North American Pro Soccer 2018

[4_tattoos]

DC United fans haven't been thrilled to hear that the XFL will be coming to Audi Field.

[Gothamite]

I don’t blame them.

 

They had to play in somebody else’s home for years.   Now they have their own, and they have to share.  The fans won’t get a cut of whatever the XFL is paying, they just see that their ownership doesn’t care enough to make DCU the only priority. 

[TBGKon]

2 hours ago, Gothamite said:

I don’t blame them.

 

They had to play in somebody else’s home for years.   Now they have their own, and they have to share.  The fans won’t get a cut of whatever the XFL is paying, they just see that their ownership doesn’t care enough to make DCU the only priority. 

The league will own the teams, so DCU is likely just the host of the XFL team.

[Gothamite]

15 minutes ago, AstroBull21 said:

The league will own the teams, so DCU is likely just the host of the XFL team.

 

Oh, I know that.  But the DCU fans I know are pretty pissed off that, after all this time, they have to share their shiny new stadium with a third-rate interloper.  And for what?  A couple lousy dollars in rent.

 

Unless that rent money goes directly into the club — a DP salary or improvements to the stadium — they will see it as ownership selling the club short.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

43 minutes ago, Gothamite said:

 

Oh, I know that.  But the DCU fans I know are pretty pissed off that, after all this time, they have to share their shiny new stadium with a third-rate interloper.  And for what?  A couple lousy dollars in rent.

 

Unless that rent money goes directly into the club — a DP salary or improvements to the stadium — they will see it as ownership selling the club short.

 

And they're right. That beautiful field is going to be destroyed for garbage football.

 

I'm annoyed as a Sounders fan too. Hopefully they can flip weeks without issue, but if we see XFL football lines on the field during Sounders matches, I'm going to flip my lid.

[Crabcake]

44 minutes ago, Gothamite said:

 

Oh, I know that.  But the DCU fans I know are pretty pissed off that, after all this time, they have to share their shiny new stadium with a third-rate interloper.  And for what?  A couple lousy dollars in rent.

 

Unless that rent money goes directly into the club — a DP salary or improvements to the stadium — they will see it as ownership selling the club short.

 

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

17 hours ago, 4_tattoos said:

DC United fans haven't been thrilled to hear that the XFL will be coming to Audi Field.

 

3 hours ago, Gothamite said:

I don’t blame them.

 

They had to play in somebody else’s home for years.   Now they have their own, and they have to share. 

 

29 minutes ago, DG_Now said:

And they're right. That beautiful field is going to be destroyed for garbage football.

 

Putting aside the gratuitous and unfounded "garbage football" comment (note that the original XFL had consistently good games by the middle of the season), is there any reason to believe that the new DC United stadium's field will be "destroyed" by the XFL team?  Have the Argonauts destroyed the field at Toronto FC's ground?  Have the Chargers destroyed the field at the Galaxy's ground?

[Jer15]

38 minutes ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

 Have the Argonauts destroyed the field at Toronto FC's ground?  Have the Chargers destroyed the field at the Galaxy's ground?

 

There were a number of complaints that the field was in bad shape after the 2016 Grey Cup game and that effected the 2016 MLS Cup.

 

Sebastian Giovinco continues to complain that there is too much wear on the field and that it is a contributing factor to injuries.Ownership had to lay a completely new field in May last year because it was in bad shape and the new hybrid is being installed now. 

 

It's been a big problem in BMO. 

 

https://www.sportsnet.ca/football/cfl/mlse-upgrade-bmo-field-playing-surface-mounting-complaints/ 

[dfwabel]

https://www.nbc4i.com/news/local-news/officials-announce-location-of-columbus-crew-sc-s-new-stadium/1643114561

 

 

Quote

Officials announced that the future home of the Columbus Crew SC will be in the Arena District. At a news conference Thursday, officials said the new  $230 million, 20,000-seat capacity soccer stadium will be part of the 33 acre Confluence Village, just west of Huntington Park in the Arena District. 

 

The Columbus Partnership, along with a local ownership group led by Pete Edwards, Jr. and Dee and Jimmy Haslam, in partnership with city, county and state officials, and with the backing of Crew SC supporters, have formed an alliance to meet the year-end deadline set by Major League Soccer to complete the purchase of Crew SC.

Confluence Village also will include 885 residential units with a minimum of 20% affordable units, and 270,000 sq. ft. of private commercial and office space that can accommodate up to 1,300 employees.

 

The City, county and new ownership are working toward a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to solidify the details of the sale of the team, a new soccer stadium and the repurposing of MAPFRE Stadium.

