In Tuesday's Philadelphia Inquirer a story appeared which pointed out the cost overruns of the new Eagles' stadium. What made my heart sink was reading that the city can't count on revenue that was expected to come from a new MLS team, because the league has no plans to expand here. When did this all happen? I thought that Philly was very much in MLS's plans.
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/sports/4890984.htm It appears the city's financial plan was to lose money on football and make up for it by profiting off of soccer. Gee, I wonder why MLS would object to such an arrangement?
The article doesn't say MLS is definitely NOT coming to Philly, it's just saying there haven't been any promises made. But I'm kind of wondering why MLS is not looking harder at Philly. It looks like they were forecasting profiting by $20K per game. OK, I have no idea what the costs of opening the stadium for a game are, but if anyone does, you can add that to $20K, and that would be how much the Philadelphia Bells would be losing to the landlords from total revenue. Then take 14,000 fans per game, providing, say, $30 each in tickets and ancillary profits (not revenues, but profits), and it seems to me like that's a pretty good deal for the league. No costs incurred in building a stadium, yet a reasonable chance at turning a profit.
Does every penny of the Lincoln Financial naming rights deal go to the Eagles owner? I believe it's $6.7 million a year for 20 years according to http://espn.go.com/sportsbusiness/s/stadiumnames.html.
The only thing I would caution with this is that there are at most two football games left at Veterans Stadium and a lot of people are focusing on that right now. I don't doubt the truth of this information, but I find it very interesting that this all came out now, when people are actually going around proclaiming what a wonderful stadium the Vet is. I also think a lot of people are cynical/fearful of the Linc because of the (real) possibility of losing the blue-collar atmosphere that has always been part of Iggles games at the Vet as a result of moving to a fancy new stadium with (presumably) higher ticket prices. Look at what happened to the Redskins at FedEx field, for example. This could lead to more negative press on the Linc than necessary. I think MLS is not looking harder at Philly for two reasons: 1) The ex-pat British/Irish/Scottish population in the US hasn't supported MLS to very deep an extent and that community in Philadelphia is just as big as if not larger than the Hispanic community there. Also, a lot of people in Philadelphia have not even heard of MLS even though they are sandwiched between NY and DC. This does not strike me as being the case in Seattle, Portland, and Rochester, for example. 2) There is a huge youth soccer market in Philadelphia, no question, but Tampa Bay also supposedly had a huge youth base and it failed. I would add that playing in a 70,000-seat NFL stadium would be an issue to them as well, but if Lurie owns-operates the team, then that wouldn't matter.
The Burn is balking hard at paying the Cotton Bowl $15,000 per game for the privilege of playing in the Cotton Bowl - which my guess is that is cheaper to open than the new Philly stadium. As great a market as Philly may be, MLS should not bend over backwards to get another MLS team in one of those HUGE NFL stadiums. I think it is better to get a 20,000 seater in Oklahoma City.
Last year there was a group of investors that wanted to bring an MLS team to Trenton. They offered up a plan to build a great facility in/near Princeton, NJ in the hopes of pulling the USMNT over here instead of California. They also offered to pay the majority of the cost for the development. They had a website which is no longer in operation. As to why this never came about - the Metros stepped in stating that according to MLS rules no franchise can be within 50-75 miles of another franchise. That pretty much put the matter to rest. Philly was offered up as an alternative, but I think they're going to run in to the same problem. The actual location of the field was going to be in Trenton, NJ which is about 5 minutes from where I live. I would have loved a local team, but I guess I'll be driving my 50 - 70 miles to each game. NJ has always had a good rivalry between South Jersey Soccer and North Jersey soccer; it would have been nice to see two teams at pretty much either end of the state battle it out.
Who'd own this mythical Philly team? I think that if there was a willing and deep-pocketed owner, Philly would be a no-brainer. There's not.
Exactly. Once a heavyweight steps up (Comcast?) and opens up their checkbook, Philly will be in like Flynn. Still, I hate the idea of an MLS team playing in a stadium designed for an NFL team. Maybe they can make it work in Seattle, but soccer in this stadium seems like an afterthought...just a way to get a little more $$.
The new field in Philly , not unlike the field in Foxboro, is designed to be "Soccer Friendly" The Eagle management has stated they would welcome a MLS team. The test may be this summer when Man U and Barca open the new field.Comcast would be a logical owner, but who knows. The youth soccer community in Philadelphia, and South Jersey is quite strong and would offer a fan base that doesn't want to drive 100 miles north or 120 miles south for a MLS game.
Northside...you're comparing two different things. You're comparing the rent payment at the Cotton Bowl to the rent payment plus ancillaries in Philly. Unless the Burn only kick back $5K per game from parking, merchandise, signage, and concessions, then the Philly deal looks to better.
