Future of the Columbus Crew? (Cleveland: sales, 2015, buying)

[bjimmy24]

Saw that they are looking to skip town to Austin.

Crew SC owner: Without Downtown stadium, team is moving - Sports - The Columbus Dispatch - Columbus, OH

Looks like a typical tactic that sports teams love to play in order to get special treatment/subsidies/whatever else from the city. Though perhaps with the low attendance, they are looking to move anyway.

Whatever the motivation is, I personally think it's not worth subsidizing these clowns and begging for them to stay. Let it be Austin's problem. I used to live pretty closet to Crew Stadium- it's not like it's 40 miles outside the city (like the New England Revolution). I think they are full of it. Columbus really doesn't need the MLS (average soccer at best compared to other leagues). I think OSU and the Blue Jackets are quite enough. Especially if CBJ can remain good.

Any thoughts from the locals?

[jmecklenborg]

I'm not a soccer fan but this is pretty dumb and unfair to Columbus. I really wish we had federal legislation that banned any public financing of stadiums. That is what enables owners to play these games.

[Cbus76]

I'm not a particularly big fan of the Crew, but I feel bad for their die-hard fans. Mapfre Stadium isn't terrible, but it doesn't have the bells and whistles that newer stadiums have, and the location kind of stinks if you want to walk anywhere before or after the game.


Quite frankly, between OSU and the Blue Jackets, the sports market is kind of tapped here in Columbus. The MLS is still a second-rate pro soccer league, whereas the NHL is the world's best hockey league, so give me the Jackets over the Crew any day.

[bjimmy24]

Originally Posted by Cbus76

I'm not a particularly big fan of the Crew, but I feel bad for their die-hard fans. Mapfre Stadium isn't terrible, but it doesn't have the bells and whistles that newer stadiums have, and the location kind of stinks if you want to walk anywhere before or after the game.


Quite frankly, between OSU and the Blue Jackets, the sports market is kind of tapped here in Columbus. The MLS is still a second-rate pro soccer league, whereas the NHL is the world's best hockey league, so give me the Jackets over the Crew any day.

True, it's a nothing area. Unless you want to combine your soccer game with Frisch's and Lowe's. I lived right off Summit and that seemed to be the place to hang before games at least. Wouldn't feel nearly as isolated if there were bridge or something over the tracks. But still wouldn't be nearly the same as the Arena District or Gateway/E 4 in Cleveland.

[osubrett2]

I'd consider myself to be in between a diehard and casual Crew fan. I will watch games when I can, check the scores for all the games, and want them to win, but I don't have the same passion for the Crew as I do OSU, CBJ, Indians, Cavs, and Browns. And this sucks. Hard core.

It's a done deal. There's no turning back now. I mean, MLS2ATX is owned by Precourt Sports Ventruees. Coward Anthony is just saying what he has to right now to appease the few Crew fans, Cbus city officials, etc. that will believe him.

[jbcmh81]

Originally Posted by bjimmy24

Saw that they are looking to skip town to Austin.

Crew SC owner: Without Downtown stadium, team is moving - Sports - The Columbus Dispatch - Columbus, OH

Looks like a typical tactic that sports teams love to play in order to get special treatment/subsidies/whatever else from the city. Though perhaps with the low attendance, they are looking to move anyway.

Whatever the motivation is, I personally think it's not worth subsidizing these clowns and begging for them to stay. Let it be Austin's problem. I used to live pretty closet to Crew Stadium- it's not like it's 40 miles outside the city (like the New England Revolution). I think they are full of it. Columbus really doesn't need the MLS (average soccer at best compared to other leagues). I think OSU and the Blue Jackets are quite enough. Especially if CBJ can remain good.

Any thoughts from the locals?

It has nothing to do with attendance, financials or the stadium. There was a clause in the contract that Precourt wanted that he could move to Austin at any time. That was the plan all along, and he's using other things as a pretext for that, most of which are total lies (the team is financially solvent, merchandising and season ticket sales are up, and the city has tried to engage in discussion of a new stadium). The city even offered at one point to buy the team outright or to work out some kind of other deal, and he didn't seriously consider any of those options. City officials had no idea about this until they saw it on the nightly news. This is basically a Cleveland Browns situation all over again. The city is not going to pony up hundreds of millions in public dollars for a new stadium anyway. And frankly, from what I've read, Austin doesn't want to, either, unless their city officials are just as full of crap as Precourt is, which is also possible.
I suspect the move will happen, and the city will then aggressively work to get one of the expansion teams.

