With the fans, yes. Financially, no. Even only drawing 8,000 fans a game, the Burn still lost $500,000 less in 2003 at Dragon Stadium than they lost in 2002 when they were drawing 13,000 at Fair Park. So if they stayed at Southlake in 2004, I could understand why. But they apparently felt that that would've fallen under the heading "penny-wise, pound-foolish."
LA will have a small decline. SJ will have a big increase. The Bay Area is starving for a winner, as is Chicago. Plus, didn't Chicago have a ton of games where the capacity was only 8-9,000? Chicago seems to be about ready to push 18,000+.
I doubt it. If the City of Dallas Parks and Recreation Department had any sort of vision, they would've made the Burn a great lease offer several years ago, one comparable to the one that CISD gave the Burn. And that was when the Burn seemed like it would be at the Cotton Bowl until the end of time. So I very much doubt that they'll make a good deal when the Burn are definitely gone in 2005.
But didn't they expect to lose a million less? Just going from memory there. Supposedly they saved half the money they thought they were going to save. But did their revenue also go down because of the reduced attendance (even though ticket prices went up, didn't they?)? So maybe it was actually worse than that. But the value of the potential damage to the fan base was probably a consideration. I can't put a dollar figure on that, but I'd consider it substantial.
The rationale for leaving the Cotton Bowl was an unfavorable lease.... I don't quite remember the timing.... But wasn't the move to Southlake announced before the Frisco project was a done deal? If so, the move to Southlake probably made sense at the time....Considering what happened with the first Burn stadium project in McKinney. In retrospect...If the Frisco project had been a "done deal", then I suspect the team would have never left the Cotton Bowl in the first place.
I think about how many times on this board someone who claims to have inside information talks about some exciting thing about to be announced by MLS...and then nothing happens. This time the idea of getting out of Dragon and back to the Cotton Bowl in 2004 was discussed and everybody here basically decided it would be great but it would never happen, that HSG would just grit their teeth for one more year before opening Frisco. And now here they are, moving back to the Cotton Bowl, just like we said they wouldn't. I hope this becomes an MLS trend.
They had projected that they would save a million dollars, projections that assumed the team would have much better attendance. The reason they only saved $500,000 was because we had, what, half the attendance in Southlake that we had in the Cotton Bowl.
Come on Kenn - how can you possibly prefer Giants stadium (football lines and cavernous) to RFK? There are plenty of people that would argue that RFK is a better soccer stadium than Spartan (narrow) or Gilette (crazy configuration/too quiet) as well. With 20,000 in the lower bowl, there is nothing wrong with RFK - you forget all about the upper deck. RFK is partially-roofed, noisy, has a big field and the legendary bouncing bleachers. If it weren't for the lease and the lack of certain modern amenities (that 99% of the fans don't use), DC fans would probably never want to leave RFK.
UN-FRIGGING BELIEVABLE John Wagner must have swallowed a whole lot of pride to either reverse the decision himself OR let Greg Elliot to change his mind. People that can admit mistakes like that and then fix them : they have my respect. Either way - this is FANTASTIC news. I was going to re-new my season tickets, but I wasn't going to be happy about it. Now I am thrilled.
Believe me, there's nothing "modern" about the amenities that RKF doesn't have. I admit, I'm coming at it from a different perspective than you are. I have been to Giants Stadium as a fan and as a broadcaster and I have been to RFK as a broadcaster, and there is no comparison in terms of stadium. I said RFK is the worst stadium in the league. Not the worst soccer stadium. The worst stadium. RFK is a dump. It's a pit. It will have to be painted before it can be condemned. If the worst you can say about a stadium is that it's got a narrow field or a strange configuration, that's still miles away from what RFK is as a stadium. RFK is a dive. Spartan is too narrow and is kind of, well, spartan. Giants Stadium is too big, but it's comfortable. Invesco's too big, but it's a very nice stadium. The HDC is great. There's nothing wrong with Columbus. Soldier Field is a very, very good stadium that's not perfect for soccer (especially this time of year), but I'll take it. I haven't been to Gillette or the Cotton Bowl, and I've only been to Arrowhead for football (I quite like Arrowhead as a stadium), but I have a hard time believing that you wouldn't want to implode RFK as quickly as humanly possible. One night in the five-foot-eight Lindsey Nelson Memorial Badly-Carpeted Baseball Broadcast Booth From Hell was enough for me.
