NYCFC Looks at Queens Again: Aqueduct Racetrack

Developers behind the nascent New York City Football Club are now looking to land near the Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens, after plans to build near Yankee Stadium fell apart.

Manchester City Football Club owner Sheik Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan and the New York Yankees, which are partnering in the joint venture for the NYCFC, are now looking at a possible site adjacent to the Aqueduct Racetrack in Ozone Park, Queens.
Sources close to the site negotiations said that the Bronx plan “fell through the cracks,” after developers could not reach a deal with a tenant in a building that occupies the site the partners had hoped to develop.
“The tenant is in one of the old buildings in the area that they needed to vacate, they had agreed on a price, then he changed his mind and the deal fell through,” the source said.

"NYCFC is looking at sites all over New York City," said Risa Heller, a spokeswoman for NYCFC. "We are working with the De Blasio Administration to find a world class site for a soccer-specific stadium."

Last month that Paul Seifred, the vice-president of an elevator business that would have had to relocate, met with representatives from bin Zayed al-Nahyan and the Yankees. At the time, Seifred said that despite talks with the football club, it appeared the plan for the site was dead.

The city abandoned its original plan to build in the middle of Queens’ largest park (Flushing Meadow Park, site of Citifield) after the Bloomberg administration came up with a more attractive deal, which would build on a 10-acre site in the South Bronx, encompassing three of Yankee Stadium’s parking lots and the building controlled by Seifred’s elevator company.
The Aqueduct Racetrack, home to the Resorts World Casino, sits on an expansive 210 acre piece of land in Queens. Redevelopment plans have consistently been pitched for the area, with the latest being a short lived proposal for a Javits-style convention center on property by Governor Andrew Cuomo.

Soccer is no stranger to the Aqueduct. Teams have entertained the area for years, dating back to the Metrostars (now the New York Red Bulls, with their own stadium in Harrison, NJ) in 2001. Then-owners John Kluge and Stuart Subotnick proposed a Cosmos-style $70 million redevelopment plan that would include shops and housing centered around a 25,000 seat stadium. But that plan never took off; the MLS rejected the site due to its transportation issues. Only one subway, the A-line, reaches the site, and the closest parkway, the Belt, is renowned for bumper-to-bumper traffic jams. In addition, the entire site sits at the edge of JFK International Airport.


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First New York, Now Miami: Another MLS Expansion Stadium Deal Collapses

 Just two weeks after MLS Expansion Team NYCFC lost it’s hoped-for practice stadium (article here), soccer great-turned-investor David Beckham’s efforts to find a location for a new Miami-based soccer team has suffered a similar fate: Mayor Tomás Regalado and City Manager Daniel Alfonso told Beckham’s investment group that their proposal to fill in a nine-acre waterway and build a $250 million, 20,000-seat stadium adjacent to the Miami Heat’s Arena on public park land was a no-go. 

In spite of Beckham’s offer to privately fund the construction and pay the City $2,000,000 in annual rent for use of the public land, public opinion was deeply divided; a Miami Herald/el Nuevo Herald poll taken last week showed county voters evenly split over the location. Local residents offered the usual complaints about traffic and losing their water views; Cruise lines opposed the proposal as well, and the entire process may have been poisoned by the bad feelings remaining from a recent failed attempt at a taxpayer-supported stadium for the Miami Marlins. 

City and county leaders continue to insist that they want an expansion franchise in Miami. But Tuesday’s decision marked the second time a proposed location was rejected by the political leadership that once not only supported the project, but even recommended the location.   

A third possibility - sharing a downtown stadium with the University of Miami college football team ended with no agreement in sight.

According to theguardian.com, Beckham's investment group, “which includes the entertainment impresario Simon Fuller and the Bolivian telecoms billionaire Marcelo Claure, said it would pause to consider its options, one of which will presumably be withdrawing from the project altogether.

We presented a strong proposal for the site suggested to us by the two mayors the group, Miami Beckham United, said in a statement after a meeting on Tuesday with city officials in Miami.

Our package was the most equitable soccer stadium proposal that Miami, or any other city in America, has ever seen, 100% privately funded without any local taxpayers' money.

Our team will now pause and weigh alternatives. The people of Miami deserve a team and stadium that they will be proud of for decades to come."

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Donovan Rises Above Klinsman's Questionable Cut

It started with US Men's Soccer Coach Jurgen Klinsman making a head-scratching decision last week to cut Landon Donovan, arguably the best player in American Professional Soccer today, from the US Men's team in the World Cup.  Donovan had performed well during the training camp, making Klinsman's decision even more questionable.  Donovan was upset and could not come up with an explanation, but handled it like a professional and a gentleman.  But what was Klinsman's rationale? Did he feel that at 32, Donovan was too old?  Or that in spite of Donovan's performance, his heart wasn't into another World Cup (Donovan played in two previous Cups), especially since Donovan took a sabbatical in 2013?

If that was the case (as some sports writers have suggested,) why did Klinsman call Donovan up from the LA Galaxy to training camp in the first place....since he knew all of that beforehand?

The weirdness continued with a eye-brow raising tweet by Klinsman's own son after the cut, which raised the question of the quality and kinds of conversations that took place around the Klinsman dinner table.

The Tweet by Klinsman's son: 

In any event, Donovan returned to play with his home team, the L. A. Galaxy last night....whereupon he became the highest scoring player in American MLS history by making his 135th...and then his 136th....goal.

