Wolstein sets deadline for new soccer stadium(NCR)

"He said that tickets to a soccer game are apt to be more affordable than other pro sports in Cleveland."

Man. they don't care. Honestly, those f-cking Indians and Browns fans throw down money year after year to see their sh-tty teams. Ah, I hate Cleveland.

I like the idea of Summit County though. Stay out of downtown Cleveland, people.

 

Are you this bitter and hostile in person? Or is it just a result of being a Crew fan and on these boards?

 

Cleveland doesn't look like a sure thing right now. Or maybe Wolstein is just trying to get someone's attention? In any event, the people in OKC and Rochester just perked up.

 

If Mr Wolstein is expecting his statement to cause a public outcry and a huge irresistable wave of support for raising taxes to build a stadium for soccer, he's just wrong.

 

I've been saying all along that this isn't going to happen. I'd rather see Rochester, they've earned it over the years.

 

Mr. Wolstein builds shopping centers all over the country. Too bad he couldn't get interested in a deserving burg like Seattle, Philadelphia or Houston.

 

How is this different from Columbus c1996?

I'll admit that I've only been a "fan" of our boys since '99, but from what I understand, Columbus did NOT have the fan base to warrant a team in the initial founding of the league.

I'm convinced that "if you build it, they will come." If the Sounders played in their own stadium, they would draw more than Garber's 7.5k.

 

Yitbos, au contraire. If I recall correctly, cities that expressed an interest in a MLS frachise had to get petitions (pre season-ticket equivalents) to the decision makers and the Columbus group led in that effort. That's the only reason we even have a Columbus Crew for the league to try and screw over in favor of big market teams.

 

Columbus led all applicants by selling 10,000 season ticket vouchers. I believe this was more than twice the number any other team sold.

It's the main reason why CBus got a team - the New York marketing geniuses who set this up had no desire to put a team in the boondocks. It sounded too small time for them. The 10,000 sold vouchers forced their hand.

Then the mayor, along with the Wolfs, the McConnels and Ron Pizzuti raised two and a half million dollars, went to Lamar Hunt and said "Hey, here ya go. It's all yours if you'll come on board"

It's how deals get done in the big-boy world. Not whining on message boards about how unfair evrything is.

Garber is asking for 7,500 season tickets pledged, by voucher or some other deposit system. That's different from holding out for cities that already draw 7.500 for soccer teams. A LOT different.

Columbus, again, is a good example. When the Xoggz kicked off in 1994, their first game, at Dublin HS, set a USISL (now USL) attendance record. I believe it was just short of 4,000. Their season attendance was second or third in the league for the season. (Some teams cheated and piggy-backed with other events)

And the soccer world took notice. The point was not "Look, Columbus only drew 4,000 so clearly they can't support MLS".

Rather, the lesson was 'Jeez, if they can draw 4,000 for a lousy USISL game on a crap field, they'll surely clean up if the big time comes around"

And they were dead right.

Look too at Rochester; they draw 10,000 for the Rhinos. Darn good for A League but San Jose-esque for MLS.

But that number doesn't indicate the market for MLS; rather, it shows that, if and when the big time comes to town they'll probably do twice that.

So Seattles numbers are fine. What Seattle or Philly or some of the other whiners DON' have is an investor and a plan for a building. And until they do, I'm damned tired of them acting like they're getting ripped off or cheated.

You want a team? Fine, start a campaign, sell 10,000 season ticket vouchers, then go to some of the wealthy city poohbahs and offer to hand it over.

Instead, they all want to come on Big Soccer and whine about how Bart Wolstein, who has lived and worked and owned soccer teams in Cleveland his whole life ought to build an SSS in Philadelphia.

Just absurd to the point of blathering nonsense.

 

Damn, that man has some balls. I like his style. He just told them to s*** or get off the pot. Knowing politicians though, that's probably the end of the matter and MLS needs to make a call to the folks in Rochester.

 

I'd like to think that I'm not bitter or hostile in person. But eh? Who knows?

Well, Peter's met me. Peter you wouldn't categorize me as being overly hostile or bitter, right? A nice and decent kid, right?

Though, when it comes to the Crew, man the bitterness seeps out. I'm sure everyone here can understand that, though.

 

No offense meant to Cleveland, but Cleveland sucks. It's not as bad as Youngstown, but what place is really?