 

Mayor Ginther and Columbus City Council announced on Wednesday that part of plan must include transforming MAPFRE Stadium into the Columbus Community Sports Park after the new stadium is near completion. The shared-use center would include an indoor soccer field and basketball courts, tournament-level outdoor athletic fields and programming spaces for multigenerational activities.

 

[DG_ThenNowForever]

I hope they get it done and that people show up to the new stadium.

[Digby]

Me too, but I do not like the precedent of abandoning a stadium at 20 years old. At least the original wasn't public funding (I don't think).

[DG_ThenNowForever]

6 minutes ago, Digby said:

Me too, but I do not like the precedent of abandoning a stadium at 20 years old. At least the original wasn't public funding (I don't think).

 

Yes, but MAPFRE is kind of a special case, isn't it? It was built to show that soccer specific stadia in the United States were possible and aged dramatically compared to the other stadiums that followed. MAPFRE is kind of a glorified high school football field, complete with far too many bleacher seats for a professional venue.

 

MAPFRE is an important part of American soccer history, both for club soccer, my hometown Rochester Raging Rhinos, and the US men's team. But it's also garbage. Time to move on.

 

EDIT:

Not nice:

 

Nice:

[Gothamite]

10 minutes ago, Digby said:

Me too, but I do not like the precedent of abandoning a stadium at 20 years old.

 

Baseball abandons ballparks that are twenty years old.  The NFL abandons stadiums when they get to be 20 years old.  This is Major League Soccer finally taking its place among the great sports leagues of our day.

[MJWalker45]

Refusing to keep up basic maintenance speeds up that aging process too. The stadium isn't going away though. It'll still be used by the teams and community so there's a bit more life in it yet to come. 

[BigRed618]

I never understood that. You spend all this money to build a stadium, and then a couple decades later spend even more money to demolish it, and then drop even more to build the next stadium to get bored with 20 years later! 

 

Wrigley Field in Chicago stood for over 100 years. I don’t hear anyone from the Cubs crying about a new stadium. 

[dfwabel]

6 hours ago, MJWalker45 said:

Refusing to keep up basic maintenance speeds up that aging process too. The stadium isn't going away though. It'll still be used by the teams and community so there's a bit more life in it yet to come. 

Capital Improvements always takes preference over Deferred Maintenance.

 

Sport venue operators think of the "WOW factor" first and most everything else second. That's a budgeting decision and accounting tool.

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

23 minutes ago, BigRed618 said:

I never understood that. You spend all this money to build a stadium, and then a couple decades later spend even more money to demolish it, and then drop even more to build the next stadium to get bored with 20 years later! 

 

Wrigley Field in Chicago stood for over 100 years. I don’t hear anyone from the Cubs crying about a new stadium. 

 

You say "you spend all this money to build a stadium"; but the problem is that the teams aren't spending anything, as the stadiums are being funded by municipalities and county governments.

 

As a result, a team's owner has no hesitation about saying "Our twenty-year-old [publicly-funded] stadium is no longer state-of-the-art, so we're going to need a new [publicly-funded] stadium".

[MJWalker45]

39 minutes ago, BigRed618 said:

I never understood that. You spend all this money to build a stadium, and then a couple decades later spend even more money to demolish it, and then drop even more to build the next stadium to get bored with 20 years later! 

 

Wrigley Field in Chicago stood for over 100 years. I don’t hear anyone from the Cubs crying about a new stadium. 

Probably because of the time that when Boston discussed replacing Fenway the fans all but rioted. Eventually those two teams will decide that it's easier to build a new stadium, but as long as they aren't on the hook to fix them 100% on their own they can kick that can down the road. Even Penn State has had discussions about replacing their current football stadium, but having to lose about 20,000 seats just to get better view lines isn't something they want to lose. 

[dfwabel]

1 hour ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

 

You say "you spend all this money to build a stadium"; but the problem is that the teams aren't spending anything, as the stadiums are being funded by municipalities and county governments.

 

As a result, a team's owner has no hesitation about saying "Our twenty-year-old [publicly-funded] stadium is no longer state-of-the-art, so we're going to need a new [publicly-funded] stadium".

THIS!

Team owners make sure that the lease makes it public's responsibility for facility maintenance, meanwhile they keep the revenue.

 

Local stadium authorities are bound by certain items/measures which typically F the taxpayers.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

I'll always love EJ and those two amazing years he had in Seattle:

 

Clint and Oba were a better choice than Eddie Johnson and Mauro Rosales. All of those strikers were more consistent than Jordan Morris though.