Congratulations to a great player. I still don't know what Klinsman was thinking... perhaps his ego in shaping a team, or a need to control younger players got in the way...or perhaps it was simply a personality conflict.  His decision to cut Donovan, however, will be judged by the performance of the US Team at the World Cup.  

Meanwhile, Donovan's performance is now cemented in history.

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Why Soccer Could be the Future of American Sport....(originally posted 29 July 2012)

Can you imagine the American-based National Football League holding the Superbowl in, say, Italy?

Could you imagine 29 Basketball teams allowing one Argentine team to play with them, and then having the audacity to call their national tournament the “World Series of Basketball?”

Can you imagine a Boston Bruins hockey player falling on the ice, and being immediately helped up by a New York Ranger?

Probably not. But that’s because American Sports are…well…American, and insular. Only during the Olympic season, and during rare, fleeting American media coverage of major global matches such as Soccer’s World Cup, are Americans even aware of sports in other nations.

And yet, in this insular world, the winds of change are blowing. For those not glued to the London games, this past weekend saw a series of sporting events, here in the United States, that indicates a growing challenge to “The Big Four” (American Football, Baseball, Basketball, and Hockey) and the insularity of American sports.

Yesterday (Saturday, July 28), France held its Trophée des Champions, the equivalent of France’s Soccer Superbowl….in Harrison, New Jersey.

In spite of threatening weather, 15,000 fans turned came out to the New York Red Bulls Stadium to watch Olympique Lyonnaise battle Montpellier to mark the official start of French soccer season (the cup is played at the beginning of the ‘next’ season, rather than at the ‘end’ of the season).

"New York is a magical place, and we were more motivated to play in New York and for a Cup final," Said Lyon forward Jimmy Briand, who scored the tying goal in the 77th minute and also converted the decisive penalty kick to give Lyon the title.

The game is traditionally played in France, but the last three cups have been settled in other French-speaking foreign nations: in Montréal, Canada; Tunisia; and Morocco. This marks the first time that the French have chosen to pay their ‘soccer superbowl’ in Anglophone America, and is indicative of the winds of change blowing on the international – and American – sports scene. The match was televised in almost 200 nations around the world.

“I think this was a solid first step for the French Federation to grow their brand with the American fan base and with American companies looking to expand even more into soccer,” said Chris Lencheski, CEO of Front Row Marketing Services, the Comcast-owned company that helped with the tour and the French Cup. “The U.S. is becoming more and more soccer savvy, because of the efforts of MLS and the continued marketing prowess of foreign clubs, and it makes great sense for the French to be in the mix as well. Today was a great example of how strong French soccer is, and it played out not just before a crowd in New York but before a global audience online and on TV. It was a great day for their league and for the sport.”

Meanwhile, the NY Red Bull Soccer Team was not on hand to witness the match at their home stadium. The Red Bulls, the top-seeded Soccer club in Major League’s Soccer’s Eastern Conference, was playing the Montréal Impact in their Saputo Stadium.


I openly admit: I have recently become an MLS junkie. We had the Red Bulls-Impact game live-streaming on our laptops last night, while the Western Conference powerhouse LA Galaxy (home to now-famous import David Beckham) match against FC Dallas was on the Flat-screen TV six feet away.

But I also know I am not alone: In 2011, MLS reported an average attendance of almost 18,000 per game, with a total attendance of 5,468,951. Prior to the 2010 season, MLS had never broken 4 million in attendance, and only barely did so in 2010 (4,002,053). That’s a one-year increase of 37 percent, and that’s just stadium attendance; it doesn't include media spectators.

Even more important: At an attendance of nearly 18,000 fans per game, Major League Soccer is now attracting more fans, in the stadium, than 17 NBA teams and 15 NHL teams (*see list at end of post). Last year, the NY Red Bulls averaged 19,700 fans per game; the NY Rangers pulled 18,000; the NJ Nets, 14,000; and the NY Islanders 11,000.

Why the impressive growth in soccer in the U.S.?

Perhaps traditional American sports fans are tired of ego-driven million-dollar salary contracts.

Perhaps they’re tired of having Corporate money shoved in their face at every turn.

With each new NFL or MLB stadium expansion or rehab, from Green Bay to Citi Field to Fenway Park, more space is given to premium suites that are out of the reach of ordinary fans; in contrast, Major League Soccer teams have devoted entire seating sections to independent Fan Clubs that bring drums and chants and banners and passion. The fans-in-the-stands are actually respected and appreciated, and it shows.

As I watched from my chair last night, four times I saw soccer players extend a hand and help up a fallen man from the opposing team. I watched guys on opposing teams exchange shirts with each other at the end of the match in a display of sportsmanship and camaraderie.

And I realized I am part of a growing number of Americans embracing a truly global sport, played the way professional sports used to be played, with a respect for the players, each other, and the fan base that has long gone by the boards in America’s “Big Four.”

(Photo: Bill Gaudette, NY Red Bulls Goaltender)
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*NBA teams with lower average attendance than MLS: Clippers, Suns, Nuggets, Wizards, Pistons, Raptors, Rockets, Bobcats, Hawks, Bucks, Timberwolves, 76ers, Hornets, Grizzlies, Nets, Kings and Pacers.

NHL teams with lower average attendance than MLS: Bruins, Sharks, Lightning, Oilers, Hurricanes, Predators, Panthers, Stars, Avalanche, Devils, Ducks, Blue Jackets, Jets, Coyotes, and Islanders.


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