matches at MBS alone entails quite the light and video show that highlights the value of the halo board and the full scale of the dome. - Accessibility at Ga State stadium is also poor, and that was one of the obstacles the Braves faced while there. That site isn't reached by rail, so to get there for any event requires a shuttle bus from either of two stations. MBS, meanwhile, sits between two stops on the west line, just one stop away from the central junction of Five Points Station. - The dome matters. Lament the open air experience or lack of real grass, but most fans will tell you it helps tremendously that they know games won't be rained out and that it won't be abysmally hot, either. This year alone we've had two matches preserved because of the dome, and at least two others where folks would enter the AC climate and immediately express their relief. - Lastly, Blank has a vision and wants to take this as far as it can go. Next season they intend to open the full venue for at least 6 matches, so if everything sells out United might surpass 52k in average attendance. Ga State stadium as configured for football holds about 30k. So Ga State stadium would be a fair option likely be on par with, say, Houston, NYCFC, or Colorado. It wouldn't be game changing, it wouldn't allow the stand out fan support we've seen, and it certainly wouldn't bring in the money the MBS does, which in turn would affect payroll. Blank wanted something for MLS 3.0 (or 4.0, whatever we're on now) with the potential to go big. So he got exactly that.
As minority owners, though. They would have been running the whole show up here, and it was pretty obvious they just wanted another 20 dates filled at The Sandcrawler.
I have thought about this quite a bit and my answer is that it really depends how the league evolves in the next ten years. After a rough start -- the rush to launch the first year hurt them IMO -- McGuire and company are executing the base MLS plan very well: construct an attractive 20k stadium built specifically for the team that they will fill on a regular basis. Job well done. The problem with the comparison is that in Atlanta, Blank is executing a much more ambitious plan. Now, if the MLS of the future requires more emphasis on attendance -- I won't go into all of that here, but I just started a new thread in YBTD because I think it might -- whatever the Wilfs shortcomings, both the marketing power of the Vikings and the extra capacity of the US Bank Stadium would be a huge benefit to an MLS team in the Twin Cities. In short, if Atlanta is the future, MLS may well have made the wrong choice. Not because McGuire and his partners have done anything wrong or failed to keep their end of the bargain, but because the economics of professional soccer are changing and MLS didn't recognize that quickly enough when it awarded the operating rights to Minnesota. Several years ago before Spurs started construction of its new ground, I noted there seemed to be a consensus for the big clubs in Europe that they needed to get stadium capacity up to at least 50,000 seats they could sell in order to cope with modern economics of running a big football club. The concept was out there and fueled a lot of stadium construction and expansion over the past decade, but few thought it really applied to MLS because it wasn't considered achievable. Well, Atlanta applied it and has achieved it. But what does that mean? Atlanta is still an outlier in MLS and as such, they still must operate with limits imposed by the league that restrict how all this additional ticket revenue can be spent. As far as we know, a third of every team's general admission ticket money is turned over to the league and shared with other teams. Instead of reinvesting this money into their own team to grow and advance it more, under MLS rules Atlanta will contribute a good portion of it to the others and live with salary limitations on how they spend the rest of what money they do keep. In other words, Atlanta is selling over 50,000 tickets a game -- revenue that must be shared with other MLS teams -- in a league where the rules and vision is built around teams that sell 20,000 tickets a game. So we have two new "Uniteds", two beautiful stadiums and two teams that will fill their venues, but instead of allowing them to put those dollars back into the team, Atlanta will use that extra money to subsidize Minnesota and every other MLS team for years. That's a problem IMO. Unless that changes, I would argue Minnesota is more fit for purpose for the MLS that is, while Atlanta offers a tantalizing glimpse of the MLS that could be, but for which most of the owners have no incentive to create.
Because sports leagues are closed, insular economies I will go to to the grave knowing some modicum of revenue sharing and/or salary cap must be applied lest said league become a mockery of a competition. What's the impetus for me as a fan to support a team knowing they've no chance to win a trophy? And for all the wailing about bigger teams subsidizing smaller ones I see that merely as the price of business. In this case that's the price of having a league to call home and helping that league grow so that national media revenues can increase and the value of the franchise goes up. Let's face it, Atlanta United wouldn't be Atlanta United without an MLS in which to play. Further, if Atlanta is in a position to subsidize other teams then that's coming off the back of success, meaning it's from resources they can afford to share. If Atlanta stumbles on the pitch and sees an Orlando-like drop at the gate then we may well become in need of someone else's support. Fiscal prudence may sometimes stifle growth but it can also provide stability in tough times. For now I feel pro soccer in the US still needs all the stability it can get. Sports teams need leagues and competitons in order to create and increase their value. The best leagues feature degrees of parity and mechanisms that ensure every club has a solid financial base. If MLS needs this for now then I, for one, wouldn't consider it a problem. Maybe that's just me.
Couple great posts. Further to GunnerJacket's point, given Atlanta's moneymaking potential, they can have their league and eat it too, right? I like that at this point scrappers have a chance, but big MLS clubs can find ways to spend their way to relative success.
We have three Uniteds, with three beautiful stadiums, and two teams that will fill their venues, maybe. Dude it's right there in the thread title! Right, do you four boys take these two girls to be your seven brides?
Lets not forget Atlanta joined the league knowing the rules and from all reports, these rules are why MLS has had so much success attracting big-name investors. The revenue sharing/parity rules aren't a bug that need fixing to these guys, they're a feature.
Soccer matches are only very rarely rained out. Delayed? Yes, sat through some abysmal lightning delays, but never a rain delay. Watched RSL vs Charleston in a torrential downpour some years back because if there's no lightening the game goes on!
There was a game in DC (I believe last year) where it rained so hard that the field looked like a swimming pool. Not sure if it was just delayed or cancelled and played the next day.
It resumed the next day. There were actually waves on the field and of course some areas going to the lockers flooded. The field drained amazingly well. The greater problem was actually the lightning in the area combined with it being a night game. //quick stitched photos, sorry
Fair enough. I'll rephrase: Fans made the effort to show knowing they wouldn't be sitting in a downpour. Absent the dome Atlanta might not have missed games but they surely would have missed some fans.
I can't believe a thread I started contains this level of erudite analysis (seriously). It's very interesting seeing the Minny video and comparing it to attending DCU games at Audi. They are two very different stadium concepts, and both are effective. The Saint Paul stadium is perfectly symmetrical with a covering to soften it's appearance and block views in and out. So when attending, the visual focus will be completely on the pitch. Audi is an open stadium concept, where you' can see out to the street (you are on the street) from many of the concourses. There's not much happening on those streets now, but in a very few years it will be an active urban neighborhhood. From higher in he stadium you can see the Capital, and much closer a bridge over the Anacostia River that is being re-built, and a re-vitalizing waterfront area. To sum up, LA and Minny/Saint Paul have great venues in the somewhat traditional closed stadium mold, and DC has an interesting open stadium design similar to what many MLB teams have done.
No one person decides. But some have far more influence than others. At the point, I'm sure the Don is pretty influential.
I know they call it a retractable roof stadium but IMO that is like calling a car with a sunroof a convertible. It's not a very big opening. Smaller than the field.