Tampa Stadium Development

This should probably be in the Expansion and Stadiums forum, but regardless, I hope the stadium gets built and an investor steps forward. If they do, it would be a good opportunity for MLS to return to Florida.

 

too lazy to look up a map....Ajax Orlando perhaps could get involved...Or is that too far from Tampa?

 

It would be great to have a team in Tampa again and Miami for that matter. That is good news and an opportunity for Ajax to get involved since they have a local team. Although, I would love to see the Mutiny back but that is wishful thinking.

 

Go, Rowdies!

 

perhaps Ajax Orlando could stay as a feeding team to a Tampa franchise,

Tampa is about an 1 hour 20 minutes drive from Orlando

 

Good luck getting an expansion franchise. The Rowdies Redux?

 

It would surprise me if, assuming the stadium gets built, Tampa let a professional team use it unless they paid a stiff rent and let the city keep the ancillary revenues. And if they do that, there isn't much incentive for MLS to return there. You can't ask the taxpayers to subsidize an amateur sports complex for millions of dollars and then immediately turn around and offer a sweetheart deal to a professional team. Not a professional soccer team, anyway.

 

Hey, I miss the Rowdies. Especially Rodney Marsh, the Clown Prince of Soccer.

 

my very first MLS game was a Mutiny game. it would be great to get a team in Florida again. especially since we don't have any teams in the entire southeast....

 

I for one would love to see the Mutiny come back to MLS and Florida get an MLS side back as well. I hope this stadium does come and when the Metros make their return to Tampa I shall make a trip to visit friends and catch a game.

 

Heh. During West Brom's first Premiership season, the crowd sang (to the tume of Clementine)

Where's your lipstick
Where's your lipstick
Where's your lipstick, Rodney Marsh?
You're a one-eyed cockney bastard
and you're talking out your arse.

He'd compared West Brom's signings that year as "like putting lipstick on a pig". Shame he was right, really.

 

You're absolutely wrong, that's "business as usual" when it comes to pro sports:

www.fieldofschemes.com

 

Aren't they planning this on the wrong side of Tampa to make any sense at all?

 

What kind of stadium will $40 million get? Especially since there'll be other things built with that money? CCS cost $28 mil, and using today's figures, would've cost near $40 mil. Frisco planned to build a bleacher grandstand high school stadium for $23 million before they were approached with PHP.

 

i would say labor , land is cheeper in Florida then Columbus or anywhere else. Just get non union workers and they will do it for half the cost.

 

Land in Florida is generally more expensive than land in Ohio. Of course all land prices vary by location.

 

I'm convinced that summer in Florida is no place for soccer. Bad enough MLS is in Texas -- in fact most of the US has a summer that just cooks the game: broiled, baked or steamed.

I'm also convinced that MLS could run a winter Florida league to keep players in shape and try out players for the regular season (until it comes to its senses and has enough SS stadiums to play a split season into winter).

I wish we could have an 8-team Florida League that plays from December to March, with teams located in Tampa, Jacksonville, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Orlando, the Treasure Coast, etc. Maybe if such a league were part of MLS it would have enough cache' to draw fans, especially if it had TV coverage on FSC and the Deuce.

Just a thought -- or maybe more like a dream.

 

You raise a good point. The weather in Florida is more conducive to playing on the EPL timetable than the MLS timetable. Back in my playing days we played late August through May. June, July and most of August were for indoor soccer. It was potential deadly, especially for weekend warriors, to be out in the summer sun.

One of America's problems is that it's geographic diversity is both a boon and a curse. Texas, most of California, and Florida, which are three of the biggest population centers, it's just too damned hot to play soccer in the summer. And that's just speaking for the players. Not too many Floridians want to sit out on a mid July evening unless it's down by the beach somewhere. Meanwhile, in places like New York, Boston, Chicago and Washington DC there's really no way you could play through the winter, and even the spring is highly unpredictable.

 

I think the heat problem could be solved by keeping the games at night except perhaps for an April or late September ESPN2-friendly 4 p.m. game.

But an offseason Florida league isn't a bad idea. Really no different in concept from some of the offseason baseball leagues. Perhaps it'd be a fun way to give the reserves some more interesting, better attended games.

I remember when MLS did "Spring Training" in Florida, but it's a little frustrating to follow MLS teams in preseason because the teams are auditioning so many people. Not that I'd do any differently if I were coaching with an eye on the big picture, but it's just not conducive to fan support.

Hmmm ... an offseason reserve league in Florida, maybe another one in Texas or California ... low travel costs ... winners meet in a championship game ... hmmm ...

 

What might do well here is to have Reserve/Development teams, with young talent, that play against each other AND have tournaments with similar squads for well known Central American teams or youth teams.

 

Not a bad idea. I think most of your talent would have to come from MLS reserve squads and USL players who aren't playing indoor. It could be a place to try to attract interest from USL 1 and MLS clubs. Travel costs could be kept down by using buses. I would figure a 3,000 average attendance and minimal costs for playing in high school stadiums. You'd have to pay some sort of salary but it would be maybe at the most $2,000 a month. Three months might be the most to start out with but two might be better. It wouldn't make a lot of money but then it probably wouldn't lose a lot either. Somebody should do a cost analysis.