[jbcmh81]

Originally Posted by osubrett2

I'd consider myself to be in between a diehard and casual Crew fan. I will watch games when I can, check the scores for all the games, and want them to win, but I don't have the same passion for the Crew as I do OSU, CBJ, Indians, Cavs, and Browns. And this sucks. Hard core.

It's a done deal. There's no turning back now. I mean, MLS2ATX is owned by Precourt Sports Ventruees. Coward Anthony is just saying what he has to right now to appease the few Crew fans, Cbus city officials, etc. that will believe him.

I don't think Columbus city officials are buying what he's selling, actually. They've actually tried to talk to the guy about a new stadium Downtown before, but they've received very little actual response. The city has done everything it could do within reason to engage with Precourt, to no avail. Even a serious offer of a new stadium wouldn't matter, I think, because the snake had his mind made up years ago as to what he was going to do. He's Columbus' Art Modell.

[bjimmy24]

Originally Posted by jbcmh81

It has nothing to do with attendance, financials or the stadium. There was a clause in the contract that Precourt wanted that he could move to Austin at any time. That was the plan all along, and he's using other things as a pretext for that, most of which are total lies (the team is financially solvent, merchandising and season ticket sales are up, and the city has tried to engage in discussion of a new stadium). The city even offered at one point to buy the team outright or to work out some kind of other deal, and he didn't seriously consider any of those options. City officials had no idea about this until they saw it on the nightly news. This is basically a Cleveland Browns situation all over again. The city is not going to pony up hundreds of millions in public dollars for a new stadium anyway. And frankly, from what I've read, Austin doesn't want to, either, unless their city officials are just as full of crap as Precourt is, which is also possible.
I suspect the move will happen, and the city will then aggressively work to get one of the expansion teams.

Seemed like Browns take 2. Shameful.

It would be sad to lose an original team for the league. Just as the Browns move was unpopular across the country and not just in Cleveland, I see this potential move also being unpopular with ALL soccer fans, except for a few in Austin.

Also, I'd much rather run around on a soccer field for 90 minutes in Columbus than Texas. Sounds like heat stroke waiting to happen.

[jbcmh81]

Originally Posted by bjimmy24

Seemed like Browns take 2. Shameful.

It would be sad to lose an original team for the league. Just as the Browns move was unpopular across the country and not just in Cleveland, I see this potential move also being unpopular with ALL soccer fans, except for a few in Austin.

Also, I'd much rather run around on a soccer field for 90 minutes in Columbus than Texas. Sounds like heat stroke waiting to happen.

He wanted a franchise, but at a cost of $150 million, he didn't want to pay that, so he bought the Crew for $68 million by convincing the Hunt family and everyone else that he had no intention of leaving Columbus. So basically he bought them to move them and save himself $82 million in the process, and has spent the last 4 years lying about his motives. It's no wonder the city can't make any headway in stadium discussions or team ownership.

Ironically, from what I've seen, attendance figures are even worse in Dallas, which is dead last in the entire league this year. Houston is only a little better than Columbus. These are much larger cities than Columbus or Austin and with newer stadiums than Columbus, so why would Austin necessarily do any better than they do? Columbus has the smallest, oldest, and most bare bones stadium in one of the worst locations of any team in the MLS, and it still is comparable to or beating Texas teams.
Oh, and the range between Columbus' average attendance and a team in the top 5 of attendance is only 8,000. This has to be one of the lowest attendance ranges top to bottom of any major league sport.

[jbcmh81]

Average game attendance since 2010.

Crew
2010: 14329
2011: 14838
2012: 15175
2013: 15440
2014: 15082
2015: 15657
2016: 16278

Seems to be going up. Maybe not as fast as they want, but it's not going in the wrong direction or stagnating.

Here's Dallas
2010: 10815
2011: 12861
2012: 14199
2013: 15373
2014: 16816
2015: 16015
2016: 14094

Houston
2010: 17310
2011: 17694
2012: 21015
2013: 19923
2014: 20117
2015: 20658
2016: 19021