Latest Stadium Info

[montgjules]

On Nov. 9th approximately 20 members of Real Salt Lake’s first official supporter’s club, the Loyalists, met with Trey Fitz-Gerald, the Senior Director of Marketing & Communications for RSL. He discussed upcoming events and decisions about the team and answered Loyalists’ questions for about 45 minutes. Here is a summary of what he discussed. For the complete article, please go to www.TheLoyalists.com where the article will be available soon.

There is not much new information about the planned stadium. Fitz-Gerald stated that there are several possible sites in downtown Salt Lake, and Murray City has been aggressively pursuing possibilities for their city as well. The Murray site has a lot of infrastructure that would be a benefit to the stadium, such as nearby public transportation.

The expected date for the new stadium to be completed is still April 2007. There are still discussions going on with local politicians, land owners, etc. Some have speculated that Jon Huntsman, the governor-elect of Utah, may be a valuable asset to the stadium plans, considering his close ties to Dave Checketts.

In the meantime, says Fitz-Gerald, the relationship with Rice-Eccles stadium is a very positive one. Although most football coaches have a lot of power over what happens in the stadiums throughout the country, those in charge at RES recognize the value that RSL brings them. They recognize that some of the best soccer events in the country will be happening at RES, including possibly a U.S. Men’s National Team game.

Those at RES and RSL have been going over numerous options for making the field more soccer-friendly despite the football lines. The football lines are sewn into the turf, but they have been researching some possibilities of “greening the lines out.” So far, they haven’t had much success, though. If no good solution can be found, fans may have to settle for the lines until the soccer-specific stadium is built.

[Arelius]

Tonight the ABC News show “Nightline” will air an episode that might be of interest to all of you. It has to do with:

Building new sports stadiums. Is it fair to put the burden on taxpayers?

There's a raging dispute about how to fund huge new sports stadiums in cities around the country. The question: should public money be used because they are an economic boom, or is this simply a taxpayer rip-off?

Arlington, Texas voted on Election Day to put more than $300 million into a new stadium for the Dallas Cowboys. Tomorrow, the Washington, D.C. City Council votes on public funding for a new stadium for the city's new major league team, The Washington Nationals. San Francisco is being asked to build a new stadium for the 49ers. Correspondent Jake Tapper reports.

Our guests: Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys; Gavin Newsom, Mayor of San Francisco; and Kevin Delaney, associate professor of sociology at Temple University and author of Public Dollars, Private Stadiums

[Jose Luis Luviano]

This is slightly off-topic. And worse than that, it's slightly political. So please feel free to delete this, slap me around and worst of all, take my beers out of my cooler at the next tailgate party so they are warm when I go to drink them.

But in case you can't stay up to watch Nightline or if you want to watch Leno or Letterman instead; taxpayers subsidies for pro sports stadiums are heinous corporate welfare.

Economists from theright and the left agree and have lots of studies & data to back them up.

[Hiddnfox]

I'll pay for a stadium if its not called something like the Wal-Mart Center or McDonald's Field

[SoccerPrime]

off-topic

HiddnFox, is it possible to get some samples of your Loyalist logo art?
Its great!

[Hiddnfox]

yea, no problem. Ive got to redo it since i kinda trashed it to get it within Avatar specs. I'll be doing a cleaner version of it probably this week so i'll send you a few different sizes. thanks for the nice comment!

[Rocky J Squirrel]

KSL's News tonight (Dec 3) had an excellent discussion on the stadium siteing and a Dan Jones survey about it. Chopper views were shown of the Holding site, the railyard/Gateway and the Murrey locations. No breaking story.
The Dan Jones Survey (I haven't yet looked for the link on KSL or the Morning News). It basically shows the usual ignorance of people about soccer, not much interest in spending tax money or coming to games. The local TV and Press should study it closely as it may show their lack of doing a satisfactory education job about soccer in this market. Murrey is the favorite site, but way to many don't know/don't cares.

[SoccerPrime]

Well if it makes you guys feel better, RSL's SSS quest is getting WAY more attention then say the MetroStars search.

At least the local media is trying... right?

Good find Rocky. If you find any links with pictures let us know.

[Jose Luis Luviano]

Not much new here.

As frightening a concept as this is, the Deseret News agrees with me.

[Arelius]

Originally Posted by Jose Luis Luviano

Not much new here.

As frightening a concept as this is, the Deseret News agrees with me.

Its not Deseret News that agrees with you, its one editor in particular. This is his fourth editorial about the stadium. He is heavily opposed to building the stadium with tax dollars. In each editorial he refers to academic studies that show that this kind of thing isn’t profitable etc. I wish he would shut his pie hole.