Andrew Dixon takes us through the stadium issues in Houston and what that might mean for North American pro soccer's Major League status.
By Andrew Dixon
MIAMI, FL (Apr 22, 2008) USSoccerPlayers -- I was having a conversation with a non-soccer sports fan last week about the state of the game in the US. I mentioned how this is an interesting time in its development as devoted fans and officials continue in their efforts to grow the league. Trying to advance what is normally viewed as a foreign game with American concepts such as trades, salary caps, and drafts makes this a unique time in the history of the game.
Much work still remains. The person I was talking to lives in Chicago, but had no idea that MLS had a club there. MLS still gets step-child treatment on ESPN. Yes, they broadcast games but still don’t advertise them during other sports. Meanwhile, MLS fans have to sit through golf announcements during matches. Don’t get me started on SportsCenter either. Is it conceivable I can see something OTHER than a Beckham free kick in the highlights?
However, to this Grown Man, nothing right now underscores the step-child treatment that soccer continues to get in this country like the situation with the Houston Dynamo. The two-time defending MLS champions are stuck playing in a college football stadium while teams who have not enjoyed the same success are either playing in their own stadiums or are having stadiums built.
With the news coming out of Houston regarding Don Garber’s non-threatening threat to consider relocating the Dynamo, you realize that any other sport would be bending over backwards to keep a team like the Dynamo in place.
After riding out the roller coaster that featured two championships but diminished gate returns, a controversial move and name change, and two more championships in Houston, team officials have to be baffled at the last chapter in this ongoing drama.
Talks began almost immediately for the building of a stadium for the relocated Earthquakes. Leaving one college stadium for another was never going to be the long-term plan. The city set aside a stretch of land covering six blocks near Minute Maid park downtown in an effort to show its commitment to Houston pro soccer.
And then the drama began. The stadium, as planned, was originally forecast to cost about $75-80 million. That price tag led to the now standard civic question: who pays for it?
City officials, it seems, were not jumping at the chance to dip into public coffers to get it done. In August of last year County Commissioner Steve Radack made it clear that he was 100% opposed to the Houston Sports Authority using public funds for the stadium. Mayor Bill White also expressed reservations in using “taxpayer dollars dedicated for emergency services or parks or libraries,” to fund a stadium. Houston’s soccer fans had to be a little exasperated to hear talk as such as this.
Build a new football stadium? Fine. Here’s Reliant Stadium. Build a new baseball stadium? We got you, here’s Minute Maid Park. New basketball arena? HSA’s there for you, baby, how’s the Toyota Center sound.
New soccer stadium that won’t cost as much as these other projects? Whoaaaaa, hold up there paht-na. We need to evaluate what the Houston Sports Authority is doing. They’re spending too much, paying too much for lawyers, asking for too much money to do things like build parking garages and make repairs to stadiums that teams are supposed to be responsible for. Now you want a stadium for SOCCER? Let’s slow down.
One local columnist, John Lopez of the Houston Chronicle even went so far as to brand a possible referndum on public funding for the site in ethnic terms: You did it for the baseball and football loving Whites (Minute Maid, Reliant), you did it for the basketball and football loving Blacks (Toyota, Reliant), what about the Latinos?
While MLS was returning to San Jose with an apparent stadium deal in place, the Houston issue seemed to lay dormant during the offseason. Negotiations beginning anew with the start of the 2008 season.
The stadium which was originally forecast at $75 million is now looking to run closer to $105 million. Houston Dynamo President Oliver Luck has made it clear that he does not expect to raise that type of money through private investment. “It’s extraordinarily difficult to commit to that kind of private funds to that kind of stadium without any economic help from a city,” he said recently while proposing a 90/10 public to private funding split.
This ain’t happening, according to Mayor White who reiterated his position that the city would not “take money out of the police budget or the fire budget or have some big new tax that is imposed on everybody in the community in order to build a new stadium.”
MLS Commissioner Don Garber has apparently had enough. After an April 1 deadline to get a deal in place passed, the commissioner addressed the Dynamo’s ownership group with what has viewed by everyone except, well the commissioner himself, as a threat to relocate the side once again if a deal is not place. Saying that he was “concerned about the lack of progress in your discussions with the City of Houston,” Garber elaborated the point. “While another relocation would be equally traumatic, we both must consider our options to ensure that the team has a path to economic success…the team needs a soccer-specific stadium to ensure success.”
As X-Clan once said, we’ve been here before.
This hasn’t gone down well with anyone. From the Mayor who said he doesn’t respond well to threats, to the fans who have supported their club at Robertson Stadium, and even the far removed from Houston neutrals like this Grown Man. The prestige of the league would suffer a blow if its second dynasty franchise was moved for the same reason twice.
It’s nothing American sports fans haven’t heard before. Relocations, threats, and last gasp stadium deals are common aspects of doing sports business in America. MLS continues to prove that yes, it’s the world’s game but it’s still operating under American constraints that are characteristic of all professional sports franchises in this country (see Supersonics, Seattle).
Perhaps MLS is already part of the big time American sports landscape and we haven’t realized it. We have all of the drama. All we need now is a decent highlight package from my Alpha brother Stuart Scott.
Then again this is just One Grown Man’s opinion.
Andrew Dixon is a soccer writer based in Miami, a weekly columnist for USSoccerPlayers, and host of ‘Back of the Net,’ which you can hear Saturday nights on the Black Athlete Sports Network. Contact him at: golnoir@golnoir.net