I don't know if this will help, but it cost $40,000 to open the gates and run the lights at the old Foxboro stadium. I'm sure that in a new place like Gillette or Lincoln it would be considerably more. The Revs played Open Cup home ties in Foxboro, even though the 4 crowds totalled less than a weak mid-week crowd for a league game. No way they'd do that at the new place, as all CONCACAF Champions Cup and any home Open Cup matches will be played in "auxilliary" sites like New Britain, Providence or Ludlow. So if you assume Lincoln is similar to Gillette in terms of operating expense, a Philly MLS club would have to pay through the nose in terms of the lease if the city expects to make $15-20,000 in profit per game. The only way Foxboro (and Arrowhead) works for the MLS teams that play there is because they are owned by the same entity that owns the stadium. That was essentially why the Mutuny folded. The Glazers (Bucs owners) had been approached, but since they couldn't work out a deal, no one else could possibly make it work in that stadium. If there was a local owner who took the team to a renovated spring traing baseball site or something, perhaps, but this was not to be. If anything, I think we should be encouraged that MLS is smart enough to realize that, while Philly could probably be a great place for a team, it has to be in the right circumstances. Tom
I read that article and I don't think it spells doom for MLS in Philly. I think the autor of that article is ignorant of the fact that MLS has mentioned Philly as an expansion target. Originally, they hoped to have a teams this year, but that was when MLS talked about expansion in 2003. The Eagles have mentioned exploring a partnership of some sort with MLS. That would possibly create a situation similar to what exists in Foxboro and KC. The stadium was designed with soccer in mind from day one just like Seattle and Gillette. Whether the Eagles step up or not, who knows, they have a lot going on right now with stadium and the play offs, so it might be until the August Man U game before we hear anything definitively from the Eagles. If don't think Comcast will initiate an MLS team, and I hope they don't to be honest. They already pulled their option to operate an MLS team in Philly. I also think publicly corporate owners are more likely to bail on MLS if it affects too many quarterly earnings reports anyway. What needs to be proved, is the Eagles' commitment to an MLS team. I don't think MLS could work in Philly without the Eagles because there is no way in hell a SSS gets built in Philly. As far as the Union FC idea, I think that's long dead. MLS never really took it seriously, the Metros made things tough for them, MLS then contracted, and the land they wanted to use is now going to be a high-tech movie studio. The construction was going to be privately financed, but I think they needed county and city help to get the land. It's a shame the Union thing never got moving, but a team there would have cut out half the Philly market and cut into a large chunk of the Metros market. People in Delaware County, Montgomery County in PA, and in the city of Philly itself and those in Cherry Hill and further south in NJ wouldn't make the trek to Trenton in large numbers. It's a 40 or more mile trip for most of those people. It doesn't seem like much, but people are used to driving to Philly for a major sports event. They go to Trenton for minor league hockey and baseball. I also doubt people in Bucks County accross the river from Trenton would have crossed into NJ in significant enough numbers to support a New Jersey team. There's a strange psychological barrier there for some reason. I agree that MLS shouldn't put a team in Philly just to have one there. It has to be the right situation. I just hope that situation presents itself. We'll see what happens after the Man U game and if we get any friendlies or qualifiers later on.
That term means a lot of different things. The Razor is more 'soccer friendly' than was the Boro, if you're talking about the World Cup. But by most accounts, it's less friendly to MLS. I have a feeling the Philly people put some thoguht into the former, and not much into the latter. But they hven't shown an inclination to invest in one. What that means is that they'd welcome free money. I don't think there's a stadium in the continental United States that would turn down an opportunity to make $20k profit per game off no investment, unless the dates were booked. I don't think so. Nobody regards it as a test when those types of teams play in Giants Stadium, now considered the worst deal in the league financially. In fact, I tend to view games like those as something akin to carpetbagging. Philadelphia, whether it's the Eagles or the city, has never done anything to indicate they'd be much more partnerly, or to assuage fears that Lincoln Stadium would be the second-worst deal in the league.
This doesn't really sound like bad news to me. The inquirer is a pretty lousy paper in regards to soccer. On the whole stadium/lease/expansion thing; philly will get a team and if it's marketed correctly it will do very well. Even though it's a "big NFL" stadium, it really wasn't laid out that way because the seats are on sharper angle then at most stadiums, plus the seats are very close to the field. Add to the fact that there's an unusually large overhang(meant to keep in the 700 level noise) it's not a bad deal really. Gilette is a hundred times worse. The thing I would look out for is when Philly gets used for qualifiers and friendlies. Considering it's right in the middle of the two other big cities(NY,D.C.)a whole lot more fans will be able to make the trip then if it was held in either of those other two places. One thing is for sure, when the international matches role around, philly will be the ideal place in the northeast.