MLS in Robertson: Terms?

MLS makes itself at home (Houston Chronicle, 12-17-05)
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/3531341.html


AEG also announced the team will play at the University of Houston's Robertson Stadium when the 2006 MLS season begins April 1.

UH athletic director Dave Maggard said a three-year deal will keep the team at Robertson until the end of the '08 season.

"I would guess that they would want to stay much longer (at Robertson) because they're going to save a lot of money," Maggard said.

But Leiweke emphasized the franchise intends to use Robertson as a temporary home.

"Our goal long-term is to find a private-public partnership to build a soccer stadium complex in Houston," Leiweke said. "We have several options that are already on the table."

Leiweke did not elaborate on the options being discussed, but they are likely to include the city and a school district...

AEG also announced the team will play at the University of Houston's Robertson Stadium when the 2006 MLS season begins April 1.

UH athletic director Dave Maggard said a three-year deal will keep the team at Robertson until the end of the '08 season.

"I would guess that they would want to stay much longer (at Robertson) because they're going to save a lot of money," Maggard said.

But Leiweke emphasized the franchise intends to use Robertson as a temporary home.

"Our goal long-term is to find a private-public partnership to build a soccer stadium complex in Houston," Leiweke said. "We have several options that are already on the table."

Leiweke did not elaborate on the options being discussed, but they are likely to include the city and a school district.

District H Councilman Adrian Garcia said the city would welcome a public-private partnership that is fair and sensitive to taxpayers.

"We've learned from years past that the public is not interested in the city being the primary investor of a sports facility," Garcia said. "This time we're going to make it a good business model."

Regarding Robertson, UH will collect a percentage of the revenues from concessions, parking and other sources, including non-soccer-related AEG events, Maggard said.

Grass at Robertson's John O'Quinn Field will be replaced with FieldTurf. AEG will pay the university a lump sum to cover the turf's installation, Maggard said.

Installation costs can range from $400,000 to $900,000. Any amount left over from the lump sum will be used for other improvements to the 32,000-seat stadium that relate to concessions areas, locker rooms and video board.

 

I suspect they will try to do something similiar to PHP in Frisco, TX. If you look at the details on the new president, he has a lot of experience with bringing in new stadiums. U of H is an excellent interium-use facility, and AEG will likely make some physical improvements (field turf has already been mentioned in the article). From what I can tell based soley on pictures, Robertson doesn't appear to have much in way of ad space and obviously doesn't have any box suites, both of which are major money makers for any team. Concessions, merchandising, parking, etc. also factor into the equation, and are likely included in the lease terms (which I expect are sealed or something like that, at least for now), most likely as percentages. I'm not sure if the facility is still used by U of H for any of its team games, but if so then NCAA regs have to be factored in as well.

 

SA14, there are other threads outlining Robertson's specs. UH does play its home football games there, its women's soccer games too. The stadium went through a huge transformation in the late '90's, when the Coogs moved from the Astrodome back to campus . . .which was a great move for the school. UH removed the track (made a track & field specific area north of the stadium), increased capacity by lowering the field, has a brand new scoreboard and replay screen, has plenty of ad space and 20 luxury suites. Maybe the official MLS web site on MLS Houston would be a good place to start for those not familiar with Robertson Stadium.

http://www.mlsnet.com/MLS/hou/stadium/

Also, from the UH Athletics site.

http://uhcougars.collegesports.com/trads/hou-trads-robertson.html





Robertson is an excellent stadium and a 100% better than it was before UH football moved backed to campus. Additionally, the stadium is a great place to watch soccer and the occassional international rugby match. Just about every picture you see on the Houston threads related to the stadium are current shots from 1998 to date. UH draws pretty well for their football games, especially since they've actually had some winning seasons.

 

AEG will get a stadium deal because if they don't they will be able to shame Houston about it. "Dallas gave us a stadium. Aren't you as good as Dallas or is Dallas yo' Daddy?"

 

Looks like that's all we've got for now. The Daily Cougar at UH is on break, but they may have some additional information later.

I think this bit is particularly interesting (emphasis added):

If AEG's going to bring a number of non-soccer events, presumably concerts and whatnot, from which UH will also obtain additional revenue, then that may indicate that the rental amount itself may be relatively low. Maggard's athletic department may be able to offer a bargain rent if they anticipate making more money overall with additional non-soccer events brought in by AEG (or more specifically, AEG Live, as the case may be).

Having non-soccer events may also help Oliver Luck and his political allies at City Hall and on Commissioner's Court make the case that a new venue will indeed be multi-use, generating revenues from more than just soccer.

Of course, they may have to explain how a new multi-use venue, especially one located downtown, wouldn't compete with Toyota Center for events, but they'd be two different sorts of venues. I think the more likely competition for events for a new, presumably outdoor, multi-use venue that seats around 20-25,000 would be the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavillion at the Woodlands - but it's outside both the City of Houston and Harris County, so no one at City Hall or Commissoner's Court would care about taking business away from the Woodlands.

 

Bingo. AEG could use Robertson and any potential SSS to host international friendlies with Houston MLS or a double header, rugby matches, summer concert tours maybe even an X-Games event (similar to HDC).

