Any Rumors On Barcelona coming to the Bay Area to play the Quakes?

chihuahua or chiwawa

same shit, you guys got my point, i jst ate three pounds of crawfish...damn

and ill barf it out on anyone who wants too bug me

 

I thought RSL played in Sandy. Anyway, it is never a shame if cities decide not to pay for stadiums for rich sports team owners.

 

I don't think this is right at all. RSL has been an OK market, and I admire Checkets tenacity in getting Rio Tinto built.

But to say San Jose has been a bad city to MLS is just plain wrong. When MLS could've folded in the recession at the start of the decade, ownership got consolidated to 3 groups which meant AEG and others owned teams not in their own home markets. "Shame on SJ" is bulls#$%t-- AEG wanted to minimize its own money at risk, in a real estate market second in cost only to NYC, and so after a few years of lame SSS efforts moved to Houston where there is minimal commerical zoning and some of the lowest land & labor costs of any major city in the country.

Where are we now? Steady if slow progress by the new ownership group and Houston continues to play in a rented college football stadium. AEG has divested half it's ownership, and MLS management has sent letters to the Houston city council threatening to re-lo the team again. Houston has a 2 year head-start, but I think we'll get our new SSS first.

Rio Tino is nice, and I think Checketts was smart to place it right by the interstate between SLC and its major suburbs (vs the middle of industrial zone, just to the left of nowhere strategy the CO Rapids used). But 22k seast is too large for regular MLS play, and a couple games I 've watched on TV display a ton of empty seats. I think 15k is a good size for our new SSS. Heck, San Jose is outdrawing NYRB right now, and our 9-10k in Buck Shaw looks & feels a lot better than NYRB's 8-9k in the Meadowlands!

So, nothing against RSL, but to say San Jose has not been good to MLS is a woeful misinterpretation what it was like to have AEG own a team here.

 

I think the real motivation for RSL is that it showcases the new facility...having MLS teams play in SSS's (new ones at that) is all about branding imo.

The more visible the game, the more of a branding opportunity that exists...which is exactly why they use the new SSS's for their Allstar game.

Ironically its the SSS's that often look the weakest on tv.

Now...if they could at least just set up the main camera angles in Dallas and Colorado (and occasionally Columbus and LA) then the games wouldn't appear so empty.

New England and DC both look more full because all the fans are confined to the side with the camera facing them...

Back to the point about stadium size. San Jose as a market has shown that it can support 15k people for sharks games and this allows most of the games to be sellouts which over time allows for rising ticket prices (every year they raise by 3-5%...kinda like cable companies and not many people leave).

I think that part of the stadium size stems from Lew's fear about what's happening in Oakland with the massive, mostly empty, stadium that looks terrible on TV when people watch it...if you are watching a game that doesn't even look like it can draw a live crowd it doesn't exactly scream "winner".

The larger the stadium...the more hassles you get (and costs) around parking and traffic improvement etc that you have to make an up front investment in...also the higher the cost of construction (not sure if its a perfect analogy but most buildings have a large incremental jump in costs when they go above 5 floors due to structural/construction requirements and elevator costs)...so maybe there is something about 15-17k that is a "sweet spot" in terms of return on invested capital.

Some evidence for this "sweet spot" could be the fact that many of the larger stadiums fail to sell out...and these are in markets that are larger than San Jose/SouthBay (we don't draw well from SF or the northeast bay)...which means that its risky to build large...only Toronto/Seattle are selling out all their games.

Finally, Most of the high margin revenue over time from these franchises comes from TV money and merchandising. If people can't get tickets to watch their favorite team...guess what they do?...they watch it on TV...so this forced scarcity improves the ratings for TV which allows more ad $ to be generated...and I'm pretty sure that Lew makes more $ on the TV viewers at home than he does for all of the people at the game (minding live people is expensive...security, insurance, parking attendants, ticket takers etc)...adding TV viewers doesn't cost him more overhead but generates more revenue.

Not sure any of these are a perfect explanation but maybe, in aggregate, they serve to make sense of the stadium size?

 

Well if this ends up going thru we may see teams like Barca more often in the area, either playing int'l friendlies or against the Quakes.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/19/MNC917A01A.DTL

I have to admit the latest Niners stadium proposal they talk about in that article is a much better deal for the city now that it's not raiding Santa Clara's general fund. It's still not perfect, but it has a chance of passing now rather than being a non-starter as it was before.

 

You might want to check your facts on that statement. Apparently the Quakes feel one of their larger season ticket bases is from Sacramento.

 

That deal still sucks. It's $90M for the stadium $62M for the substation relocation and whatever for the parking garage.

 

Well the garage was already being built, stadium or no, so I honestly don't consider that a stadium expense.

And yes it does still suck to an extent, but 90 million is far less than 160 million. So a big concession has been made. But under the current financing deal with the NFL contributing, if I'm not mistaken, requires that the city contribute to the stadium or the NFL funding also evaporates.

 

Not to mention it would strengthen the U.S.' bid to host the 2018 WC.

 

not to be pedantic...but I wasn't really identifying Sacramento as part of the northeast bay...I was referring more to Oakland/Vallejo/Concord etc...all places that are roughly less than 1 hour's drive to the stadium...

...and to split hairs even further...I think that this was really more of an opinion/observation...

 

1. Cutting it down to 90 million is such a sucker ploy. A deal that doesn't suck as much is not necessarily good.

2. That's terrible business practice from the NFL. What a bunch of arrogant twits.

 

Oh, and $330M has to come from Santa Clara's "Stadium Authority" which plans to scrap this cash together through naming rights and PSLs. That's even less the NFL is bringing to the table. And people have them audacity to talk about how little Wolff commits to the team?

 

Well no one has accused the Niners owners of being "good". They're on the list of 5 worst sports owners in the US.

 

On the list of the 5 worst? Someone was being awfully generous to the Dorks

 

I was waving my finger at the general NFL policy.

 

Got a link to that list? Love to see it. In the meantime, I'll talk to google.

 

The issue of "worst owners" was addressed in N&A with regard to Toronto.

 

A's stadium next to the Shark Tank might be this far along if the lame "territorial rights" issue wasn't in the way. SJ City Council probably getting green/gold with envy, except for the city $$ part, which they won't have to deal with. As if San Jose doesn't have enough of a complex b/c of San Francisco - surely they can't be upstaged by Santa Clara.

 

I think this was it on sports illustrated's website. I saw it last week and it has the best and worst NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL owners on the list.

 

Thanks. I found it, and you're right it was on the SI site.

 

Interesting that the Warriors, Niners, and Raiders all have owners on the worst lists.

 

I found it interesting. And no surprise at who came out on top as the worst NFL owner.

 

This wouldn't be upstaging. Anyone with a brain knows that one deal is sweet and the other rotten.

 

I dont think there's been any word here on Barca's 3rd West coast game.
Here's my guess: it is indeed being planned for the bay area but Wolff is trying to make a deal (such as demanding Coliseum instead of AT&T or Stanford), or at least not bowing down when he should be.
When I read of Barca's proposed 3rd west coast game, first thing I thought was "Wolff will probably be an obstacle".
If thats the case, I hope they play whitecaps instead.

 

You know what's even funnier? I didn't have to look....lol