As the expansion talk for the MLS continues to grow in light of the upcoming season, something came to my attention that caused me to think. For any city submitting a proposal to be home to an MLS team, plans to build a soccer specific-stadium is a concrete must to even truly be considered. Along side that, many teams who are playing in the MLS now either have, have plans to, or are having friction with their home city about building a soccer-specific stadium.
On the surface, a team having it’s own stadium, built specifically to host the beautiful game is a good thing for the individual teams. It saves them paying rent in a football or baseball (or even, horrifically, both) stadium. Of course, this allows the franchise to be more financially independent which is a huge thing. It also gives the team a true home game, and a place the fans can own (in an atmospheric sense) and be proud of. All of these are positives, and I believe the day will come that when all MLS teams are filling stadiums that are their own.
What has been giving me pause about this whole situation is 1) the fact that a soccer specific stadium is a requirement for entry into the league and 2) the bickering between teams and the cities that love them (i.e. – DC United). The small part of me that pauses at this sees this issue as one way that this country has moved this sport away from those that actually play it, and yet another reason why this sport hasn’t caught on like the other major sports. In every other country in the world this game has it’s roots in the streets and the alleyways and love and fervor was built from the lower class up. The fact that it is now also the most profitable sport in the world, and can fill the huge stadiums that it does is because it had stayed in touch with those roots for so long, or at least until TV advertising rights became an issue. But that was long after the game was enormously popular across the globe. In the USA it has traditionally been a middle/upper class sport. It takes money to play soccer in this country. This has been noticed in many different forms (go here to see part 1 and part 2 of an ESPN report linking this exact concept and the racial demographic of the national team system). The MLS, having been born only recently and in the midst of this culture of soccer and money, is now making it a requirement of even entering the league. The debate now raging between DC and United is particularly annoying manifestation of this idea because it could cause the team to move out of DC. I’ve been to games at RFK and I’ll make 2 observations about it. The first is that it isn’t exactly an ideal venue for watching soccer. But the second is that the DC fans OWNED that stadium. It was a home for that team that the fans made their own and turned into an intimidating place to come play and one hell of a place to experience a game. I really see it as unfair to a group of fans like those who support DC United to move their team away from them like that so that they could have a bright shiny soccer-specific stadium that those fans who have supported United for so long would now have to bend over backwards to get to. As long as that stadium is safe and usable, I think you owe it to the fans to keep the team in DC, even if you can’t get a new stadium built in town.
RFK Stadium in Washington, DC
I’d just like to see the fact that there ARE soccer supportive populations out there in places where a new stadium isn’t in the cards acknowledged. I know that places like Portland, Miami, Vancouver and other cities who are putting everything they can to get a stadium as part of an expansion bid could support a team even without one. It just saddens the idealist in me that, once again, it all comes back to the money.
UPDATE: I do want to admit that in thinking back, MLS allowed Seattle to move forward with an expansion team despite the fact that they are sharing a stadium with the Seattle Seahawks. I would like to point out that I do feel that the financial swagger presented by the inclusion of Paul Allen, and the celebrity of the inclusion of Drew Carrey added something to that bid that would have made it seem silly to turn them down even if they weren’t planning on building a stadium specifically for the Sounders.
Way to steal a header image, jackass.
By: War on February 22, 2009
at 3:02 pm
Is there something you’d like me to know?
By: cuvintu on February 22, 2009
at 6:58 pm
Each sneer from the concessionaires and security at RFK Stadium convinces me again that United is better off in an actual home, rather than the dump the District slumlords over us.
By: Stan on February 22, 2009
at 9:41 pm
Fair enough Stan, especially coming from someone who sounds like they live in the DC area and regularly attends games…am I right? My only real bone of contention is the idea that the soccer-specific stadium disagreement would then see the team moved out of DC, off the metro lines, and up into Maryland. It feels like an awful lot to ask of the fans who have been so faithful. But, like I said in the article, I completely see the merits of teams having their own stadiums, and want to see the day when soccer is given it’s due in that aspect…it just made me think.
By: cuvintu on February 22, 2009
at 11:36 pm
Sorry it took so long to respond. Yes, I am a season ticket holder.