 

I think the concepetual work for an SSS in houston is done and now needs execution. And we know AEG can execute stadium deals when they want too. The thing is they didnt want to do it in San Jose for whatever reason.

 

Let's put it this way... AEG now owns MLS teams in the top four media markets in the country.

It's good to be the king, I guess.

 

Picking the battlefield is half the battle.

The politics here are also a little different. Oliver Luck has worked with every city and county official who will be relevant in the process of securing a deal for a new venue. Mayor Bill White's office has also been involved with getting AEG to Houston, as well as earlier efforts to get Televisa/America to come here. Houston has a strong mayor system and White runs city council. Additionally, some of the early political work (Board of Trustee approval in concept; visit to PHP at Frisco ISD) has also already been done with HISD. Obviously, none of that ensures a deal for a new venue, but you'd have to like the political landscape here better than in some other markets.

 

They'll have to get out of Robertson soon--the promise of a true SSS with natural grass, top of the line facilities and an AEG-determined schedule is at the end of the rainbow.

Robertson won't be able to host many internationals on Field Turf. I think they played a couple Interliga game in San Antonio last year and a Mexican qualifier, but that's by far the exception and not the rule.

Ideally, this is setting up nicely to be a combo of the Dallas and RSL situations. Dallas in the HISD part of the deal, RSL in the willingness to ride out a bad couple of years in an inferior place and get the stadium deal done to enthuse the fans. I think AEG knows by now that they have to strike while the iron of public enthusiasm is hot, while this mayor is still in office, etc.

 

I bet Jamie Rootes and the Houston Texans are glad that U of H is going with Fieldturf. It means that the only venue to have truly international games (national team friendlies and qualifiers and Interliga games.)

 

what is the motivation for field turf here. That stuff ruins games.

 

It all has to do with the AD at the University of Houston. That was part of the negotiation process and in order to play at U of H, AEG would have to pay for fieldturf. Maggert (the AD) said he wanted to have the team permanently but the fieldturf makes it a temporary solution. It is unfortunate that they will be playing on fieldturf but that will make AEG and the fans more anxious for their own SSS.

 

Mexican and Central American clubs have played on FieldTurf in other venues in the past. Even El Tri has played on FieldTurf a few times. Saprissa and the Costa Rican national team play on FieldTurf at Saprissa's stadium. AEG and UH will still probably be able to bring in a lot of club friendlies if they want to.

Keep in mind that Lone Star Sports & Entertainment, the Texans affiliate that brings non-Texans events to Reliant, has only five non-Texans event days under the operative agreements at Reliant. There's a limit to how many soccer events they could bring there.

There's also an economic limit to what sorts of events LSSE would want to put in Reliant. The costs of operation at Reliant far exceed those costs at Robertson. It makes sense to put a very big event in Reliant, but it doesn't make sense to put Olimpia v Municipal or Comunicaciones v Firpo there. Those sorts of games will stay at Robertson. The economics make Robertson the appropriate venue and the FieldTurf doesn't dissuade them.

Jamey Rootes of LSSE has commented in the media that he's glad to have an MLS team in Houston because he thinks it'll grow the market for soccer here for everyone. I think he's right. Both the MLS team and the LSSE events will benefit from the other's promotion and marketing of soccer and the free coverage of each other's soccer events in the media.

What AEG and UH won't get at Robertson is most El Tri games or events like the InterLiga, but those events have already been going to Reliant over the last few years - even with real grass at Robertson. Even after a new venue, the larger capacity at Reliant will still draw most of the really big events like the Gold Cup and big El Tri games that will want more than a 25,000 capacity.

 

You dont seem to get it do you??

A fight?? Did you see that almost every individual who would potentially knock down any road block for a stadium in Houston was there with legs spread wide open to recieve of the ******** of AEG!!!

SanJose city council members already have been outclassed and outshown by Houston in a whole two weeks.

The school is willing to work with AEG they are happy they are there, unlike Spartan Shops that took every opportunity to screw AEG it could.

it seems that even with Robertson the school is giving AEG a better chance to break even or even make some money. Something Spartan Shops wasnt willing to do.

They get a renovated stadium a school that gives a crap and wants them there and a city council with a former member as team president, with a good track record of stadium building on his side


This is a win win win for MLS. The only people that should be angry are SJ fans and that anger should be directed at Spartan Shops and their own city council.

 

This piece doesn't mention the new MLS set up at Robertson, but it provides some interesting background on Dave Maggard, the UH AD and our temporary landlord.

While I'm sure Maggard understands that he won't really be able to keep the team at Robertson in the long-term, I'd rather have him make overly optimistic noises about wanting to keep them there than have him ignore the team or shrug off its value to UH.

Maggard's hard work has UH on upswing, Houston Chronicle 12/20

 

Nice article about Maggard. Now, this is coincidental, but he was on the L.A. Games committee at the same time as Alan Rothenberg.

 

I have to admit, I'm impressed. Maybe Team Houston should hire him for themselves.

 

why are they going to Field Turf? Talk about starting off on the wrong foot. Just shows that the owners don't care about the actual sport but just the bottom line.