Kansas City to San Antonio?

[AreliusII]

S.A. could be goal of Kansas City soccer team
Web Posted: 04/29/2005 12:00 AM CDT

Tom Orsborn
Express-News Staff Writer

The Kansas City Wizards stand ready to dash to San Antonio if the Major League Soccer franchise fails to secure local ownership by late August, league and city sources said Thursday.

The scenario by which the Wizards, a charter member of the 10-year-old league, would relocate to South Texas is spelled out in a "memorandum of understanding" between the league and the city.

According to the memorandum, "certain MLS owners" want to sell their teams to investors who'd keep the clubs in their present markets.

But if those owners fail to find such investors before Aug. 20, MLS would relocate one of those franchises to San Antonio. The deal also is contingent on the city selling 5,000 season tickets by Aug. 17 and producing a local ownership group willing to buy a minimum of 50 percent of the relocated club.

The memorandum goes on to say that if the MLS teams for sale do find new ownership in their current markets, MLS "will either cause another MLS team to relocate to San Antonio or award San Antonio an expansion team for the 2006 season" provided the other conditions are met.

The only MLS teams for sale are the Wizards, owned by Dallas sports industrialist Lamar Hunt, and the San Jose Earthquakes, owned by Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz. But a representative of the Anschutz Entertainment Group told the San Jose Mercury News that recent developments in San Antonio regarding MLS have "no relation" to the Earthquakes.

A league spokesman also said it is a priority for MLS to have a franchise in Northern California.

League and city sources, meanwhile, say Hunt views San Antonio as a serious relocation option and that he and other members of the Hunt Sports Group helped city staffers write the memorandum.

Hunt couldn't be reached for comment. He said earlier this week that he wanted to keep the Wizards in Kansas City.

"Our interest is primarily in making the sale to someone that would keep the team in Kansas City," Hunt said.

Hunt recently met Mayor Ed Garza in Monterrey, Mexico, to talk with representatives of the Tigres about the Mexican professional soccer club possibly becoming part of an MLS ownership group in San Antonio.

Garza said earlier this week that he also has talked to several San Antonians about becoming investors.

"As they have done their due diligence, the feedback I have gotten from them is positive," Garza said. "Some (potential investors) were interested in owning as much as 94 percent of a team. Others were interested in smaller portions. But all the feedback has been favorable. We are ahead of where we need to be on that."

Garza declined to name investors he has recruited. Among those possibly interested in becoming involved in the franchise is the Cortez family, which operates Mi Tierra Café, sister restaurants La Margarita and Pico de Gallo, and real estate and construction interests.

"We will evaluate at some point whether there will be an opportunity for us," said Pete Cortez, one of the sibling vice presidents at MTC Inc. "It could be something as simple as a sponsorship or buying season tickets. We are looking at it more from a marketing perspective at this point."

Garza recently obtained $21.2 million in public bond money to build a youth soccer complex at Brooks City-Base, improve the Alamodome and build a practice facility for an MLS team.

The memorandum also calls for the team to get rent-free use of the Alamodome for 20 games a year; all revenue from tickets, parking and concessions; and half of any revenues from events it co-sponsors with the city.

http://www.mysanantonio.com/global-includes/printstory.jsp?path=/sports/stories/MYSA042905.1A.SOC.wizards_sa.223277aa4.html

[AreliusII]

Posted on Fri, Apr. 29, 2005



Let's back Wizardry in our town

MIKE HENDRICKS


With the hockey team folding and the Roy Boys diving into a hole that seems to have no bottom, Kansas City sports fans could sure use a pick-me-up about now.

So luckily, here comes Freddy.

That would be Freddy Adu, the 15-year-old soccer phenom, who will make his first appearance of the year at Arrowhead Stadium on Saturday afternoon. He's with DC United, the bunch who beat the Kansas City Wizards in the 2004 Major League Soccer final.

When Adu and company last visited Kansas City in the regular season, 26,233 fans came out to watch.

While that's nothing for a Chiefs or Royals game, it was the second-highest attendance for a Wizards game, and twice as many as the 13,000 of us who turned out a few weeks ago for the 2005 home season opener.

So expect a big crowd and a lot of excitement. Me, I wouldn't even think of missing the game, and not just to see the most hyped player in U.S. soccer.

I'm going to show my support for the home team.

Corny, yes. But each game you wonder whether we're seeing the last days of the Kansas City Wizards. Four months after Lamar Hunt announced he was putting the Wizards on the market, we still have no idea how it's going to play out.

