http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=investigative&id=5610782 "This year, tickets have been more often made available to nonprofit organizations recommended by sports authority board members, but it's still a who you know proposition. A soccer team got tickets. Of course one of its players was the child of former sports authority executive Oliver Luck." The investigation was by Wanye Dolcefino. And tomorrow he's doing a story on the Rockets. It looks like he might be covering all the major sports and how the Sports Authority operates. I'm sure he'll be doing something on the Texans. I hope this guy doesn't have a story that fXcks anything up for the Dynamo's stadium opportunity. From what's i've heard though, AEG should be able to ante up most of the cost, but hey you never know. Something to keep an eye on.
WTF is he up to now? Great time for his story at the time we are trying to work out a stadium deal in downtown this crap.
HISD is just in session and they haven't screwed up yet, therefor he is out of material. Give it another week and HISD will do something scandolous (such as teaching the TAKS!) and he'll be too busy with them to worry about some ticket give-a-ways.
couldn't agree with you more. Saw the story last night and thought it was such a joke, especially considering Ch. 13 led off their newscast with it! Very weak.
*shrugs* You know the team is being taken seriouxly by the media when they use them for investigative reporting.
The story is kinda reaching, but none the less. If Wanye is going to to the Rockets tomorrow, then the Texans will be next. The question is will he bring the Dynamo into the forefront with anything. Free tickets to the Rob, I could give a shit. But I just don't wanna hear any hater say something like "that's why we shouldn't have soccer in Houston."
While I'd hate to see anything like that, we're still going to see a storm of soccer hating no matter what else happens. The haters are going to come full blast no matter what. Forunately, I don't think it'll matter if the Mayor and his backers in the Downtown business establishment want the deal, but there's no doubt that the wave of soccer-bashing will be huge, loud, ignorant, and sometimes really vile. I don't think it'll be effective, but it'll drive most of us here crazy anyway.
This seems to be an investigation of the (Harris County-)Houston Sports Authority. Nothing there to do with the Dynamo other than dragging Oliver's name into it.
Meghan and I saw the 'report' the other day. Wow. So you mean that to get some seats way out in center field, you have to get in touch with someone 'in the know'? That doesn't happen with any other professional sports team in the country. Certainly not at Reliant. Thats outrageous! The guy was making such a big deal about 20 or so seats in the middle of nowhere with a club/bar behind it that is the same as an other level in Minute Maid except that the bar was closer. And oh my god, did they actually reserve those seats during the World Series for important or famous people? Thats just ridiculous. And the Astros could have made how much if they sold those seats? About $140,000? Scandalous. The whole thing was a friggin' joke and after watching it I felt like I wanted my money back from the station for having them waste their time on such a crappy waste of investigative effort.
Did anyone see part II of the report? Here is the link to the abc13 story. Part II has to do with the Toyota Center parking garage. I guess this could be more relevant to the Dynamo if a parking garage for the Astros is part of a downtown stadium deal. However the big problem that they are citing with the Toyota Center garage might not be as big a problem with an Astros garage since it would be used more often. It sounds like part III will mostly be an attempt to make the Sport Authority members look bad individually and will not focus on a particular team. We shall see.
That story he did a while back about releasing teacher's certification results didn't go over well with us. He sucks.
Well tonight's story was about the now resigning head of the Sports Authorty and how he wasted money. Wayne's tag line at the end of the story for his next segment was something along the lines of "next hear how the Sports Authority is spending money on a new soccer stadium before the people of Houston have said they even want one . . ." it was something like that. It will just be fodder for the haters at this point. This can't be good . . .
Here is Part III, link Here is the soccer stadium bit at the end I have to say I like the "And will the public even get a say" part. That's a good sign.
The Sports Authority has long been the bane of Houston's anti-tax crowd ... they hate the idea that the organization is still up and running and that much of its work is done outside of the public eye (even though it is funded by tax dollars). They also believe that the Authority's current task -- bringing big-time sporting events to Houston -- should be handled by the same agency that works the convention circuit. Do we know if a planned Dynamo stadium would have to go to public vote?
One time when I got back to Houston I saw Wanye Dolcefino as I got off the plane. He didn't look very happy. I found out later that he had gotten mugged like that day or the day before. Remember him and the whole election fiasco back in the day?
It depends. It won't be funded directly by the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority. They aren't allowed to do any more bonds so no vote in that regard. It all depends on how the funding actually works. City/County/whoever funding of infrastructure and related issues would also probably not have to have a public vote. There was talk of using some sort of economic redevelopment bonding authority for that. If AEG ends up financing the actual stadium itself then no vote at all. If AEG works some sort of partnership with a school district or other public institution then there might have to be a bond vote. Really there are too many unknowns to speculate although that won't stop us.
Actually that teacher cerfication story was pretty good. It confirmed that a few of my old high school teachers really were insane and total f-ing idiots. Just a few though.
Steve Mark, Dynamo PR director was telling me AEG was looking to pay for the whole thing just about. If that's the case it shouldn't matter who wants it or who doesn't.
Even if that's true, Wayne makes these outlandish statements and suddenly, they are the truth - after all, perception is someone's reality. He probably needs to be sued again. Years back I used to respect his work but now I just see him as a "Geraldo Rivera wanna be."
This post from one of the older stadium politics/financing threads contains a link to a John Lopez column in which he discussed AEG picking up most of the tab for the stadium, as well as a link to the City of Houston's page on Tax Increment Reinvestment Zones (TIRZs), the funding mechanism that may be used for balance of the stadium financing: click here