MLS wants a downtown location. Austin does not have any land available downtown. What little room they do have left is going to offices, hotels, parking garages, and banks. Austin is extremely business friendly, but violently anti-sports, especially if they have to foot the bill. If MLS wants a team in Austin, its gonna have to go to the Mopac/Domain/Round Rock area, which is in the far north of the city where it looks like Amazon HQ2 is gonna end up (and again a spitting image of San Antonios situation where it is not downtown, but a city main artery). I understand the appeal of Austin, lord knows theres a ton of MLS fans there right now, but the local government is going to slaughter it I am extremely confident this is dead on arrival, and if MLS does do this, it is going to be extremely embarrassing having to move this team again to say, San Antonio, who will be happy to give MLS an out from their embarrassing situation. If they go through with this, what is going to happen is Crew moves to Austin, it gets hung up at local government for eternity a-la New England Revs (who in my book SHOULD be the ones moving), and MLS is going to cut the chord because its not a sacred cow like NYCFC, and San Antonio will be waiting in the wings to spare MLS complete embarrassment, and at least keep the team in the area (but not before going through a local government gauntlet on their own, which MLS will have lost a great deal of leverage and will have to work with the city of San Antonio itself to accomodate the team).
Won't MLS have to sign off before the move to Austin? Won't MLS have to be sure there is definitely going to be a satisfactory stadium before the move? I don't see them approving the move unless all the ducks are in a row, and that includes the owner having the money to build the stadium, and the government approving the construction.
Agreed. I don't have a stake in this, but I can't imagine they would publicly state "Austin" without a plan and without discussion with the local officials
Samesies, no stake in it at all, everything about it just seems.......off. I know downtown Austin inside and out because.........reasons. Im not gonna blow my horn about being a subject matter expert on it or anything but, Im about 90 percent confident that downtown proper is not in the cards. Thats why it seems so brash by MLS and the Crew owner to say that, the counterpoint is very valid that they dont announce something like that without having something in place..........do they? Austin isnt the golden goose that NYC or Miami is (we dont think.......could it be?). you cant possibly say deuces to Columbus without having something locked in youd think, it would be absolutely terribly poor planning if so......but i got the feeling it could be just that, unless they allow Austin to break the cardinal rule of downtown stadium. With Amazon HQ2, they could feel justified that is a valid place to latch on thats not downtown.
Interesting.... http://www.espnfc.us/major-league-soccer/19/video/3239897/espn-mls-panel-open-up-about-columbus-crew
thats some spot on News and Analysis right there that sums a lot of this up. Columbus looks toast, and the owner looks like that was his plan all along, and now Columbus is trying to negotiate in good faith, but that ship has sailed. So the divorce of Columbus looks pretty certain. Now Crew Ownership are trying to bounce back super quick with the cute girl who is the talk of the party; loves concerts, but is super tech and business savy. Shes the whole package. but.........shes got her own goals. Does she (Austin) have a place for him in her busy schedule? therein lies the next step we gotta figure out. And yeah im looking at the austin down town on anything remotely that could be considered a possibility with no joy be it environmentalists, nimbys, and local businesses that would be savy with it. i am curious to see what they dish out that i am missing. Because there is part of me that the crew owner is saying "pay in the temporary statdium, fill out stands, you will love us. The Austin local government will force their way in for us". and they're gonna be like........Orly. dont think for two seconds public money will be spent, even one penny. Oh, and you gotta mae all those earthy people happy over there too.