Talk to Kevin Gray at the Greater Kansas City Sports Commission and, as always, he serves up extra-large portions of unbridled optimism.

“I think we're making progress,” Gray says and then explains that a local ownership group is serious about buying the team.

That the group has the financial wherewithal to make things happen.

That they're “quality people.”

And that a new soccer-specific stadium for the Wizards might finally be built in the suburbs, surrounded by championship youth soccer fields comparable to any in the country.

“I'm confident that Major League Soccer will be a part of Kansas City in the future,” Gray says. “I think this league is poised for success. We've long felt that this sport is going to take off.”

So, if you're a Wizards fan, you leave with a smile on your face, even after Gray acknowledges that a sale to this local group isn't even close to being a done deal.

Then the smile disappears when you go and read that the mayor of San Antonio is desperate to have a Major League Soccer team move into the Alamodome, a spec stadium built in the early '90s and still in need of an anchor tenant.

And guess which team is mentioned as the prime candidate for filling this role? And would it surprise you to know that L.H. are the initials of the sports franchise owner who got the San Antonio mayor thinking about securing a Major League Soccer team in the first place?

To be fair, that was months before Lamar Hunt decided to sell the Wizards. And there's every indication that Hunt genuinely wants the Wizards to stay in Kansas City, if the right owner can be found.

Sam Pierron believes it can happen. He heads the Heart of America Soccer Foundation, which is host for a concert and rally for the team at Arrowhead before Saturday's match.

“Since the day of the (sale) announcement, there's not a day I've felt better than now,” Pierron says.

Let's hope there's good reason for that. But just in case, here's my advice, if you're going to Saturday's game.

Savor every minute, as if it were one of the last.

To reach Mike Hendricks, call (816) 234-7708 or send e-mail to mhendricks [at] kcstar.com.

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/local/11517146.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

[AreliusII]

Ken Rodriguez: Could pro soccer survive in S.A.? Just look at South Florida
Web Posted: 05/03/2005 10:00 PM CDT

San Antonio Express-News

Ken Horowitz had a great idea once. The cell phone. He co-founded Cellular One and became wealthy beyond his dreams.

Horowitz also had a bad idea once. Pro soccer in South Florida. He invested $25 million in the Miami Fusion and had lost $50 million by the time it folded after four years.

What happened to Horowitz and the Fusion in South Florida should sound a warning to South Texas — don't gamble on Major League Soccer.

Even if San Antonio were not offering the Alamodome rent-free to an MLS team ... even if the city were not giving away all concession and parking revenue ... even if the new team promised the city millions to play here, it's unlikely pro soccer could survive here.

It failed in South Florida for many of the same reasons it would fail in South Texas.

In the late '90s, Horowitz looked south from his home in Palm Beach County and saw a growing Latino population in Broward and Miami-Dade counties. He also noticed the rising popularity of youth soccer in Anglo suburbs.

"Those two trends merging is one of the reasons I did this," he told the South Florida Business Journal in 1998.

Horowitz added one plus one and got two, followed by a dollar sign and lots of zeros.

It wasn't long before he realized the magnitude of his miscalculation.

If you're a soccer fan, I know what you're thinking: The Fusion had to compete with four major pro teams in South Florida — the Dolphins, Heat, Marlins and Panthers.

An MLS team in San Antonio only has to compete against one major sports franchise — the Spurs.

True, but the Fusion also had a much larger population base — more than 3 million in the tri-county area of Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade.

The Fusion had other advantages a San Antonio team is not likely to have, including a soccer-specific stadium and the league's Most Valuable Player.

When the Fusion folded in 2001, Horowitz had a team with the league's best regular-season record, an exciting, high-scoring team that reached the MLS semifinals. But that wasn't enough.

The Fusion had eight MLS all-star players. But that wasn't enough.

The Fusion averaged 11,177 fans per regular season game. But that wasn't nearly enough.

Why? The Fusion ranked ninth out of the league's 12 teams in attendance.

Even if the proposed San Antonio team sells 5,000 tickets in roughly 100 days — which no team in MLS history has ever done — it's doubtful the team could average 11,000 fans.

But let's say the local team did match the Fusion in attendance. That number still would rank near the bottom and stamp San Antonio as a probable Fusion-like failure.

Do you know what happened when the Fusion made the playoffs for the first time in 2001?

Average attendance plummeted from 11,177 to 8,719 for four postseason games.

The possibility of pro soccer here so excites Red McCombs that the city's best-known billionaire businessman is trying to stifle a yawn.

He told Express-News reporter Tom Orsborn that "I just haven't seen enough interest in it as a professional sport that it would create communitywide involvement."