Is Cleveland known as the sock capital of America? I ask that because all four times I've gone to Gund Arena, I've had someone try to sell me tube socks from a shopping cart. Different "salespeople" every time. The carts were always overflowing with tube socks. They were just out in the open. No packaging whatsoever. But they were new tube socks. What the heck is wrong with that city? I don't even wear tube socks!

 

Exactly. There is no support in Northeast Ohio for this project, whether its Cuyahoga or Summit county. Wolstein is "flabbergasted" . . . well so am I. I'm flabbergasted that MLS would give this guy the time of day. Cleveland is not a good market for MLS. I'm glad Wolstein's set a deadline, so we can end this charade and move on. And just so you all know, if by some miracle he's able to pull this off, I'm sticking with the Crew.

 

I really didn't mean to insult Cleveland with my comments that Wolstein should look at other cities. (Seems like there's already enough people insulting Cleveland on this board.) But if he's trying to set deadlines for local governments, then he's probably not gonna be too successful. The people who put together stadium projects for AEG and HSG were always quite careful to work under the radar and not put people on the spot. In my estimation, Cleveland just went down a bunch of notches on the chance-o-meter. Is there really anybody who thinks that Cleveland is a better potential city for MLS than Seattle?

 

What happened to the link?

I've always felt Cleveland was a risky prospect for expansion due to several reasons. First, due to its close proximity to Columbus, I feel it might take away some of the fan base from the Crew... any Ohioans want to confirm on that? Secondly, a town like Cleveland has the majority of its residents die-hard Browns and Indians fans. It would be tough for a new MLS team based in Cleveland to generate early support and fans to keep operations going. That being said, I believe Rochester or the suburbs of Oklahoma City are much better expansion prospects.

 

Don't worry about insulting Cleveland, they can take it. And, is Cleveland a better market than Seattle? NO. Is it better than Portland, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Houston, San Antonio, .... NO. If Wolstein were truely interested in MLS he would invest in a better market than Cleveland. But he's not. He's interested in having someone pay him to develop a parcel of land that he controls in downtown Cleveland. He offered it up for the Browns' stadium 8 years ago, he offered it up for a convention center last year. If he owned land in Seattle, they'd be in.

 

First off you are right about people wanting Bert Wolstein to invest in a MLS team in Philly. This is ridiculous because he is a native Clevelander. You are totally right about that.

But you shouldn't direct your anger at Philly soccer fans and label them whinners. We have a large passionate fan base in and around this city. I don't think that we are getting ripped off or cheated, but some outside help would be nice from AEG or someone else like many of the cities in MLS have benifitted from like LA, New York, Chicago, Colombus, ect.

And saying that we couldn't muster a season ticket drive is incorrect because Philly did sell the amount of tickets to be considered back in '96, but got turned away because of a lack of a good stadium (the Vet sucked, Franklin Field wasn't an option)

Now we are stuck with Eagles owner Jeff Lurie who managed to rape Philly and Pennsylvania tax payers to build the Linc with public funds, promise to attract professional soccer to play in it and turned his back when the league wanted to start a team because of a percieved scheduling conflict with the worst collegiate football program in the country in Temple. It sucks because he is the decision maker on that stadium, and he is one of the cheapest sports owners in professional sports. And don't mention the city government. Mayor Street and his liberal democratic cronies have bankraupted the city, so looking for them to put something together like the folks down in San Antonio would be foolish and disastorous.

Soccer fans here hope that an owner/operator will emerge to put professional soccer back on the Philly landscape. Asking for Bert Wolstein, to do it is unfair.

But don't call us whinners. We want to see soccer grow in this country, and Philly would definitely put a larger footprint on the national soccer scene.

 

I take a back seat to absolutely nobody when it comes to disliking Cleveland. I live right here in NE Ohio, I know a lot more about the place than most of you and I can't wait for the day when I see this foul sewer in my rear view mirror for the last time.

That said, everybody can stop saying that Seattle or Philly or Portland or whomever is a "better candidate" for a team than Cleveland.

It's simply untrue. Cleveland even supports indoor soccer to an amazing degree. Has for years. It's as good a soccer town as anyplace else you can name.

Whether Mr Wolstein can browbeat some money out of the local government, like EVERYBODY ELSE does when they start one of these things, remains to be seen. Wolstein is no dope, has been involved in local affairs for decades and knows exactly what he's doing. He's working every angle he can to try and get this project done.

Name for me the party or parties in those wonderful soccer meccas of Seattle and Philly and wherever who are out trying as hard as he is. The guys' a billionaire developer who's been down these roads a hundred times.

 

Is he a billionaire?