The Austin Statesman property is really the only downtown/central spot that I can think of that is available. It is going to be very expensive and probably going to get a huge amount of pushback from locals. I am not sure if there is anything in East Austin, within walking distance of "downtown". That could be an option. COTA is a non-starter. Personally, I think Austin is capable of being a good MLS city. If it is put up in Round Rock, it will be a huge miss for MLS. The domain is a bit more central but still not an ideal spot.
that is exactly what I see, pretty much verbatim. its gonna have to be by the domain, which is less than ideal even with Amazon HQ2
Perhaps the stadium will be named "Amazon Stadium" or simply "The Amazon". Perhaps the team jerseys will say "Amazon Prime". Maybe Amazon planned this whole thing? https://www.bizjournals.com/bizwome...ody-s-analytics-the-amazon-hq2-shortlist.html https://www.forbes.com/sites/marcia...quarters-in-1-of-these-5-cities/#4cab5b716168
Well, Columbus is trying http://www.espnfc.us/columbus-crew-...gs-with-garber-and-precourt-over-crews-future
The hemming and hawing about "no WAY this can go downtown!!!" is really premature. It's extremely clear from Precourt's comments that he thinks the stadium being in a good location is non-negotiable. (Which is common sense to anyone who knows the city). It also looks like the city is willing to cooperate; while I don't expect the city to contribute dollars directly, a cheap lease on public land and/or property tax subsidies are probably both in play. An early favorite is Butler Shores. That spot is currently occupied by lightly-used baseball fields that nobody would miss, it can be accessed by foot easily via the hike and bike trail and the Lamar pedestrian bridge.
What has anyone said that leads you to this conclusion? My reading leads me to conclude city leaders are no more interested in helping than Miami's have seemed to be.
The city council is going to look at potential city-owned sites on November 9. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...4QxfQBCCowAQ&usg=AOvVaw3uZdfyZnCp79fFDtDdLIF7 Asking for taxpayer money for soccer would be very tough, but using a currently barely-used place like Butler shores that I mentioned above will not be unpopular. People do want to see a major pro sports franchise here.
Here is a picture I took on my lunch break of supposedly non-existent "available land Downtown". Tell me that a state of the art stadium there is not instantly one of the best settings in the entire league..
Oh yeah, getting rid of a public park to build a stadium is REALLY gonna go over well with Austinites. While you're at it, why not suggest building it on Auditorium Shores?
It's positioned in between Lamar Blvd and Barton Creek on the south side of the lake. https://goo.gl/maps/MnUcrK1YeTN2
I’m giggling, just imagining the already ridiculous traffic on Lamar with thousands of extra cars added to it on game days.
How does this give MLS an out? Precourt would be in direct competition with the existing San Antonio consortium. I don't want to go off at a tangent but is that down to their failure to find a location for a SSS near Boston?
If this deal goes down, then some other cities need to start to worry. The ones that jump out to me are Colorado and Dallas. I probably should be NE on this list also. If all the other owners are upping the ante in investments in better location stadiums, payroll etc, at some point they will start to look at the bottom of the attendance chart and "Metrics". Colorado and Dallas of course have huge soccer complexes. Dallas produces talent, but both of these items are not putting butts in the seats. Now if it were to be just a change of ownership (like KC for example) great. But look at the change of ownership and where it appears to be going in Columbus. Have to careful what you wish for.
Dallas and New England aren't going anywhere. Dallas is deeply invested in youth development in the best place for it. New England has above average attendance in a wholly owned stadium and low business expenses. Both have giant markets. Colorado is owned by a local billionaire who owns several teams in the market: MLB, NBA, NHL, MLS. As such, it's unlikely to move, but if it's sold to someone out of town, I'd expect it. Vancouver is the other one to worry about.
Dallas, Colorado and New England are the big three with bullseyes on their back now. Dallas's owner literally saved MLS and they have an outstanding youth program. Theyll be fine. Colorado is a crappy situation, but covered above why they stay. New England's situation is just awful. There is no end in sight to their stadium plight. Its a big blemish on the league they still play in gillette stadium. As far as "deserving" to be moved, its gotta be the Revs. but i think theyre all probably safe.
----- Why Vancouver? Yeh, I don't care for the dome and turf, but they seem to consistently fill the lower bowl. There is no MLB or NBA to compete with. Yeh, I would have liked the early plan for the outdoor grass stadium looking over the water. What is the back story?