It's fairly easy to understand: The minority owner of the Republic is the rich, money guy and the guy with all the connections to all the other money people. The majority owner of the team is the soccer guy and the one that built what is there today. Rich guy wants to buy out soccer guy. Soccer guy wants to be main owner when team is in MLS, as he is today. Something has to give. So Rich guy just put in the bid and left out any mention of Republic because he doesn't have the rights to that team and doesn't want to work with soccer guy anymore. He's trying to force soccer guy to sell him Republic team and name. Otherwise he tries to convince MLS that soccer guy is ridiculously financially unfit for cost of running MLS and that Sacramento will be fine with a franchise with some other name.
Charlotte, if they can get the stadium financing looks great. Cincinnati should be good to go as long as they have a solid stadium plan Detroit, I wonder where the new stadium would be? I heard they cant have the jail site, which wouldve been great. Indy really depends on how much they need from state/city Nashville is interesting to me, but need to much money from state/city Phoenix, I just dont know if they can build an indoor stadium on the cheap. Raleigh cant really compete with the Charlotte plan St Louis is promising, but has stadium financing problems. Sacramento is dead to me if SRFC arent involved San Antonio is promising San Diego is interesting, not sure if they would be supported well or not Tampa looks ready to go.
The location is out on Native American land east of the city - I think it's officially in Scottsdale, or right next to it. Presumably the cheaper land will help with funding a stadium. I'm not sure of their plan though. Originally they were building a 5,000 seater for USL with no roof. So adding seats and rough makes it a different equation.
Must be because The Charlotte Plan includes a fully privately financed stadium, a minor league team that has been around for years and draws more than 2,000 fans a game, and no NFL competition, right?
Charlotte is the bigger city and bigger market. The stadium would be downtown and easily accessible. Also the ownership group is better funded. Sorry to crush your dreams because Raleigh/Durham is a cool little city.
Yea, I hope the generic Sacramento bid doesnt go through. Its really too bad the group couldnt work something out. They really seemed like a home run expansion candidate.
Phoenix's stadium complex plan looks really promising, but the attendance for Phoenix sports teams leaves an awful lot to be desired. 18th, 21st, 22nd, and 29th in the Big 4 leagues in attendance, and their soccer team drew under 1500/game last season. San Antonio's bid looks great. They've had plans to add 10k to their stadium for a few years now. If Cincinnati had a better stadium plan, they'd be set. But it sounds like they don't want to be build their own stadium and will use Nippert (UC's stadium) as long as they can.
Don't worry, you didn't crush anything. Definitely not your expansion breakdown. You do know that Charlotte's better-funded ownership group is asking for $80 million more in public funds than Raleigh's owners, and that the mayor of Charlotte has already said that the city will not provide any public stadium money?
R-D (2.1M CSA, 1.3M and 0.6M MSAs) is not much smaller than Charlotte (2.5M CSA, 2.4M MSA) and is growing slightly faster. The two TV markets are both 1.2M households. Charlotte already has two pro sports teams, while R-D has one. To say there's a significant difference is desirability is stretching the facts on the ground.
Yes, I realize they are asking for city/state money. That doesnt take away from the fact they are better funded. They are asking for a hand out. If they dont get that handout, they are still in a better position to build a stadium.
I do realize that they are close in media markets. Charlotte is still bigger though, and from a national perspective, Charlotte is more desirable.
With the expansion bid they submitted stadium plans at two potential sites (details of the bid and plans not disclosed to the public). The issue of building a SSS is simply a matter of timing rather than desire or resources. I don't think one could be done by 2020, but 2022/2023 is doable. Pictured: Stadium plans and expansion bid
UPDATE: Phoenix stadium renderings Time to Talk Real Football: Is Phoenix Ready for a Major League Soccer Expansion Team? Phoenix New Times
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news...-a-major-league-soccer-expansion-team-9054666 Looks like Detroit owners still trying to make the jail site work.
I read the headline and thought it seemed like a win-win. After reading the whole article it would appear that Gilbert is trying to bend over the county. There's no way they take that deal
I don't think either one is a good choice, but I have to stick up for Raleigh and the Hurricanes. For the first decade or so, they were overall mediocre, and attendance was close to average for the league. Since they won the Cup in 2006, they have been hands down the worst team in the league. Attendance held for most of that time. It's only started being truly terrible the last 3 years or so. I can't think of any team but the Cubs that had good attendance despite such awful results. And that's because Wrigley was a theme park. I'll say this...if the Canes do move, I think Raleigh would be a very good spot for the league. Until that happens, I think the market is too saturated to gamble on.
Even so, I can't see MLS putting an expansion team in North Carolina until the state legislature repeals the bathroom statute and repeals the state statute that forbids cities and counties from passing ordinances designed to protect the LGBT community.