I have a Yeti beer can coozie thingy, and a Travel cup. I like them both. I also have and RTIC travel cup. In fact using it right now and it works just as good. Things is I didn't pay for any of them. They were gifts from family and through work as promos. As I said, I like them, they work great, but no chance would I personally spend the money on them. That said I did buy one as a gift for someone else. I've said it since the beginning Yeti will fall from grace at some point unless they change their model or innovate more (although didn't we all say that about Crocs?). RTIC is much cheaper mostly because they make no bones about fact they manufacture in China. Yeti claimed for long time to be American made, but I think it is now disputed just exactly how much is made in USA (thus making them less attractive to certain consumers). Yeti blows a boot load on marketing and RTIC spends far less - again which helps keep cost down. Gotta love RTIC's slogan..."over built but not overpriced" - Hmmm who is that targeted at? Also RTIC seems to be planning for future growth by changing their name to RTIC outdoors and now offering a bigger variety of products.
Holy Crap, I haven't been paying too much attention to Austin since this whole Corona thing. Last I read they had stopped construction, but today I read they are still on target for a 2021 opening. I looked at their web cam and man they have made a ton of progress. Their pile of dirt looks much farther along than ours does. I kinda assumed that these were parallel projects; Austin was over selling a 2021 spring completion date and Columbus had a more accurate timeline. But seeing the cam it seems like they may have it done in time. Austin broke-ground Sept. 9th, has 450 construction workers Columbus broke-ground Oct. 10th, 605 full time construction jobs. Why does Austin seem so much farther ahead of Columbus? Oh, and Screw Precourt.
Because they started earlier? Had zero slowdowns in winter, have a much earlier deadline, AND they didn't have to build that secant wall. EDIT: I wonder, too, at the overall complexities of the project. Our stadium is in an entertainment district, for which there's a ton of streetscape, etc. (like burying powerlines) work that's had to happen and will still need to happen. It's also part of a much larger Confluence Village development. We can't see activity on the rest of the site from the webcam perspective, but there's clearly something going on outside of the stadium footprint, on the north side of the site and possibly to the west. The McKalla Place site is in alight industrial zone. Their project never included anything about the surrounding area, nearby streets, beautification. That's not a criticism, necessarily; I mean, if we had built a new stadium no the Mapfre site we wouldn't need to do that kind of stuff, either.
About Austin and the pandemic. I know some see this as some sort of problem for Precourt, but it's hard for me to imagine a more fortunate situation for Two Chins than the timing of this crisis. He never expected to have any income from the 2020 season; has signed no players; hasn't fully fleshed out a staff; he'd already brought on additional investors before this happened. I mean, sure, this can't help sponsorship deals. Maybe Yeti re-thinks its sponsorship. Who knows? But what's going on now can't have much affect on his bottom line this year. Due to no brilliant decision-making on his part, of course. Its just dumb luck.
Their stadium looks like it's coming along pretty well. Apparently their roof is quite heavy and a major piece of work in its own right. IMO they should be opening on schedule though their sod might be loose. I'm not worried about us hitting our opening date either.
Presumably Cincy, too. I don't think Austin's broke ground on its training facility, yet, but I can't say that follow things down there as closely as I did back in 2018.
I would beg a slight....adjustment here. It doesn't matter - much - if he has players or not. Player salaries are paid by the league directly. The exception of course is the difference between what you're paying your 3 DP's and what $500k is it? Can't recall exactly. But your FO is out of pocket. Salaries, office space, light bill, advertising, etc. I'm also pretty sure coaching staff comes out of pocket as well. So he already has a lot of the expense of running a team.
Right, the league pays a chunk of player salaries, though not as much as used to be the case. All depends on how much you pay those DPs, and there's a huge range in the league, there.
Say what you will: I couldn't care less about the fact that Austin's stadium appears to be further along than ours. There are no points awarded for stadium construction speed.
It only really matters in that a decent number of posters around here really thought it would never happen, even long after it became evident that they were making strides. I'm not calling anyone out here, I would have liked to have seen AP fall on his face just as much as the next Crew supporter.
Still hasn't happened and I am still crossing my fingers. I mean, COVID 19 may strip Liverpool of their title this year so just about anything is possible, right?
Yes, there is no denial that they have made major progress on the toxic waste dump stadium. That being said, spending +/-$300 million on a stadium, building a front office, and marketing, before you have a team and a real fanbase is still risky business metrics. Once he actually has players under contract he will be even further in the hole, before match #1. Time will tell if AP indeed falls on his face.
This is something that I had maybe thought about in the back of my mind but really hadn't pondered much and I don't know that it has been mentioned before and your post made me recall. Has this ever happened before in MLS or US Soccer? I don't think a single team has entered the league and on day one played in their own purpose built stadium. Portland was already playing in USL. None of the originals did, obviously. Other expansion teams played in temporary venues out of the gate when they were newly created teams, not USL clubs. Toronto? I can't remember how they came in.... This is whole new territory I think. Relocating in 2019 and having played 2 season at a temporary venue sort of makes sense. Houston did similar, right? But no one, not even Beckham, has come in and started in a "crown jewel" type stadium. I still can't believe MLS let doofus and the stumblebums be the first to try it. It just seems so crazy.
You can call me out, that's fine. I still hope FratAss fails and this whole thing leaves him with queso on the face. I also think this project doesn't happen without his business partners.
I guess Toronto did this. My bad. But quite a bit of difference in the size of the cities, the competence of the owners, etc.
Only construction project on Earth where they started construction on a major sports venue over a year before bothering to figure out how people will actually get there. The political corruption in Austin is truly breathtaking. Then again, Don Garber and MLS were willing to green light a project where "There are, like, lots of parking spaces and shit a mile or two away at a shopping center and a light rail commuter line capable of moving 200 people every half hour except on Sunday when it's not available" was a splendid plan.
They started it this very month, and honestly the numbers are looking really good! Very little traffic around the area and tons of available parking.