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MLS 4 the Lou


Bills_06

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9 minutes ago, wgstl said:

I wish I could find the article.  But a few months back I read something about the USL taking the right steps to become a big time league.  This is before signing the new contract with ESPN+ like they just did.  I could totally see them being big enough to be the relegation league with MLS, and being very profitable.   

Aren't some USL teams minor league teams for MSL franchises? Atlanta has a USL team called Atlanta United 2. It plays in the same park as the Gwinnet Braves, Atlanta Braves triple A team. It's in the northeast suburbs of Atlanta. 

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7 minutes ago, FromDaEastSide said:

Guess that it leaves the expansion race down to 1 spot then.

Would the MLS really turned down an ownership group as strong as the one we have in St. Louis? Especially a female-majority ownership group? I'm sure the MLS is also concerned with optics. I also find it hard to believe that the Taylor's would have gotten involved without knowing about this possibility (that the Crew would stay and the MLS would still award Austin a team). Also find it hard to believe the Taylor's would get involved unless it was practically a slam dunk. But what do I know.....don't answer that.

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36 minutes ago, tarheelbilliken said:

Aren't some USL teams minor league teams for MSL franchises? Atlanta has a USL team called Atlanta United 2. It plays in the same park as the Gwinnet Braves, Atlanta Braves triple A team. It's in the northeast suburbs of Atlanta. 

There is a lot of contention about these affiliated teams. They tend to be not very good. Highest “2”team is 6th in each conference. Teams like Atlanta 2 and Toronto 2 are downright atrocious 

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We need to try not to be so near sighted.  While we may have a strong financial ownership group believe it or not so do other cities.  We have to take a broader view of what is happening.  Until you know the MSL long range plans and expectations, you can not assume that they are still high on StL as they were a year ago.  Things change.  All I am saying is that this unbridled expectation that we are a big plum for the MSL is really based on a perception that may be clouded by our own self interest.  Now that they have given Austin a team through this deal with soon to be ex owner of Columbus then it changes the entire landscape from what it was - not saying we are now out but we are not in the same position as before.

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1 hour ago, cheeseman said:

We need to try not to be so near sighted.  While we may have a strong financial ownership group believe it or not so do other cities.  We have to take a broader view of what is happening.  Until you know the MSL long range plans and expectations, you can not assume that they are still high on StL as they were a year ago.  Things change.  All I am saying is that this unbridled expectation that we are a big plum for the MSL is really based on a perception that may be clouded by our own self interest.  Now that they have given Austin a team through this deal with soon to be ex owner of Columbus then it changes the entire landscape from what it was - not saying we are now out but we are not in the same position as before.

We’ve heard for about a decade now that the MLS wants St. Louis. It would be such a shame to miss out now. The city really f****d itself with the vote against the stadium last time. 

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1 hour ago, gobillsgo said:

We’ve heard for about a decade now that the MLS wants St. Louis. It would be such a shame to miss out now. The city really f****d itself with the vote against the stadium last time. 

did you vote? 

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 Can anyone briefly summarize the difference between the two ownership groups and plans then and now?  Jack Taylor’s daughter now leading a group with mostly private money vs public private then? Any owners in both groups?  Same stadium location but similar drawings and plans? Similar amount of funding but 1 major owner this time?

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1 hour ago, Clock_Tower said:

 Can anyone briefly summarize the difference between the two ownership groups and plans then and now?  Jack Taylor’s daughter now leading a group with mostly private money vs public private then? Any owners in both groups?  Same stadium location but similar drawings and plans? Similar amount of funding but 1 major owner this time?

I believe Kavanagh is a common owner member of both.  I think the big difference is that one is paying a substantial amount towards the stadium if not all and has gotten the State to support the bid.  Greitens was Governor then and he used it as a political wedge.  The new Governor - Parsons - has looked upon the effort more favorably.  Also, the new group is placing a user fee not a tax on those events that use the new stadium - maybe the same in the end result but not a vote is necessary.

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1 hour ago, Clock_Tower said:

 Can anyone briefly summarize the difference between the two ownership groups and plans then and now?  Jack Taylor’s daughter now leading a group with mostly private money vs public private then? Any owners in both groups?  Same stadium location but similar drawings and plans? Similar amount of funding but 1 major owner this time?

There is still a lot we do not know about the current group's plans. I'd imagine the old stadium rendering is simply a placeholder until they unveil their own plans. Or maybe they just keep the current plans? I don't think we know that yet.  

There are some significant differences between the previous ownership group and current group, including:

1) Total net worth - I haven't read anything concrete to back this up by from what I have read, I'd put Paul Edgerley's (old ownership group's majority owner) net worth between $1-2 billion, however I could be way off on this. Similar to the Taylor family (current group's majority owner), it's hard to know exactly what their net worth is since Enterprise is a privately held company. I've seen estimates between $5 billion and $20 billion. My guess is they're above the $10 billion mark. What both ownership groups have in common is Jim Kavanaugh, co-founder of World Wide Technology and co-owner of Saint Louis FC. Jim will own a minority interest in the team.

2) Ownership structure - The current ownership group consists of Andy Taylor (Enterprise founder Jack Taylor's son), and a handful of Andy's nieces (Jack's granddaughters). Leading that group is Carolyn Kindle Betz, along with Carolyn's sister, and a few other female family members. This would be the first female-majority ownership group in the MLS and one of only a handful in all of professional sports.

