To be fair, Sacramento's failure wasn't Warren Smith's fault -- he was one of the people Kevin Nagle drove away, at the same time as bigger investors including Meg Whitman and the York family.
Just angry Loyal fans. They wanted their team to move up and will take a little time to adjust to that not being the case. Honestly that always felt like it was an outside shot the day SoccerCity failed and it’s a shame that ended up being the case, but the Loyal really had little leverage in the discussions when the MLS guys have the big stadium and half a billion dollars invested at the outset.
True, but he did bring in Nagle. A which seems to be the problem maybe? The investors being selected aren’t the big time guys needed for modern MLS.
Reading comments from angry SD Loyal fans reminds me of NYCFC and the Borough Boys, who wanted an MLS expansion team in Queens or Brooklyn and switched their fandom to the neo Cosmos when MLS put its NY expansion team in the Bronx. Now the Cosmos are belly up (I think) and the MLS team at which the Borough Boys turned their noses up is planning a new stadium in Queens. If the Borough Boys had had more patience, they would have gotten their wish.
Did they say anything regarding stadium changes during the press conference? There was a rumor going around they were going to add a roof but that may have just been wishful thinking.
Those were founded on nothing at all. It's built with the ability to expand it up to 55,000 seats in case an NFL team comes to SD or SDSU gets into a bigger conference where they'll need the capacity.
I was really hoping the new ownership would put money into the stadium to make it more soccer-centric. A roof would do that well.
They don't really need it though.....unless MLS decides to move all of their games to the afternoon....which would be dumb. It's not like it rains all that often in San Diego.
Indded. In the old stadium, they sold 70,000 tickets more or less for the occasional USMNT game and Mexico against Argentina. There is a trolley stop on the stadium grounds $2.50 away from Mexico (or free if under 18, $1.25 for seniors).
Missing in this discussion so far is the partial ownership by the Sycuan tribe, They have substantial undeveloped land holdings in the County that may figure into the placement of the promised youth soccer residential academy.
Not often enough to warrant it. No one really complains about being outside at the old stadium or Petco Park.
It’s going to be a Right to Dream Academy: https://www.mlssoccer.com/news/right-to-dream-finds-a-natural-spot-with-mls-expansion-to-san-diego
It wasn't even about Brooklyn or Queens. Just wanted a team in the five boroughs and not the suburbs. They hitched their wagon to the neo Cosmos, and then the league went with the NYCFC bid instead, who have played in the city, while the neo Cosmos were stuck playing in Nassau County, entirely defeating the reason for the Borough Boys backing the club. So they not only backed the wrong horse, they looked extra dumb doing so. Ridiculous group.
To be fair to the borough boys, a lot of the members went with NYCFC, the leaders stuck with the last few members out at the lacrosse field.
Ahhh, it's times like this I wished Empire of Soccer never went belly up. The jokes just wrote themselves.