Oh, you think that he might get a share of the revenue streams? Well, in that case, that's as good as FCD at Pizza Hut Park, a venue where I know that HSG gets all of the revenue streams.
It's really only 4 or 5 guys that don't even live within 30 minutes of downtown making all the claims for Qwest Field. I think you'll find most reasonable MLS fans based in the city would prefer to have a privately financed SSS that wouldn't involve plastic turf, football lines, 45k empty seats, and being second fiddle to an NFL football team.
Get back to us when you have an actual sell-out at the barren, distant profit-machine of yours. [insert players diving all over the field in hooped kits here] And, how exactly did your club BURN MLS in the first place? Oh...you had investors who wanted to start a team and the league was willing to let you do it at the Cotton Bowl. How handy for you.
You do realize that the Dallas franchise was a hair's breath away from being contracted, right? And the only reason it wasn't is because somebody (LH, rip) stepped in with a solution to the "Cotton Bowl situation," right? You do understand the point right? The point that the same people who were "willing to let us do it at the Cotton Bowl" were the same people ready to pull the plug, right? Because....well, you see.....it didn't work. Evidently not, since you're seemingly pointing to the early Dallas near-contraction situation as the very situation that you'd like to see in Seattle. Or do I not have that right?
Garber, 2007: Seattle remains one of our true priority markets...The right deal in a football stadium (think Gillette) can work temporarily as we develop plans on a soccer-specific stadium***. And that's a plan that might make sense for us in Seattle. ***We gets us a team, see...then we pulls the old switcheroo and keeps them at Qwest, see. Yeah, likes that, see...
Don't tell 'em da plan Lenny......... Da boss ain't ready yet.....See! They'll never know what hit 'em......he he......dat boss...he's smart see.......
It's perfectly clear. SSS give teams a better shot at being profitable. I am sorry that mismanagement and poor attendance doomed the Burn in the general Dallas area. It's great they found a way to get a stadium. So? How many times do we have to point out how completely different the Qwest Field situation is and can be? The only possible comparison would be that the stadiums are large. Other than that, not much else. Our billionaire and millionaire investors have done their MLS business model using Qwest, with contracts and shared concessions and revenue dates, and with the heavy cooperation of the stadium authority they believe they have a plan that will allow for a successful ,competitive team. Do you think they've spent all the time and money to craft a plan with absolutely no NUMBERS behind it? That they just want a club NOW, dammit? That's far from Hanauer's conservative M-O. Roth I don't know about. Are you arguing that they are wrong, or that the league should not take their money and award them a club, or both? (See my signature. He said that to a fan yesterday, and he is not on drugs, or a raving lunatic. However, he HAS run a pro soccer team at Qwest for 5 seasons already.) I get the doubting it can work part. I don't get the absolute sacred belief that it is doomed to fail part.
[emphasis added] I love how you highlighted in red the part that reduces your whole "Qwest as a long-term solution" fixation to nothing more than meandering, hopeful gibberish. You know, the part that emphasizes Qwest as temporary and only a quick fix until a SSS is built. And even given those conditions it only "might" make sense? How odd. Wouldn't that be a slam dunk? Evidently not. I guess MLS is looking at a bit more than just your potential ownership's ability to plonk down a franchise fee, eh?
So it is the height of arrogance (or is it just dumb?) to observe and take into account all the MLS teams that have gone from big-stadium situations, moving toward the SSS model, and to simply classify the need for doing so the organizations' prior "mismanagement and poor attendance."
Who said they aren't are shouldn't? I am arguing against this ridiculous 'only one possible way to expand successfully in each market' crap that has been going on. According to Adrian Hanauer, Qwest-lover, he's "Fairly confident" about the Roth/Hanauer Qwest bid. At Qwest. Long term.*** [please get up off the floor. Must every Dallas supporter dive when they don't get their way?] ***I'd love an SSS plan. Yep, I sure would, It's a must. Just ask Houston, San Jose...
Each situation is different, in each city, for each team. That is true for expansion hopefuls and current clubs. To apply some general trend as singular gospel is dumb. To not notice that SSS are helping is also dumb. I notice. Our investors are noticing. And?
We had one on July 31, for what that's worth. And I'm not sure how you manage to turn "surrounded by 17 soccer fields" into "barren," but I'm glad they're profitable playing in Frisco instead of out of business playing two miles east of downtown Dallas. [Insert players wearing advertisements for shady subprime lenders chopping down more skilled opponents.] Check the calendar. It's 2007, not 1995.
It's very important that any new teams that come into MLS have sound long-term business plans and add to the league profit margin, not become a drain to it. It is interesting how so many BS posters seem to fear that MLS will make some 'big mistake' in the next expansion round if Seattle comes in at Qwest, and stays there. Wouldn't Garber and MLS have to be even *more* convinced of that kind of plan being able to work before they'd sign off on it? For the record re: the current lead Seattle bid... Joe Roth, studio exec and big money investor, is open to the idea of an SSS, so he says in the PS Biz Journal a few weeks ago. Adrian Hanauer doesn't talk as much about it (SSS). Then again, he's in negotiations with Qwest for a sweetheart lease deal, and may not want to appear that he's putting pressure on Qwest via the press.