3) Stability - The current ownership group is 100% local while the previous group was led by Bostonian Paul Edgerley. I think this ensures the team would never leave St. Louis.

4) Financing -  The current group is seeking tax credits to help deliver a buildable site for their stadium and a tax that would only impact those attending games. The stadium will be mostly funded with private capital. The previous ownership group was seeking over $60 million in public financing to close their financing gap.

Another important difference is Gov. Parson's support. Greitens was not supportive of the previous owner's efforts.

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5 hours ago, NextYearBill said:

did you vote? 

Didn’t live in the city at the time, so no I was not eligible to vote on the Prop, but followed it very closely.  I live in the city now.

In b4 people start attempting to explain why the previous ownership gifting a stadium for 20% cost and bringing a professional sports franchise to play in it was such a bad deal. 

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23 hours ago, HoosierPal said:

In the past 10 seasons, there have been only 4 EPL franchises raise the Cup.  In the Bundesliga, only 3 champions.  In the MLS, 7 have hoisted the MLS Cup in the past 10 seasons.  For me, the excitement of winning the league trophy far exceeds watching the bottom dwellers fight for scraps. I don't think the monopoly of a handful to teams is what we want in this country.

Leicester City won promotion in 2014, won 7 of their last 9 (going from 20th to 14th) to avoid relegation in 2015, won the EPL in 2016 as 5000 to 1 preseason longshots, and advanced to the quarterfinals of the Champions League in 2017.

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44 minutes ago, cheeseman said:

WT (exploative)?

I think we all must be confused on the tone of this message. I think it's just a manual error within your message, I'm not saying anything is wrong with its intentions. Though, reading it again I can see, why it may be misinterpreted. Just to elaborate on the original post, one had to be a registered voter by (x) date, in order to vote on the MLS thing last year. Which the people disagreed with the proposition, then a short transition to the current day.

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I don't live in the city and thus did not vote in the April 2017 election, but I did follow it closely and my takeaway was that the Peacock/Edgerly group completely took for granted that it would pass, didn't have a real ground game in terms of voter turnout, weren't particularly compelling in their limited public appearances before the election (this is Peacock mainly), and completely misjudged the swing wards of the city.

"This whole thing hinged on a cynical attempt to piggy back onto a mass transit resolution in the only predominantly African American part of the region...and you don't have a Plan B?" -Anonymous city resident the day after the election.

Essentially a bunch of wealthy guys were asking a city that can't even afford to pick up the trash to kick in $60M on their investment and were rejected...and then immediately threw in the towel without trying to bridge the gap from another source - no plan B - and it set us back.

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On 10/13/2018 at 4:35 PM, gobillsgo said:

Didn’t live in the city at the time, so no I was not eligible to vote on the Prop, but followed it very closely.  I live in the city now.

In b4 people start attempting to explain why the previous ownership gifting a stadium for 20% cost and bringing a professional sports franchise to play in it was such a bad deal. 

That's not a gift then, right?

"Here's a $100 Amazon gift card. Now give me $20, please."

Seems to me that if voters turned down the first deal that would leave them on the hook for some of the cost and then a second ownership group comes along and offers a deal that doesn't require them to pay, then they were right the first time. Right? The only downside is the time lapse, as far as I can tell.

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33 minutes ago, Pistol said:

That's not a gift then, right?

"Here's a $100 Amazon gift card. Now give me $20, please."

Seems to me that if voters turned down the first deal that would leave them on the hook for some of the cost and then a second ownership group comes along and offers a deal that doesn't require them to pay, then they were right the first time. Right? The only downside is the time lapse, as far as I can tell.

The city doesn't have enough money to increase salaries to retain or hire quality police officers, but people think the city should have gave millions of dollars to a billionaire who lives in Boston. 

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12 minutes ago, Pistol said:

That's not a gift then, right?

"Here's a $100 Amazon gift card. Now give me $20, please."

Seems to me that if voters turned down the first deal that would leave them on the hook for some of the cost and then a second ownership group comes along and offers a deal that doesn't require them to pay, then they were right the first time. Right? The only downside is the time lapse, as far as I can tell.

Also the elephant in the room is city vs county divide, resentment from the city voters that the county wasn't being asked for anything in terms of the MLS bid, bad blood over the tricky way the c. 2015-16 NFL stadium bid (also a Dave Peacock led operation) was crammed through city government without a public vote, not to mention the original Dome stadium deal that we're still paying for both literally and figuratively.

Simply put, in this region (or anywhere really) there's going to be significant opposition to any public money for sports stadiums. It's going to take a lot more than a few PR pieces explaining how this is a great deal for the city to get people on board. The previous MLS ownership group didn't do a good job of selling their proposal to enclaves within the city (Tower Grove South/East, CWE, Cortex, The Grove, Cherokee) that would have rather seen that use tax $$$ spent in ways that could help their neighborhoods.

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59 minutes ago, Pistol said:

That's not a gift then, right?

"Here's a $100 Amazon gift card. Now give me $20, please."

Seems to me that if voters turned down the first deal that would leave them on the hook for some of the cost and then a second ownership group comes along and offers a deal that doesn't require them to pay, then they were right the first time. Right? The only downside is the time lapse, as far as I can tell.

Not if it's too late and the city misses out.  And I would also argue that it can still be a gift even if they aren't paying the whole thing.  But it's pointless to try and change people's minds on an internet forum.

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