Re: Dynamo Offered New Stadium By Private Ownership I like this latest Dynamo stadium story from the local CBS affiliate. The best site is still the East Downtown location and the news of the alternate site has got some of the EaDo players speaking out in favor of the stadium. It nevers hurts when buisinesses and local chambers starting putting the pressure on politicians. The threat of a jail on that location doesn't hurt either. http://www.khou.com/news/local/Soccer-Fight-Over-Stadium-83310372.html
Re: Dynamo Offered New Stadium By Private Ownership hopefully the competition makes one or the other site break ground sooner then later.
Re: Dynamo Offered New Stadium By Private Ownership And more. Seems that the downtown site is gaining some traction. http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/local&id=7253735
Re: Dynamo Offered New Stadium By Private Ownership I hope they put the jail at the site north of Bellaire. Residents can't complain about that causing a huge increase in traffic.
Re: Dynamo Offered New Stadium By Private Ownership It might, but it'll be a different kind of traffic.
Re: Dynamo Offered New Stadium By Private Ownership They can take the Dynamo fans straight from the jail to the field and back! Sorry couldn't resist.
Re: Dynamo Offered New Stadium By Private Ownership This is actually a massive sticking point with County Commissioner Sylvia Garcia. She won't let it go and she honestly expects an MLS club to undercut some coin each home match or she won't sign off on the downtown deal. She indeed demands from our FO that they undersell 10% of the new Stadium's seats, thus when the big names in MLS come to your town once a season, imagine a restriction put in place by a politico that sufficates a vital revenue souce in a growing league. to reap a full house in ticket sells for a sought after ticket She has never run a small business or made a payroll and IMHO is off her rocker once again.
Re: Dynamo Offered New Stadium By Private Ownership Sylvia owns the Houston MLS team, she's the team's guerrilla stake holder. First she made your team change your name from something that represents Texas pride and independence and then the whole movie ticket price equivalent issue . . . and I'm sure she's thinking $1 theater rather than Avatar in 3D prices. I wouldn't be surprised if Dynamo end up changing their team colors to match Sylvia's curtains before it's all said and done. Sorry Celt, but I couldn't resist!
Re: Dynamo Offered New Stadium By Private Ownership Why do not the Rockets and Texans, who took MUCH MUCH MORE taxpayer subsidies, also have to offer 10% of their tickets at movie prices??? Somebody should ask that b*tch Silvia Garcia that question.
Re: Dynamo Offered New Stadium By Private Ownership I don't know why the residents of Barçelona don't run all of their public works projects by you for final approval, but I am glad they don't! Seriously, try visiting Barçelona; it makes a hell of a lot more sense in context. In the effort to remain slightly on topic, I am excited about Houston having 2 options for a stadium and think that anyone who wants a European quality stadium has never been to a Livorno home game.
Re: Dynamo Offered New Stadium By Private Ownership Or a Siena home game. Seriously, any Italian stadium outside of the big cities wouldn't be approved as a high school football stadium down south.
Re: Dynamo Offered New Stadium By Private Ownership Largely due to the fact that most Italian teams' stadiums are municipality owned and havn't been upgraded since Italia 1990. It also means Italian teams can't bring in all the extra revenue that the English and Spanish clubs regularly derive from owning their stadiums, which along with TV money is one of the big reasons why Italian football is slipping well behind. In some ways it's similar to how MLS teams had to leave stadiums were they were paying rent and start building their own digs, Juve is the first team in Italy to do this by demolishing the crappy old Delle Alpi and rebuilding their own stadium on the site.
Re: Dynamo Offered New Stadium By Private Ownership i'm not sure in what sense italian soccer is 'slipping well behind.' the english clubs have the built-in advantage of connecting with the use of the english language and the historic influence of england worlwide, but the italian brand has a bit of cachet of its own. italian clubs haven't won the cl in a couple of years, but it's not like they're supposed to win every year. as for finances, the debt levels of some large english teams are pretty high, even with their better business model. and what's really driving english soccer, arguably, isn't the business structure, but the big spenders from abroad at chelsea and man city (both of which have recycled italian coaches). as for the italian stadiums, i don't think it's fair to judge them on the siena and livorno model. those are lousy, and you might throw in catania and maybe cagliari as well (from what i see on tv, anyway). but that leaves 16teams in pretty decent stadiums. and the stadiums in florence, genoa, or palermo, for example, are some of the most attractive in europe. parma seems nice also. if anything, it's the big stadiums in rome and naples that aren't ideal because of the running track.
