Baseball: Hopes fade in pursuit of Marlins So San Antonio and Bexar County pols nearly had a heart attack about MLS asking $20M for Dome renovation and youth fields and now are willing to fork over $310 for Marlins?! Yes...I know...MLB vs MLS... Good article from Nathan Saunders on what might have been and what has transpired.
All the more credence that elected officials are largely idiots, suckers, cowards, and fools. As for the fans, too bad passion doesn't count as much as pesos.
No, San Antonio is larger than Austin. San Antonio has around 1.2 million people while Austin has about 0.7 million. The two cities are about an hour's drive apart.
the two cities combine an aggregate population of 3.5 million stretching 100 miles from South San Antonio to Georgetown north of Austin along what has become a NAFTA Superhighway with connecting over ten thriving cities of San Antonio, Live Oak, Selma, Schertz, New Braunfels, San Marcos, Kyle, Buda, Austin, Round Rock, and Georgetown. A commuter rail is proposed through the corridor as a practical and cost effective option between the two metropolitan areas. With Austin having no professional sports teams, and only the University of Texas Longhorns to support, I could see an expansion franchise in both cities eventually. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and make a an outrageous assumption without thinking or supporting it with any evidence, but Outside of Los Angeles, IMO Texas has the largest soccer market in the USA with our hispanic population climing to 51% of that of the State's and the soccer mad culture that exists here and has for the past 25+ years
But the big news of the day was SA Mayor Garza's revelation that Lamar Hunt, owner of MLS team FC Dallas, had approached him about forming a professional soccer team in San Antonio. so it's an idea that Lamar Hunt has his eye on San Antonio as his new marketplatz for KC Wizards if he can't find any local KC investors to buy the team
Is there anybody on BigSoccer who doesn't think their city/region/state/whatever is one of the leading soccer hotbeds in America?
I for one don't remember the quote stating Garza had been approached by Hunt. Though, it is a fact that ex-Mayor Garza and Hunt travelled to Monterrey,Mexico to meet with Tigres et al to shop a SA team. Insiste con los Tigres USA (Diarios Rumbo). [Spanish] S.A. could be goal of Kansas City soccer team. [San Antonio Express-News]
Those articles are from 2005 before the political collapse of the San Antone-MLS deal. I would think the Tigres/Hunt connection now is dead in the water because of the political climate in the Alamo City.
My posting of those articles just to show some context as to the ex-Mayor Garza-Hunt-Monterrey connection. I am not sure what quote The Liquidator is referring to. I think TL is referring to the fact that Hunt did have in mind moving KCW to SA via Tigres. I think as far as San Antonio and Tigres, I think that's on terminal hold until an I/O from outside steps up for that market. One thing that did come out of those talks between Hunt and Tigres was the recent FCD-Tigres agreement.