US Soccer Hall of Fame

Yeah, it's been closed down for well over a year now...the Baseball HOF is just up the road from Oneonta in Cooperstown. If you are looking for things to do in upstate NY, PM me...

 

We need to find a new site for the Soccer Hall of Fame. Not is some small town. I would suggest St. Louis, Santa Clara, San Diego, Phoneix, Portland, or Seattle.

 

For the Hall of Fame to reopen will require much more than just finding a site. It will require an angel with deep pockets. If and when such an angel appears, the site probably will be wherever they want it to be.

 

Spit-take on Phoenix.

I have a few ideas, which require the suspension for a moment of Roger's correct assumption that this would require some major bucks that, at this moment, are not forthcoming:

• Attach the Hall of Fame to a new MLS stadium. Part of the reason Oneonta got the Hall in the first place was (Roger can correct me if I'm wrong) they were the only ones who expressed interest in it. But it wasn't a location where you could get a lot of traffic. I've always thought St. Louis' central location would have been ideal, and with its history, you could make the case for it "belonging" there (as well as some other places, I'm sure). So if someone ever did get MLS in St. Louis figured out and built a stadium, attaching the HOF to it would probably result in more visitors the first year than Oneonta had in the last several. (DC, should they ever get theirs built, might not be a bad location, either.)
• Split up as much of the really cool artifacts as you can and distribute them to various stadiums throughout the country. These new cathedrals are our gathering places for the sport now, we're not crashing on our uncles' couches most places anymore. Surely space for cool artifacts could be found in every SSS from Chicago to Charleston, especially stuff that pertains to the area in question. These things deserve to be seen and admired, not gathering dust in a warehouse.
• Get a big-ass 18-wheeler and trick it out with artifacts and exhibits so people can walk through it and see cool stuff and take that sucker to MLS games, NASL games, USL games, W-League games, national team games, you name it. Take the stuff to the people.

None of these things are even remotely likely to happen. Unfortunately. The museum business, as I understand it, is a tough one regardless of what type of museum it is, but soccer especially so. Having it in Oneonta made the challenge even bigger.

 

Looking around Red Bull Arena and PPL Park, the two MLS soccer-specific stadiums that I'm familiar with, I've been struck by the fact that there is very little in the way of areas that are both accessible to ordinary fans and protected from the weather. So I don't know how much you could do with artifacts at an MLS stadium. Personally, however, I'm not all that excited about artifacts anyway. I'm more interested in information, in facts. And I think that it might be a lot easier to construct a display focusing on bios of the Hall of Famers themselves in a way that would be protected from the weather, so that you could put in on a stadium concourse. I'd like to see that limited sort of move.

As for Kenn's question about why the Hall was put in Oneonta, I'm not sure, since it happened more than 10 years before I got involved with the Hall. I vaguely recall hearing that there was some interest from Kearny and St. Louis, but that they didn't mount organized campaigns the way Oneonta did.

 

Well, to each his own. Information and facts can reside online. That's where all the kids are these days anyway.

I like seeing old stuff, famous stuff. Maybe that's just me.

(Chicago, by the way, has - or had - a little enclave up in one corner with artifacts of Illinois soccer history, including, I think, one of the Sting's Soccer Bowl trophies, in an area that was accessible and weather-protected, for the most part. I think I have some photos here somewhere.)

 

Moving the HOF to St Louis is an idea that was floated a few years ago but failed to gain much traction. Since then the St Louis Soccer Alliance has been formed and another go at this may be had.

A couple reasons why it makes sense:
1. St Louis has a rich soccer history, Dave Lange explains it much better than I ever could.
www.soccermadeinstlouis.com
2. St Louis is centrally located and easy to reach for soccer fans no matter where they're from.
3. (Unfortunately) No MLS team. Placing the HOF in or adjacent to a SSS could lead to the Hall being more associated with MLS or even a specific team than with the national game in general.