Re: Dynamo Offered New Stadium By Private Ownership Yes it was very delle-alpi-dated. See what I did there? I'll get my coat.
Re: Dynamo Offered New Stadium By Private Ownership Italian football is in the pits, when was the last time you saw a major player go to Italy with the exception of Ronaldinho who's past it now anyways. English football was on the up before Roman bought Chelsea and signalled the era of billionaires investing in it, indeed Manchester United were better off before the Glazers and Liverpool aren't much better with Hicks/Gillette now than they were before. If anything the new billionaire model is harming English football rather than helping it with the exception of some hands off owners like Randy Lerner. Go back to the 90's and there were two prominent leagues in Europe, Spain and Italy. There was even a weekly Italian football show on UK TV and live matches every Sunday. Italian clubs regularly paid the highest wages, broke transfer records and won European trophies. Now they're also rans on the level of German teams, incidentially if Germany loosened up it's rules on team ownership and increased ticket prices, it could easily rival the EPL and La Liga in terms of wealth.
Re: Dynamo Offered New Stadium By Private Ownership I'm guessing you don't know much about energy requirements for LED technology.
Re: Dynamo Offered New Stadium By Private Ownership Or the debt load of the EPL, which may be why they have not "loosened" up their rules.
Re: Dynamo Offered New Stadium By Private Ownership When the two biggest influences on the art scene there are Guadi and Dali this makes perfect sense to me. I only wish it had been built when I lived there for a year in the late 90s.
Re: Dynamo Offered New Stadium By Private Ownership Here is some news!!! & none of it is good... "...The final go-ahead for building a soccer stadium on the EaDo site will require county commissioners to formally join the new East Downtown TIRZ (boundaries shown outlined above). But they can’t vote on that proposal until commissioner El Franco Lee puts that decision on the agenda. So far he hasn’t done that — and he apparently won’t talk to the press or constituents about his intentions. ....Meanwhile, over in Bellaire, city officials are rushing to put in some “stop-gap” zoning changes to the Research and Development District at the northern edge of the city. Most of the site of Midway Companies’ proposed Dynamo Stadium development there lies within Houston city limits, but a small portion on the east side is apparently in Bellaire’s RDD." http://swamplot.com/boxing-out-dynamo-stadium/2010-02-11/ Also, this is not Dynamo related, but click on this link to view some of what El Franco Lee's kid likes to paint http://www.artshound.com/event/detail/25809 "...For example in Nightmare Katrina II gun toting and soda drinking members of the National Guard, floating in a boat in New Orleans' flood waters, blatantly disregard the stranded, dead, dying. In Tu Pac Autopsy the slain singer lies cut open on the autopsy table, while the police accept bribes, Orlando Knight takes his pay, and Suge Knight celebrates the death with a glass of Crystal."
Re: Dynamo Offered New Stadium By Private Ownership Here are two recent local TV news reports on the downtown stadium: KTRK, Ch. 13 (ABC affiliate): Hot topic at the State of the County address KHOU, Ch. 11 (CBS affiliate): Residents: County Commissioner stalling Dynamo stadium construction
Re: Dynamo Offered New Stadium By Private Ownership Okay, guys I'm just going to tell you some inside info, I used to work in El Franco Lee's office for 2 summers when school was out. He made a concentrated to effort to get public parks projects approved, which then the contracts would then get handed over to this company... http://www.espa-corp.com/aboutuscompanyemp.html# These are all of his friends & his own son is employed there, although he doesn't actually do anything. El Franco Lee is probably just stalling as a negotiating tactic with the Dynamo to get this company some work...this is how the man works. Maybe he's a distant cousin of Jack Warner. Now you know the real story.