3/15/05: Leaving On A Jet Plane?

so there will be football lines again ? hi hate to see the pitch with lines..

 

So what advantages other than location would the new West Side Stadium have over Giants Stadium? I can't think of any.

Wow.

I just realized that I've been following this Metrostars Stadium Saga for eight years! And for eight years this project has taken so many turns it's going in circles!

How frustrating!!!!!

 

It has the advantage of being in another state, thereby forcing the folks in Jersey to do something. The Metros want a place of their own. I see this talk about joining the Jets as nothing more than a ploy.

 

Its call exploring all options.

 

They might be able to get a better deal from the Jet's and who ever would control the stadium. That would be an additional 15 - 20 days a year that the stadium would be used. Also since it is newer, it would also have more luxuries that the team or league might be able to take advantage of.

Who knows if any of this is actually possible, but it does provide some competition. Which may motivate NJSEA to approve a new stadium of give the Metrostars a better deal on the current one.

 

Don't know when I'll be back again.....

Great song!

Sachin

 

I think I hear a Soul Coughing song comming on.

 

what a mess with the metrostars. That stadium for the jets will never happen because NY isn't getting the olympics. Its at the point where AEG is going to have to contribute more money or just sign the guarentee. I can understand why they dont want to set this precedent but I dont see any other choice at this point. I really can't believe that they would ever pull the team from the market. Imagine going to your sponsors and telling them we don't have a team in the biggest media market in the country anymore? No way.

 

Would it be entirely unreasonable to speculate that there have been discussions about the Jets investing in the Metro?

Sachin

 

Grr! You can't imagine how crazy it's driving me that this is anywhere near the top of the list of things thet get brought up on BS when these stadium situations come up. It's the last damn thing to think about.

I can think of two possible interpretations of this event:

Interpretation #1: this is the worst news in this whole saga, because it means the Metros are actually entertaining the idea of giving up on the whole idea of having an MLS-controlled stadium. Even if the Jets aren't looking to soak the Metro, this stadium will cost a relative fortune just to open for an additional date. I understand the "if you're gonna pay exhorbitant rent, better to do it in Manhattan than the Meadowlands" take, but this would still truly suck for a lot of reasons that go a lot deeper than football lines.

Interpretation #2: this is mostly or completely rhetorical, but it's still bad news, because the league was never desperate enough to try this gambit until now. And considering a) that everyone knows this isn't a great option for Metro, and b) the volatility of whether the Jets facility will even ever exist, if this is your last-shot play, it's a pretty poor one.

----

Now, I'm usually a fairly optimistic person about league issues (some would probably accuse me of being downright sanguine), and thus am certainly open to anyone steering me towards a more upbeat interpretation. But I sure ain't seen it yet. Really, the only good thing I can think of to say about it is that it seems to have generated a lot of media attention. BUt every silver lining has a touch of grey: media exposure hasn't exactly helped the cause in places like SLC.

 

This possibility is bolstered by the comments in the NY Daily News article about a possible expansion team for the stadium in addition to the Metros:

 

Two main advantages: Location and transportation. Especially the transportation part.

 

I said this before, but why don't the Metros start a bakeoff like Dallas, Denver, Chicago? Both Harrison and NYJets can participate as well as anyone else who is hungry to do something.

As soon as Harrison was delayed beyond where 2006 looked reasonable, I would have immediately begun that process.

 

I believe that Metro did thatyears ago. That's how the Harrison site was determined. It's not like there's tons of land sitting around as close to soccer-friendly populations (Kearny, Ironbound) and transportation (PATH/NJT/Amtrak) in the Metro area as Harrison.

 

You could, but Harrison was never the crux of the problem. The bonds they're looking for would come from the state*, leaving the only real option as somewhere in New York State.

* - I seem to recall at one point in time it was all going to be city/county, but I think that fell through in such a way as not to lend itself to the impression it could have been tried somewhere else.

 

There was this really smart, great looking woman that used to flirt with me all the time in college,....but she always dated someone else.

 

While I'm very strongly opposed to construction of the Jets stadium as a NYer who cares about the city, I'd guess Metro would add at least 5K/game in attendance if they played in a new stadium on the west side. I'd still rather see them in Harrison on the PATH line, but putting them in the city would make games a much more attractive prospect for casual soccer fans and especially tourists, who may be staying in Times Square and looking for some relatively cheap entertainment.

 

First of all is this West Side Stadium even going to be built? I thought there was some doubt.

As was mentioned before I don't see the benefits (besides financial) of moving in with the Jets. That means football lines on the field, no control of scheduling, probably no concessions, and giving off the impression (like at the Meadowlands) that soccer is an inferior sport in comparison to football. I like the idea of the MetroStars actually moving to someplace "metro" and being closer to the soccer-loving population of NYC but at what cost? I really don't like the idea of them abandoning the idea of building their own stadium. I think they should build it somewhere in Nassau County if they can't find land in the 5 boroughs, to at least be within a train ride of the city.

Also, what the hell is the point of expanding into NYC when the team already existing in the market has a very slim public profile in the first place? Are they thinking of a Galaxy/Chivas style thing? That's not gonna work. The Galaxatives have at least been successful. The Metros have not.

 

I'd say right now it's about 60/40 in favor of it getting built, with the politics being very complicated and hinging on a lot more than just the Olympics.

As for Metro, I think the absolute best option would be a SSS on a subway line somewhere in NYC. Since that seems highly unlikely, the next best option is a new ground in NJ, accessible by both transit and auto, which is Harrison. LI would be a very distant third, since it'd probably have to be adjacent to the Coliseum, which isn't any more transit accessible right now than Giants Stadium. I also think the fan base is focused in NJ now, and I can't see hardly anyone driving from NJ to LI for games on a regular basis.

Of course the worst option would be to continue sharing a football stadium, be it in the M'lands or Manhattan, but if you had to do that, a W. Side stadium w/ new amenities would be far superior.

Re: expansion, I think the market could definitely handle a team in Harrison and a team in Queens. The Queens team would only survive, though, if they hooked into the ethnic communities there. But if they succeeded in that, you could have two totally different fan bases. Right now, it seems there's hardly anyone coming over from the city to games (a handful of buses each game), while everyone knows the city is bursting at the seams with soccer fans.

 

Oy, again with the football lines.

On the scheduling, first thought is "no big deal, Jets don't share much of the season." OTOH, it's also supposed to be a convention center, and that might be a problem.

On the concessions, this whole project is still hanging in the balance, and the price of being able to tout it as a multi-sport facility might be that the Metro get a minority slice of the concession revenue. Or at least that's what I'd be asking for if I were the league.

Here's the website, btw, of the Jets proposed facility:

http://www.kpf.com/Projects/jets.htm

Basically, I can see why the cost is so outrageous, and why there's plenty of room to quesiton whether it'll ever be built in current form. It looks far more like an architect's wet dream than any building that will actually ever exist.

If it does get built, and if Metro moved there, I could see it possibly being as much as a 25% revenue improvement for the team, and maybe a slgiht reduction in costs as well, but any happiness about that would in all likelihood be more than balanced by the sadness at having given up on playing in your own facility.