While I am certainly biased on this issue I don't think I am unrealistic. But again it falls to the problem we continue to face, finding someone to pay for it.

 

I'm going to guess more people could find themselves in St. Louis in a month than found themselves in Oneonta in a year, but that's just a guess. Adjacent to or in a soccer stadium would be tremendous.

But nothing happens until there's a serious investor, and I don't know how you get a serious investor with a dubious business plan.

 

If DC United ever get a new stadium i think it would be a great place to have it.

One would imagine a place like Cooperstown is on the "to do" list for many Americans, but a soccer hall of fame wouldn't be a must see attraction at this point.

Having it in the nations capital incorporated into a MLS stadium might at least get visitors who come to see DC United play or those visiting DC that have a soccer following.

Out of curiosity how much would it cost to run the HOF per year??

 

Believe it or not people do come to St Louis on vacation.

One issue I have with any stadium incorporation is that it isn't an MLS HOF, it's a USSF HOF. And why should one team get a boost in attendance because of the hall?

I'd be very curious to know this myself.

 

Does WUSA count?

 

St Louis' current mayor is a pretty big soccer nut. He's been known to show up at local soccer bars for big games.

And St Louis already has a St Louis Soccer HOF.
http://www.eteamz.com/stlsoccerhalloffame/
The website's pretty bad but that lst of inductess is pretty impressive.

 

I think they've overdone it a bit, and diluted the quality. By my count, they've inducted 864 people in just 42 years.

 

Definitely true in some cases. But a lot of them were inducted for their contributions to the game and particularly the game in St Louis. So while they may not have had HOF careers caliber their societal value warranted induction. Not to say there aren't a few stretches on there.

 

Is Lindsay Kennedy in yet, then?

 

http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2010/222/413/2010-222413805-06b0aa56-9.pdf

NSHOF financials as stated on their 990...

 

http://dynamodata.fdncenter.org/990_pdf_archive/222/222413805/222413805_200904_990.pdf

NSHOF 990 tax form...

 

Awesome info thanks.

 

I'm not at all confident that the Hall would give the team an attendance boost. I'd be hoping that the team would give the Hall an attendance boost. I think MLS is currently averaging more attendance per game than the Hall averaged per year in Oneonta.

Am I correct in guessing that those financial statements indicate that the Hall's operating expenses in Oneonta were between 1.5 million and 1.6 million a year, or am I misreading them?

 

Perhaps if they contributed to its construction and maintenance? You know, something nobody else in the freaking country seems willing to do?

And, like Roger said, it's more about the Hall getting an attendance boost from people who are already of a soccer-mind, not the other way around. Though I also don't see what the freaking problem would be with that. Yes, please, don't give an MLS team more revenue, that would be bad for everybody. God, let's hide our history because Anonymous Internet Guy thinks every MLS team should have a chance to share in the revenue from it. Oy.

 

NSHOF had free land from NYS and the museum was built for them by the Army Corps of Engineers, they needed about $700-$800K yearly to break even. However, if they had stayed small in the storefront just off Main Street in Oneonta, they'd still be in business.

 

This is quite new to me.

I know that the Hall had very little debt when the museum closed, but not for the reasons you state. As I understand it, the land was donated around 1990 by the Wright family, who I believe farmed it. They weren't paying debt service on the building of the museum because the bank had forgiven their mortgage a few years before. I thought that the museum was built by a private construction company after a lengthy fundraising campaign in the 1990s. I was there several times while it was under construction and never heard any mention of the Corps of Engineers. I know the the money raised to design and build it included a grant of $4.5 million from New York State, which is the reason why they couldn't legally sell it after it closed.

 

So would the hall get a boost from MLS or MLS get a boost from the hall? Which is it?

But here's the thing IT'S NOT THE MLS HOF. It's the USSF HOF so why not attach it to a college stadium or an NASL stadium or a youth club facility? They could all certainly use the revenue or is MLS the only US soccer that matters?