I'm saying that in the 20+ years that MLS has existed, the only team to see a significant, and consistent, increase in attendance was Kansas City. And that was due to a new ownership group investing heavily in front office infrastructure coupled with a complete rebrand of the team. That ain't happening in New York. Maybe 10 or 20 years from now soccer will firmly pass Hockey. Maybe it will compete with basketball for popularity. But you don't waste money building a stadium for what you hope might happen 20 years from now. You build it to meet today's supply and demand.
I agree to a point. I think building a SSS in NYC proper if its big enough will become the marquee spot for all these friendlies going on in the summer. I think it should be 30 to 35K, that's big enough to host the big NYCFC matches (NYC Derby) but still small enough that when you get an average crowd of 20K it doesn't make for a bad game day experience.
Do you understand the cost difference in building a 30-35k stadium and a 20k stadium? The added land and infrastructure, the building itself. It would add a lot to the overall cost. Then you end by saying that even if they get an average crowd of 20k... meaning they going forward average only 20k for a season even with the New York Derby games that it's no big deal? That is crazy. Nobody is going to over pay to build a stadium they feel is too big simply to have seats available when needed. Now, I am not arguing a larger stadium wouldn't fit NYCFC. They very well could average 30k a year for all I know. But your rational of "Just build it so it's there when you need it." while allowing for an expected attendance of 66% of capacity or less is just not rational.
More money is being poured into the league, meaning bigger names (when they are in their prime) will be coming. So not only will NYC's fan base will increase every teams fan base will increase.
Sounders went from 30k in their first season to 43k+ now. San Jose has been around 20k for the last three seasons. I wouldn't be surprised to see Atlanta getting closer to 60k in the next 5+ seasons. Portland will be jumping up to 25k+ next season and could easily fit in more. etc, etc There are certainly challenges in increasing the popularity of the league and the attendance, but, particularly for expansion clubs, it seems to be self defeating to cap their potential future growth at their inaugural season in the league/stadium.
You do realize that cost isn't really that big of an issue when you hail from a family that has a net worth in the TRILLIONS right? We're not talking about an ownership that has to pinch pennies and I know for a fact that the Steinbrenners stadium management company would take over control on the stadium which would mean a lot of events other than NYCFC. The team would most likely create a woman's team and the larger stadium would allow possibly both home teams to "grow" into it because you know what's more expensive then building a 35K stadium? Building a 26K then spending money on expanding it.
In the Seattle and Portland cases, I don't think steady growth and/or the utilization of your waiting list are what he was talking about. I think the claim was more like that there wasn't a good case other than KC of turning a team around that was clearly stagnating on the business side. I still disagree with it. Your San Jose example (att. 2015-2017 of ~20k, after never having come close to that before, their last attendances in a stadium big enough to hold the crowd being ~13k) seems to work, and in addition Toronto and Real Salt Lake (att. 2006-2009 -- ~15/16k; att. 2012-2017 -- ~19k) and Toronto FC (att. 2012, 2013 -- ~18k; att. 2016, 2017 -- ~27k) would qualify as a significant and sustained attendance turnaround. Those are ~50%, ~25% and ~50% attendance increases, respectively. Further, you can establish a branding message that clues the audience in to your new investment without really re-branding the team. Toronto's "Bloody Big Deal" was an excellent example of this. Toronto FC didn't change the name, but consumers still expected that they changed the product. Which they did, with attendant results. Even notwithstanding that, I could understand the approach of 'let's cross that bridge when we get to it.' Within reason, it is better to have a stadium that can't quite get everyone in than one that has empty seats on the regular. Especially because we're talking about New York City here--if additional capacity adds any complexity at all to the already prodigious challenge of getting a stadium built in the first place, then it probably isn't worth it.