Loose translation: Pro soccer won't work here.

Mayor Ed Garza disagrees.

"Our Hispanic market is unique," he says. "We have a segment that would follow soccer from a different demographic (than South Florida)."

Garza cites a national marketing report that says San Antonio has the financial capacity to fully support MLS soccer.

Ability to support soccer is one thing. Willingness is another.

Horowitz gambled that South Florida would be willing. It wasn't.

He assembled a collection of all-stars. He even brought in a colorful, quotable coach, Ray Hudson, who had once been a popular player with the Fort Lauderdale Strikers of the old North American Soccer League.

None of that mattered.

So Horowitz has regrets.

He poured $5 million of his own money into renovating a high school football stadium to make it soccer-friendly. He made game tickets cheap. He made many good moves, but soccer still failed.

If San Antonio wants a message from Miami, it should call Horowitz on his Fusion office phone. The line is dead.

[SoccerPrime]

the third article is pathetic.
Completely untrue and just full of lies.

[Aerick]

I wonder what that guy's motive is. Why does he care if San Antonio tries soccer and fails?

[Rover]

I think there's only one "professional-soccer-can't-work-in-America" article that gets passed out to all the paleo-sports journalists who know nothing about soccer. They change some names and dates and pass it off as public service reporting. Maybe Frank Deford wrote it.

I seem to remember stuff like this last year in the Utah papers, and Brad Rock at the DesNews is still stuck on the same mantra.

It's the same old lazy soccer-bashing "journalism," except this SA writer has serious trouble with facts.

In reality, San Antonio is a great market for MLS. Prime and I have argued a number of points about why MLS folded in Florida, but we agree on the primary failing--the owner. I think there were some other weaknesses, but a top level owner could have made it work.

One good thing about this. If they need to resort to this kind of article to prop up their argument, MLS in SA must already be a done deal. This is an act of soccer-bashing desperation.

[SoccerPrime]

Whats funny is that the SA paper didn't interview MLS or any Fusion fans. Just went and found another old Hororwitz (Former Fusion owner) negative article in the trash bin and started plagerizing.

[Old Ska]

I am in San Antonio every couple of months for business. Everytime I go I end up at some table on the Riverwalk with a diverse group of people talking about soccer. Once I ended up singing the national anthem of Georgia outside of a Greek restaurant after a Georgia-Greece friendly.


There may be some merit to the observation that S.A.'s hispanic population is demographically very different from, say, the hispanic populations that support other MLS teams, however.

[SpiffCoug]

This guy should get his facts straight. NO team in Florida draws well. Unless it's a football team. Here are the last five years of attendance for non-football Florida teams.

Tampa Bay Devil Rays:
2004 - 16139
2003 - 13070
2002 - 13157
2001 - 16029
2000 - 18121
Aver - 15968

Tampa Bay Lightning:
03-04 - 17820 (Stanley Cup Champs)
02-03 - 16545
01-02 - 15722
00-01 - 14907
99-00 - 13600
98-99 - 11511
Aver - 15017

Florida Panthers:
03-04 - 15936
02-03 - 15428
01-02 - 16084
00-01 - 14557
99-00 - 15982
Aver - 15597

Florida Marlins:
2004 - 22091
2003 - 16290
2002 - 9806
2001 - 15765
2000 - 15041
Aver - 15798

Miami Heat:
04-05 - 19856 (Shaq's now there)
03-04 - 15207
02-03 - 15322
01-02 - 15989
00-01 - 16541
Aver - 16583 (15764 w/out Shaq)


The point I'm trying to make, is unless it's football, Florida doesn't support any sport very well. That's why the Marlins have threatened to leave and the D-Rays have been threatened with contraction. That's why no one cares that the Panthers and Lightning aren't playing.

And mistake me if I'm wrong. But aren't Texas and Flordia two totally different sports. I'm sure the folks of San Antonio are real excited that their own sports writers are comparing them to Florida.

And why doesn't this guy want MLS? Is he afraid he'll have more work to do? Does he not want to expand his base of sports knowledge? Is afraid a summer league team will cut into his vacation when the Spurs are done playing? I don't get it. Does he like the fact that nothing but rodeos and a single college bowl game have been held in the Alamodome since the Spurs left?

[SoccerPrime]

Are you on crack SpiffCoug?
The TB Lightning were one of the highest attended NHL teams in 2003 and 2004.
The NBA Magic are by no means the lowest in attendance.
However the case could be true for MLB.

Sorry, I am a Floridian, so non-resident experts make me unhinged.