Congrats to the Burn fans...and in fact congrats to all MLS fans. This was both a needed and necessary move if the Burn franchise wasn't going to collapse altogether before its move into its own building in 2005. A huge thumbs up. And o yea: a huge congrats to Burn players, who will rightfully get to play in a decent stadium instead of that crap they had to deal with this year. Good stuff.
Congrats Thumbs up to HSG for a) taking a risk in moving to Dragon stadium in 2003 in order cut costs, but MOST OF ALL for b) realizing that staying at Southlake for another year would have only alienated more fans and promoted MLS as less-than-major league.
Congrats to the Burn... It takes a lot of guts to admit you made a mistake. There's a difference between playing on a rug that looks like grass and one that looks like a ginat billboard. Damn, that thing was ugly!
It's refreshing to see a sports organization go this far to admit a mistake and do what it can to make things right with the fans. It would have been so easy to say "oh, just wait another year and there's the new stadium." I knew of complaints by Burn fans but this is a surprising development.
Well done. And reducing ticket prices as well. I don't think there's anything to complain about here. Which, of course, will shorten the life of this thread.
and of course there's this obvious point: with the move out of Naperville back to Soldier Field, and now with the move back to Cotton Bowl, MLS is down to only one artificial field in the league, a great step forward IMHO. from 30% to 10% in one fell swoop. damn it's been a great week.
Not to mention most likely a league-wide attendance boost as the Fire and Burn have to draw more in 2004 than they did in 2003.
Now this begs the question... What is really necessary to move out of the Cotton Bowl in the first place?
Why is this announcment being made now? Don't they know that MLS SOP calles for this to be mentioned by late March at the earliest?
Was it really necessary in the first place? Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. I mean, to HSG it did. If the expected savings didn't materialize, and they risked really shoving fans away for not one but two years to the point where Frisco's effect might have been seriously mitigated, then moving back was the right move, absolutely. This leaves RFK as the worst stadium in the league now.
Why did they move to Southlake? Any word on whether the new lease is better in the Cotton Bowl than the old one?
Great news. Hopefully, a lot of the old fans will come back, and the Burn can at least have respectable attendance. Who knows, next year, with a good push by the Fire (16-17k), a rejuvenated SJ fanbase (14k??, wishful thinking I think, 12-13 hopefully), the continued success of KC, the league may very well peak over 16k which would be great. Obviously, this all depends if LA can continue getting great crowds (will the new stadium effect wear off?), and if the Metros and Revs can get their front-offices up to par. And yea, it seemed like moving to Dragon at the time was a good idea, economically. Obvioulsy it backfired. Plus the Burn are slashing ticket prices. That has to have a negative effect on ticket prices, unless the team really improves its attendance.
To save money. But supposedly they only saved half as much as they thought they'd save, and considering how people stayed away, I would imagine the actual impact was worse. Considering they wouldn't be negotiating from a position of strength, I would guess not, but I don't know. Still, from a fan outreach standpoint, the move had to be done.
OTOH, maybe the Cotton Bowl regretted the loss of all that lease income last year, and was willing to give a little to get the Burn back as a tenant...at least for one year. No question. They had to get back some of the disaffected fans so those same fans will make the trek next year up the highway to the new digs. Great news.
Yeah, wull watta YOU know about the intricacies of complaining? I mean, OBVIOUSLY from your posts it's quite easy to see that you're an ... Oh, wait, wrong thread...
I'm all for this as it's good for the players and fans, shows the league and team are listenting to their fans, and is good for those of us who had to endure watching that hideous purple surface on TV. But, I can't help feeling a little sorry for Mike Jeffries. Yeah, maybe the team would have sucked anyway, but I always got the feeling the team's struggles were at least partly related to the team playing on this surface and that they way the Burn were constructed, that surface didn't play to their strengths. Now, the team went out and got Curtis, Glinton, Nkhlecko, etc... - all guys who are pacey and play direct, to take advantage of the Sucklake surface... and now this. That said, I'm sure the team will adapt, it just seems like adding salt to the wounds to swtich back AFTER they changed the team to better suit the surface.