Profitability for FC Dallas may be as close as the 2006 season

[AreliusII]

Posted on Mon, Aug. 08, 2005



Football pioneer Hunt's desire for soccer not a fleeting thing

BY STEVE DAVIS
The Dallas Morning News

DALLAS - (KRT) - If there is a morsel of pretense or even a shred of vanity about Lamar Hunt, the wealthy sports industrialist does a spectacular job of hiding it.

Hunt's signature modesty rises right out of his economical shoes. His humility achieves a near-comical level when it comes to his legacy in soccer.

"I guess that Hunts have been important," he says when reminded of the family's substantial contributions and influence in Major League Soccer. "But nothing like Phil Anschutz."

That statement would have the country's soccer historians falling out of their chairs.

For Anschutz, who owns multiple teams, and fellow MLS owners may never have assumed their prominent positions if not for Hunt's famous generosity to soccer over three-plus decades. The longtime Dallas resident was a leader of the game's domestic pioneers.

And now, as Hunt's time of massive influence in a sport he passionately supports winds down, he has unveiled his foremost gift to Dallas soccer. Pizza Hut Park stands as Hunt's ultimate legacy in a lifetime of financial and emotional generosity to the game, and specifically to soccer in Dallas. FC Dallas tied the MetroStars 2-2 Saturday in the 20,000-seat stadium's MLS debut.

Hunt and his sons own Hunt Sports Group, which counts FC Dallas among its holdings.

The nation's third major professional soccer stadium probably wouldn't have landed in North Texas without Hunt, who turned 73 recently. The visionary who brought pro soccer to North Texas 37 years ago was instrumental in assembling the innovative financing and driving the enthusiasm behind the Frisco complex.

"I can't think of anyone that's been more important for soccer in the Dallas community," said SMU men's soccer coach Schellas Hyndman, "and one of the most important people in soccer in United States history."

Hunt has given so graciously, the U.S. Soccer federation named its all-comers tournament for him. Amateur, semi-pro and pro teams compete annually for the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup.

Hyndman has known Hunt for almost 20 years, since he coached Clark Hunt, Lamar's son, at SMU in the late 1980s. Hyndman admires Lamar Hunt's passion for soccer, but he's more a fan of Hunt the man.

"You can be in a room with Lamar Hunt, with the most famous NFL players, the biggest tennis players, and Lamar will come up to you and make you feel like the most important person in the room," Hyndman said.

"He is one of the most outstanding human beings I've ever been in contact with. He is 100 percent genuine."

As for the 145-acre complex, Hunt has been anything but a detached sugar daddy. He has visited the Frisco site two or three times a week since the April 2004 groundbreaking.

HSG president John Wagner said Hunt immerses himself in the stadium details, particularly when it comes to matters of game presentation and customer care.

"He's a promoter at heart," Wagner said. "It's all about the fan experience to him."

Hunt has been that way since his early days in sports, as the father of the American Football League, which later merged to form the modern NFL.

A football and baseball player growing up in Dallas, Hunt had only a general awareness of soccer. He was in Ireland in 1962 when he crowded into a standing terrace at a Shamrock Rovers match, his first soccer experience.

Hunt didn't think much more about soccer until he watched the England-West Germany World Cup final televised live from London in 1966. He was smitten by the attractiveness of the sport, the palpable emotion, the robust singing and unrelenting crowd noise.

Not long after, a business group approached him, gauging Hunt's interest in joining an upstart U.S. soccer league.

Soon he joined with some of sporting industry's captains of the day - Jack Kent Cooke, Ralph Wilson, the Bidwell family and others.

Hunt was about to write the first of many checks as two leagues merged to form the North American Soccer League in 1968.

"I couldn't imagine how the sport wouldn't succeed, and pretty fast," Hunt says, poking a little fun at himself.

How much has he spent on soccer through the years?

"I really don't know," he said. "I ought to.

"Certainly, we have not reached a break-even point. I'm not being evasive. I've never believed you should advertise your losses or gains. But we definitely have been in a deficit position."

He was talking from the 40th floor of his downtown Dallas office; the splendid view from Hunt's business quarters is the only hint of hauteur about him.

Of course, soccer didn't succeed fast, and Hunt admits to some naivete attached to the owners' early efforts. He and others know much more now about the game's economics - which is why Hunt thinks stadium-driven profitability for FC Dallas may be as close as the 2006 season.

But the NASL learning curve was expensive. The league had its ups and downs, expanded too fast and collapsed in 1985 under the weight of its own hubris and huge debt.

Hunt owned the Dallas Tornado, which won a NASL championship in 1971 and lasted another 10 years. Many of Hunt's players, such as Kenny Cooper, Bobby Moffat, Mike Renshaw and Dick Hall to name a few, were the game's local ambassadors and pioneers, planting roots that have grown into one of the nation's strongest youth soccer communities.

Hunt's commitment to the game was evident way back then; he stayed with the league longer than any other owner involved in the 1968 launch.

After the NASL collapse, professional outdoor soccer existed only in the margins from 1985 until 1996, when Major League Soccer debuted.

Hunt, still a huge fan of the sport, raced right back in, claiming control of the clubs in Columbus and Kansas City under the MLS single-entity structure. (He would assume ownership of the Dallas club in 2003.) Was he hesitant to dive back into soccer ownership, given the past financial difficulty?

"I'm not that sensible to be hesitant," Hunt said, smiling.

"No, I really believed, and still do, that it can succeed and will succeed," he said.

Not slowing down

Hunt's only concession to age: He already has decided not to travel to Germany for next year's World Cup. That will mark only the second World Cup he's missed since 1966.

Instead, he promises to stay active in making Pizza Hut Park work over the next year or two. The complex is full of revenue tributaries not available to pro soccer's past efforts.

He's confident that a stable soccer economy for FC Dallas isn't far away.

Confident - but humbly so.

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© 2005, The Dallas Morning News.

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Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.

[Stucki]

That is quite the article. I knew he had been involved in the game for a long time, but I wasn't aware of his role in the NASL. Thanks fanatico.