I wouldn't be surprised if the Burn received a much better deal from the City of Dallas. The Cotton Bowl didn't perform very well for it's one of two big cash cow events (Texas-OU game) and I suspect the city has decided that if the facility was used more often the problems would've been known in advance. Pure speculation on my part, no inside knowledge.
This is tremendous news. Congrats Burn faithful. I give them a lot of credit for admitting a mistake. I always loved watching the cotton bowl games on tv. Its a beautiful pitch. This is great news for attendance next year, with all 10 teams playing in real stadiums. I'm thinking maybe next year we have a shot at 16-17k a game. I was thinking that maybe this move was forced by their sponsors. I wonder if one of them didnt threaten to pull out for next year if they played at that rinky dink stadium with half the attendance that they used to get in the cotton bowl. I'm sure sponsors werent happy with getting half the exposure they used to.
Felicidades to all Dallas Burn fans for getting back to the Cottom Bowl. This is good for the league.
I guess the league is learning for its mistake. Now, let's help the MetroStars get out of Giant Stadium.
Don't forget that the Cotton Bowl is currently being shaken down for $600,000 in a high stakes staredown with the Universities of Texas and Oklahoma. They're greedy and don't want to pay, but if they are seen as being responsible for losing a local event as beloved as the Texas-OU game, their names will be mud. They could use the money and they can't afford to be seen as twiddling their thumbs while perfectly good business just goes elsewhere.
I personally think that UT and OU's shakedown of the City of Dallas is a good thing. For one thing, it couldn't happen to nicer bunch of people. Good to see them getting shaken down after the way they've shaken down the Burn for seven years. (And the way they'll likely be shaking down the Burn in 2004.) For another, it might get the city off its ass to do improvements on that place that are more substantial than just the occasional fresh coat of paint. During this year's game, all the toilets on one side of the stadium stopped working. What an embarassment. That place needs tens of millions of dollars of work. It's got the best grass in the league, but that's about all it's got. If it takes the fear of losing the Texas-OU game to get them to bite the bullet and spend the money, then that's great.
Wagner and Lamar pulled the trigger on Sucklack when they knew they had their ducks lined up with Frisco City, Frisco ISD and Collin County. The Sucklack "go" decision likely took place internally at HSG in mid-december of last year. Tea Leaves read from conversations with the 2 most senior guys (one now gone) at the Burn office lends creedence to this guess. The unofficial "a Frisco deal is going to get done" rumour from "those on the inside" began floating in early December of last year. Yes, it was not a "done deal" on paper, but it was 95% of the way there, the only obstacles remaining being Due Process and Public Scrutiny. (If anyone of note is reading this, rest assured that neither JA nor AS revealed any specific information that allowed us to directly deduce these conclusions.) Thus Wagner made a calculated risk with less than a 5% chance of error that the Frisco deal would not get done AFTER they pulled the trigger on Sucklack. =bs
OFF-TOPIC not trying to hijack but RFK must be defended Okay - you bring a slightly different perspective to the issue being a broadcaster. No one would argue that the "luxury boxes", concessions or bathrooms are acceptable - but we are spoiled in this era of new, state-of-the-art (extremely expensive to the taxpayer) stadiums in every city. And as far as soccer atmosphere goes - I don't give a flip about the sufferings of broadcasters. There are few stadiums in the US more suitable for watching soccer. Period. Noisy, compact, well-proportioned (and don't complain about the seats, because there are plenty of world-class stadiums throughout the world that still use bleachers if not terracing) and full of interesting touches for the soccer fan (demi-roof, bouncing seating, etc). Not to mention that the access is wonderful. Much of it boils down to personal opinion, but I would much rather watch a soccer match in RFK (with 15,000 - 20,000) than watch a match (with 20,000 - 25,000) in sterile, quiet Gilette, cavarnous Giants (always seems empty), Invesco and Arrowhead and even Spartan (although it doesn't seem too bad from a fan's perspective - just a very constraining pitch). So far Soldier field seems like it works pretty well as a soccer stadium (if the Fire fans can keep coming out in such good numbers - and esp when the field is in its full soccer configuration).
Burn Return To Cotton Bowl! Back at last! Back at last! Thank God Almighty, They Are Going Back At Last! To The Cotton Bowl That Is!