Bend it Like Beckham and Santa Clara soccer

Good catch, RB1. A soccer-specific stadium in the Bay Area with a regulation pitch and built specifically for soccer ... hmmm, I wonder who else would be interested in helping out on such a proposition?

 

MLS has been willing to do some creative things to build stadiums. Columbus Crew Stadium was built entirely with private funds but is, IIRC, on public land. The new Home Depot Training Center where the LA Galaxy will play starting in June is on the campus of CSU-Dominguez Hills, and might be a good model for any arrangement with Santa Clara. And the Dallas Burn's upcoming stadium in Frisco is another example of a public-private partnership.

And even though WUSA is still a fledgling league and very much vulnerable, Hendricks has been talking about going in with DC United on a soccer-specific stadium to be named Discovery Park.

What MLS is realizing is that to be viable as a league, it needs to control its own stadiums and the revenues from those stadiums -- not just ticket sales, but also parking fees and concession revenue. And not just from soccer matches, either -- CCS has hosted the Ohio State football championships and a Britney Spears concert.

 

I know the CyberRays originally considered Santa Clara's Buck Shaw Stadium as a home field. However, there were some conditions that had to be met in terms of upgrading the stadium (more seats/restrooms/concessions/parking...stuff like that) before the team would agree to play there, but I can't remember exactly what the terms were offhand. I know at that time there was a lot of talk about Santa Clara building a soccer-specific stadium to lure the CyberRays there, but I don't recall who was going to fund it. I went looking for some articles about the stadium questions, and the only one I found (for free--I'm sure the Mercury and Chronicle have some pay-to-view archived ones) is here:

http://sanjose.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2000/11/06/story8.html

Santa Clara's really deserved a nice soccer-specific stadium for some time, so I so hope that the current combination of factors is enough for the University to make building one a priority. I'm not a huge fan of Spartan, despite all its history (history doesn't keep the bleachers in a decent state of repair), so I think it would be great if the CyberRays were able to play at Santa Clara in a few years in a shiny new home!

On another note, I finally saw "Bend It Like Beckham" the other day, and thought the crowd's reaction when the movie first mentioned Santa Clara was fun. There was spontanteous cheering from everyone in the theater at the mention of the local school.

 

The linked article is in the San Francisco Chronicle, not the Mercury News, but it's still interesting. It would certainly be an encouraging sign for the league's future if the WUSA investors also invest in soccer specific stadiums in DC and SJ. Of course, while Hendricks is on record about DC, we're making leaps about SJ.

 

Random takes

Also, CCS has hosted NSync, local high school football, and the Cincinnati Bengals training camp...

Based on what I read in the article, I'm thinking one on the campus of Santa Clara University. With that thought, it might mean the Quakes with exclusive rights to Spartan or their own SSS but that's for another discussion.

I'm thinking if a SSS were to take root at SCU it would seat 5K to 7K--perfect for the CyberRays and much akin to SAS in Carolina. It's more keen to see soccer stadiums with capacity crowds.

As for the name recognition for Santa Clara University it could mean a chance for high school students to apply to the university for that factor alone. College football and basketball can be a catalyst for prospective students, and so can college soccer. Here, it's the Stanford and Cal factor but then the other schools should get a nod as well.

I can't speak for DC, but United and the Freedom presuming that the baseball Expos will be playing at RFK in 2004 will be needing a place to play. Anschutz has been talking about the need for a SSS there. I don't want to go into the economic factors leading up to now and so forth--, but it would be nice to see the Freedom with a place of their own, or in a SSS with United.

Cheers!

 

Having a SSS would be very nice for the area. However, in light of shrinking endowments, it might be a little difficult nowadays for an academic institution to build a SSS. That's why at present, the various athletics programs get by with sharing their fields.

Satan Clara plays on a baseball field.

Cal plays on a track oval.

Stanford's Maloney Field was built for soccer, but is shared with the lacrosse program, I think. Stanford built the soccer fields in '97 at a cost of over $500,000. That cost doesn't include the lights for night games, and the permanent bleachers, which were built a year later. All told, the fixed costs in '97 dollars would be well over a million dollars. closer to $1.5 mil probably.

If anyone were to duplicate such a task today for Satan Clara, it would be AD Cheryl Levick. She was Stanford's Asst. AD back in those days, so she would have a good idea of stadium economics.

Still, for a brand-new SSS to be economically viable for an academic insitution, a year-round tenant other than the college program(s) would have to be identified. Does anyone know if the C'bus SSS is profitable?