Crew to Austin in 2019..(Maybe)

This is legitimately awesome.

 

The attorney who answered Bexar County's letter was from Proskauer, fwiw.

 

The filing of the suit takes this up more than one notch. If Ohio can throw serious obstacles in the path of a business (which happens to be a sports team) which wants to move, what's to stop a blue state from passing a similar statute which applies to, say, factories which have accepted public subsidies, from moving to a non-union state? Or even a third world country where they don't enforce any wage or safety laws? The fact really major economic players won't be nominal parties won't stop them from being the real behind-the-scenes heavyweights in this. This, over and above the fact this law was initially passed to stop the Cincinnati Bengals from moving, as they may want to consider again. As others have discussed, several billionaire MLS "investor/operators" also own teams in other sports. Behind them are the big-money sponsors, advertisers, skybox buyers and legal/political muscle in this story.

These guys will make the decision about how to proceed, and Tony Precourt or for that matter Don Garber won't have any choice but to go along.

And there is precious little middle ground in what happens next. They cannot have a precedent that a law like this can work. They will either want to drive a stake through it's heart, or make this all go away as quietly as possible. The only variation on this theme is, for a short time, PSV will proceed as though nothing is happening to keep up their bargaining position with either Columbus or Austin, wherever they're destined to end up.

We should expect to be able to tell which it is fairly soon. And, fortunately for us, if the answer is Columbus, there is one face-saving out. They can always say they investigated Austin just like they said they would, but the combination of very poor local fan support and the unwillingness of the city government to come across with the goodies meant moving wasn't indicated.

 

Booooooo. Away with your negativity.

 

Interestingly, when I was googling the dormant commerce clause recently, I found discussion among environmentalists about circumventing it to enable states to engage in their own climate policies in the age of Trump.

 

As I said, the only way this puppy gets to judgment is if the highest pressure law firms in the country decide the law has no chance to survive constitutional scrutiny. Otherwise they won't take the chance.

 

I have enjoyed your writings, Bill.

Also, hello BigSoccer!

 

Oh my. Welcome back! Good to hear from you again.

 

Holy shit.

 

Splarg!!!!!!

I'll be damned.

People, you're in the presence of a legend

 

971175837490929664 is not a valid tweet id

 

This is one of the signs of the apocalypse right?

 

https://www.bizjournals.com/columbu...bus-crew-sold-to-precourt-sports.html?ana=twt

Came across this when my thumb accidentally hit a hashtag used by one of the mls2atx people. Irony is that hashtag has been used less than 10times since 2013. Anyhow another quote that is opposite from what the league has tried to say.


Precourt, 43, lives in the San Francisco area where he heads Precourt Capital Management LLC, whose principal lines of business are investment management services and private equity investing in the energy sector. His family, led by his father Jay Precourt, has been heavily involved in the energy industry, including natural gas pipelines.

Clark Hunt said his family contacted Anthony Precourt about becoming a minority investor in the Crew, but Precourt said he was only interested in becoming principal owner. Hunt said the talks got serious in the last six weeks, culminating in what he called a bittersweet decision to sell the Crew.

 

I am not sure if I gave accolades when accolades were due. This image is absolutely brilliant.

Thank you, KHT, for your laugh-inducing images during this entire cluster********.


Also, it was great to see one of your images in BA’s masterpiece today.

Edit:

Hahahahahahahahaha.

 

Blah blah blah. The same response we got after the NYC meeting + “the law is wrong.”

 

Weak sauce.

Accusing the Ohio AG and the City of Columbus of being wrong on the facts in their complaint should not be accompanied by a recitation of dubious facts about Herculean efforts by the league and/or PSV to make Columbus work as a market, which supposed efforts, even if true, are immaterial to the issues in the case.

The statement contains no denial that they simply blew off the AG's letter demanding assurances of compliance with the Modell Law.

Why play coy at this point? If there is a legal defense to this suit, it can be asserted at the outset. Why not let us know why MLS thinks the Modell Law is inapplicable? Indeed, if there was a convincing case for its inapplicability, presumably it would have been conveyed in a letter to DeWine's office, potentially avoiding the suit.

 

With each passing day, I find myself wondering when the joke is going to finally be over.


Not today.

 

By them saying the team has had "challenges" I would believe they open themselves up to prove the struggles in court.

 

Precourt's "challenges" in the market are utterly irrelevant, except insofar as they are probative of the valuation of the franchise. But his and MLS' credibility is central to the case, so every lie they spew is fair game.

 

Captain Splarg sighting. The gang really is getting back together.

 

They have to be on record saying that they disagree with the law.

This allows them to settle behind closed doors and still claim the law is wrong.

They were required to respond.

If they said settled and claimed they agreed with the law it would be admitting defeat (when all is said and done everyone will claim victory).

Additionally, it keeps any precedent from being set that may affect their NFL Owner Overlords.

 

And Fat Tony hey ***** you!

(Loosely based off Farmer in the Dell.)

 

They have not yet fulfilled their duty to submit a required response at risk of being in default. A tweeted press release is not a formal response to a judicial complaint.

Their formal response will be much more interesting.