I should say that I live in Maryland, and so the supposed new stadium sites are not any less convenient to me (slightly further by Metro, slightly closer by car). The team is putting a big premium on Metro. In their official “Frequently Asked Questions” about it here:
http://www.behindthebadge.com/2009/02/dc-united-stadium-proposal-faq.php
They say that they expect 40% of the fans to come by Metro (which they need, because they want a small and possibly shared parking lot).
That said, I do think the stadium is moving in the “wrong” direction (east) if we had a choice. (In the perfect world it would move north-west of where RFK is). RFK was East of most of the fanbase to begin with.
I’m not one to get wrapped around the axle about what political jurisdiction it’s in, and I don’t think the fans will either, unless the new stadium proves significantly harder to get to than the old (some of the sites are supposed to be within 5 miles of RFK, so that wouldn’t necessarily add so much trouble).
By: Stan on February 24, 2009
at 5:39 pm
As long as the new site is in the city, I have no problem with it. As long as it’s accessible by DC’s own metro system I really don’t have a problem with it. But the last I heard the stadium was to be moved up into Maryland, PG county somewhere, as a retribution for them not being able to come to a deal about an undeveloped piece of land along the Anacostia. I just want to see the DC fans given their due rather than abandoned for some shiny new digs.
By: cuvintu on February 25, 2009
at 4:24 pm
PS – thanks for the link to the FAQ’s, you’re right, they do place an emphasis on staying with the metro, which I like. But returning to my point in the article about moving soccer away from the fans and toward the money, I saw that they were also placing an emphasis on the fancy stadium amenities that most average fans can’t afford:
“The majority of Major League Soccer teams play in soccer-specific stadiums, which are the appropriate size and include suites, club seats, and high-level hospitality areas. RFK has none of these amenities.”
“The stadium will feature 50-55 suites, 1,000 club seats, a full service premium client lounge,…”
I’m willing to admit I was wrong about United moving away from it’s fan base geographically speaking, but I feel like I was still pretty close about them moving away from their fans in general.
By: cuvintu on February 25, 2009
at 4:31 pm
Don’t forget San Jose on the stadium front, either. The league badly wanted the Quakes back, so they lifted the requirement to have a SSS in place before starting up. Last I heard, Lew Wolff had binned his plan to build a $110M 22k palace (to be paid for by a housing development… at least prior to last summer!) and is now looking at the economics of a 15-18k no frills job that he hopes to be able to build for $65M. You wonder about the viability of the Stl stadium project for the same reasons.
The stadium boom of the last decade or so was driven largely by real interest rates that hovered around 1%. With the exception of Ed Roski in LA, I don’t see anyone being able to raise capital for a stadium in this economy. Some that have been planned will be completed, but even the guys who’s business it is to do the financing for new facilities are saying that that business is “dead” in this economy.
I can understand the “economic” and “Home” argument in this context, but if I’m a Quakes supporter, I just want to have a team to root for (even if it plays in a nicely converted baseball stadium, it is their home… it’s not shared). It’s the support that is important, not whether the floors are made of imported marble and the toilets solid gold…
By: John Bladen on February 26, 2009
at 11:16 pm
How can you say it takes money to play soccer in the US? All you need is a ball. Goals can be made out of anything. Baseball, Football, Basketball, and Hockey are much more expensive.
By: BigBri on February 27, 2009
at 1:32 pm
it DOES take money to play soccer in the United States…LOTS of money. I believe that I read (don’t directly quote me on this until I can check it for sure) that the USSF (United States Soccer Federation) said that it can take 6-8 thousand dollars per year to put a player at the youth levels through their program. When I say it takes money to play, I mean play competitively. Uniforms, travel to play against the best competition, entry into top level tournaments, coaches salaries, the ever rising cost of soccer equipment, renting field time for practice and games, and many other costs have made it a upper middle class to wealthy sport in the US.
By: cuvintu on February 28, 2009
at 5:07 pm
PS – I live on the island of Maui and play both pick up and Men’s league around here. While the pick up is free (we make our goals out of various stuff available), the competitive version of the game runs in the neighborhood of 20 bucks a game…when you factor in a whole season, it gets pretty pricey. And that’s not even for any kind of long term training type competition!
By: cuvintu on February 28, 2009
at 5:10 pm
SSS are good for teams that cant pull more than 30,000 tickets. If it is more, other stadiums are sufficient. Just please get rid of the football lines.
By: joel es latest soccer news on March 5, 2009
at 6:29 pm