This Colorado deal REALLY has me pissed off. Dallas, with the lowest attendance in the league, gets a SSS. Colorado just announced a deal. METRODONKEYS are getting their own stadium! Mr. Williams, I was there on opening day, along with 24K others. I fully expect you to live up to your announcement. Screw baseball - we're here NOW.
/me sighs. Did you really expect a politician to be honest? I hope we dont get baseball especially so Tony Williams has to grovel to MLS, and promise them lots of money for a good stadium.
Why would he grovel, when he can just force us to continue to squeeze DC for rent at RFK a few more seasons?
On second thought, we've danced with DC for far too long. KP needs to make a deal outside the city and leave RFK to rot. Screw Williams, screw baseball. It's simply unconscionable that this team will one of the last in the league (if ever) to get its own stadium. I don't know if the front office hasn't been trying hard enough, but it seems to me that if the team with the lowest attendance in the league can get a stadium, we're either not trying hard enough or we're not smart enough.
I wouldnt worry about it, it seems the modus operendi for MLS is to wait till it disinfranches all of its current fans in a given locale BEFORE building a stadium...see Dallas..
Like to Hartford???? They have a very nice stadium: Of course the Hartford fans on the MLS expansion threads are hoping for San Jose to fill it...but it is (with the exception of no roof) beautiful, isn't it?
i would love for DC United to goto the 'burbs (MD, VA i dont care) and then for MLB to move the Expos anywhere but DC. It'll serve Tony that he'll only have Abe left in the city
Here's what I wrote on the "stadium (lack of) progress thread: Hey, we're once again part of an elite group of four in MLS. Last week we were one of four MLS teams to be upset by an A-League team in the Open Cup, now we're one of the Final Four of MLS teams without a SSS, joining New England, San Jose and KC. And, based on the noise coming out of San Jose, the Quakes will either get a new SSS in the Bay area or leave town altogether for a market that will give them a SSS so I suspect they'll be taken care of before DC. So, that leaves three and I wouldn't put it past old man Hunt to build the Wiz a SSS or downgrade Kauffman Stadium if the Royals get new digs in downtown KC. While it's easy to blame the Mayor and the sleazeballs at the DC Sports Commission, I'm afraid much of the blame here goes to DC United's front office. What to the Galaxy, Burn, Fire, MetroStars and Rapids have in common with their soccer specific stadia? They built 'em in the burbs. That's apparently a hard concept for the folks in United's front office to get a handle on because we never here ANY talk (save for a squelched rumor about College Park) about United going anywhere outside DC. Apparently instead of being proactive and forcing the Mayor and the DCSC to come to the table with an offer by leveraging the suburbs against DC, let alone just taking the suburban offer if they got one, DCU's plan is to be reactive and hope the good folks of the District will take time out of their Captain Ahab-like obsession with baseball and build DCU a SSS. Yeah, that's gonna happen; good plan Mr. Payne. The simple cold fact is that DC United has never given the city any incentive to offer anything but the status quo because United's (mis)management has never forced the issue. Do you think the folks in Frisco, Carson, Bridgeview, Harrison and Commerce City initiated contact with the respective teams in that market or do you think those teams went out and made a case for a partnership? And, even if those teams didn't take the initiative with the suburbs, that still doesn't mean DCU shouldn't because they are getting nothing but lip-service from the Mayor and the DCSC. I'd like to put all the blame for this on the Mayor and his cronies. But, given the way the front office has bungled the team ON the field the past five years - one playoff appearance, countless bad trades, bad draft picks, bad doctors, bad signings, poor cap management and an inability to fill the roster with the maximum number of players allowed - I have no reason to think that the team is without blame in not forcing the stadium issue with the District. So, go ahead and blame the Mayor and his pals if you like but, that's like blaming the coaching staff when the team is poorly assembled and its the same person ultimately in charge of both and failing to deliver.
Sandon, spot on. If anyone ever thought any donkey DC politician would ever follow through on anything other than wiping his a$$ after taking a dump -- shame on you!
Sandon those facts aren't entirely accurate, I know how the process has unfolded and I know at one time there was a very concrete "suburban option" and there was a reaction from DC government and stadium people. I certainly don't know all the details or am free to share the few I do happen to know but that analysis simply doesn't capture the entire process. Beyond that, working with certain suburban jurisdictions in this area isn't necessarily more satisfying than working with the district.
Maybe DC is the MLS team rumored to be relocating, and that's why there's never any progress on the stadium front. Just look at the "facts". Total roster mismanagement. Baseball likely in DC. Fan base alienation. Slooooow progress on a stadium when you would have thought the champs 3 of the first 4 seasons would be the first in line to get one. Anschutz has been rumored to be selling DC, also. The one thing we have going for us is that Freddy's Mom want's him to play at home, but the league could take him to any city and he'd be an instant attraction to build a team around in an expansion city. He'd be there for 2 or three years, then off to Europe. And The Bruce lives in the area. You'd never get a United fan to attend any sort of USMNT game at RFK or FedEx if they pulled the team. I'm only half joking with this post. It wouldn't be that far out of the realm of possibility for MLS to pull a fast one like this. I don't want to take this thread too far off topic, so if this seems likely to happen, please feel free to move this post. After all, it is just wild, substansiated conjecture on my part. Thx, Jay!
Jay: Anything - and I mean anything - is possible in MLS. I would not put money down on such a scenario playing out, and I'm a fairly unconservative gambler. But, in the next 2-3 years of this league, I'll believe anything I see. Sandon: Very well said. Like or hate baseball, it is not baseball's fault that DCU doesn't have an SSS. And if United were relying on Mayor Williams to come through in the clutch, I think it's fair to say on many fronts, they should have known better long ago.
FYI to the powers that be, that may happen upon this thread! Revelation will do a Tom Presthus if DC United is ever "relocated" from the DC Metropolitan Area! Take that to the bank! In addition, I will make it my personal mission to make MLS fail! Have a nice F******* day!
Word to the fullest. I will dance on the carcass of MLS should they take our United from us. They will know we are DC UNITED when we lay our vengeance upon them.
Don't even joke like this. Just thinking about this happening could plunge me into the pit of despair.
A. DC is heavily subsidized. B. If DC wants representation so bad, join up w/ Maryland or VA. It's not some sort of violation of people's rights simply because they can't have a tiny state that would have unbelievably disproportional clout due to its small size. Everyone who moved there knew it wasn't a state when they came there. A tired argument. NO ONE in the rest of the country wants to hear it.
Screw the idiots in the rest of the country. Besides, you're a day to late. We already had pages and pages of discussions about this yesterday in the DC baseball thread. Now go back to Detroilet!
The "subsidy" is a Payment in Lieu of Taxes and that amount is far smaller than what DC would get if the federal land in the District--which is significant--could be taxed. There's more people in DC than Wyoming, yet Wyoming gets 2 Senators and a Representative and no one's trying to make them part of Colorado. And, like, some people don't move here. They're born here.