I too was at the game on July 31st.. not sure what he's talking about. We've had some really well attended games including our last home game. Oh and as was said already, way to bring up how Dallas joined the league 11 years ago when the league was new and didn't have near the base it does now. This isn't 96 were the league has to take any ole team with some cash available.
While I have acknowledged the league's need to move into a new pattern of expansion (making sure of longterm business strategies, which may or may not mean SSS) you are not even remotely addressing the double standards alive within MLS even today, in cities far-less soccer friendly than Seattle. Dallas were given a chance to be in the league, in a big stadium, because they had ownership money. At least admit that you were lucky then, and it sucks for others now if MLS doesn't give new expansion hopefuls the same (not better, just the same) chance and treatment as the Burn, Crew, United, Galaxy, et al got. As a follower of MLS from a non-MLS city, I believe to this day that Dallas has been an underachiever both in the stands and on the pitch. However, this thread is about Qwest. I believe the ownership group, city of Seattle, and the stadium already in place would be an asset to the league, not a liability.
You're missing the point again. MLS isn't a charity or a government organization and it isn't required to give any city that doesn't meet it's criteria a chance. It's not 1996 and times have changed.I don't know why this is so hard for you to understand? The business plan has changed and it doesn't include long term tenancy in an NFL stadium.
Round and round and round and round we go. I think that a number of the anti-Qwest/anti-Seattle fans are ignoring some of the specifics that makes Seattle different from Houston or DC. On the other hand, a couple of the most ardent Seattle supporters (and you know who you are) are sticking their heads in the sand and refusing to see what are valid points about any type of long term plan that includes Qwest, and in the process, making the supporters of a Seattle club look like idiots by association. If the two factions refuse to change, can we just lock this thread and any other Seattle thread, until we get concrete news about the Seattle plan?
There are a number of cities that are still lucky to have a MLS team. Dallas, Denver, Kansas City--those were all candidates for what happened to Miami and Tampa. And yes, many teams were lucky to be included in the initial 10 MLS teams. I have no idea why Seattle was left out but I understand it was considered. But here's the "sucks to be you" part--the fact that MLS made a number of stupid blunders in their early years does not entitle Seattle to have those same blunders repeated. That's not even close to being logical. I firmly believe that it was the SSS's that saved the league and MLS would probably not exist today if they were still trying to make it with 15k average crowds in 60k+ NFL stadiums. Even billionaires hate to keep throwing money down a rathole.
I think the fact that that this basic logic is overlooked so quickly by some has led to the tone of this thread. It's like arguing the earth is flat and then ignoring all the evidence to the contrary but justifying that position by saying it must be true because someone told you so. Old and Busted - Scientology | The New Hotness - NFL Stadium Proponets
Jason, we shouldn't just go and arbitrarily lock Seattle threads. We still talk about the Sounders on here, too. After reading the pros and cons, my analysis is this: there are two sides that simply do not understand each other. On one side we have the experience, which is kinda like parental guidance telling the kid not to step in a pit full of mud. On the other side you have the exuberant kid who feels like they can jump over the pit and not get dirty. Is that a decent analogy? As far as those that are telling us to forget about NASL and our soccer tradition... didn't the greatest player of all time come out of retirement for the NASL? Didn't some of the greatest of ALL TIME play in the NASL? Yeah, I guess that is easily forgotten. *scratches head* At least look it up on Wikipedia or do some other research before sticking your nose in the thick of it (not that I am not guilty of the same thing most of the time).
I have no doubt MLS would love to be in Seattle but if Philly and St.Louis pass the SSS plans and apparently that could happen shortly, I would think Seattle gets put on the back burner again. That would give the league the 16 teams they were looking for by 2010. The Qwest plan will lose if its a choice between that and SSS in Philly and St. Louis.
As others have pointed out, the Dallas Burn were a league-run team from 1996 until 2002. That said, they had a leg-up in that they had a World Cup stadium and a Dallas-based league owner (Lamar Hunt) advocating for Dallas' inclusion. Seattle got the same chance in 1994 and 1995 that every one of the original 10 markets got. Unfortunately for them, they had neither a suitable venue -- even with the looser standards that existed then -- nor a local ownership group. Sucks for them that were neither willing nor able to join the league under those conditions. Now their proposed entry into the league gets scrutinized under the conditions that exist in 2007. Leaving aside the fact that Dallas was an underfunded, league-run team for the majority of its history, your insulting prattle seems to neglect that the Dallas market, which you seem to imply is inferior to Seattle, has managed to support Major League Soccer in concrete ways that Seattle has never managed to do. We've had a team for 12 seasons. We've built a stadium for that team. What has Seattle done, except run its collective yap about how they're such a great market for soccer? And as for on the pitch, we've won silverware. We're near the top of the all-time wins list. We've made the playoffs 10 out of 12 years, which is matched by only one other team. We made the playoffs seven consecutive seasons from 1996 to 2002, a streak which to date has been bettered by only the Galaxy's 10 straight appearances from 1996 to 2005. We're one of the top three teams in the pro history of the US Open Cup. No, we've never won the MLS Cup nor the Supporters Shield, but we'll get them. Besides, I don't need them to validate my support of FCD nor to take pride in them. A really nice NFL stadium. Well, two out of three ain't bad.