MLS in Portland? Be careful

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SodaPopinski said:
Why are the two (upgrading PGE Park; and putting retail and condos at the RG) mutually exclusive? If anything, I would say the two work well together, since upgrading PGE moves the new AAA baseball stadium to the Rose Quarter and the new baseball stadium makes retail/restaurant more viable in the region than the moribund Memorial Coliseum.

Plus, I think the AAA baseball stadium at the MC site is much more palatable to the veterans than a Dave & Busters or [insert cheesy chain concept here]. Merritt Paulson has already agreed in principle to have the name of the new baseball park incorporate some deference to veterans and he has also agreed to construct a new physical memorial outside the stadium.

-Pop
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They're mutually exclusive because of the footprint a new ballpark would take.
 
maxiep said:
They're mutually exclusive because of the footprint a new ballpark would take.
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Not according to Larry Miller and the Cordish Companies (developer of choice). Miller was on the BFT last week talking about it and he said there is enough land to incorporate a new ballpark and the PortlandLIVE concept they are talking about. They may have to relocate some of the offices that are currently in the building where the Rebound Clinic is, but other than that there is plenty of room. The Blazers also own four acres adjacent to the grain silos right on the river.

A 9,000 seat stadium is not going to have that large of a footprint.

-Pop
 
9000 seating stadium is going to be significantly smaller than the 19,000 seating PGE park.
Have you guys seen the buzz that Seattle has been having with their new MLS team?
Seattle has sold more season tickets than any other team in the league and changed its seating configuration to accommodate 32,400 for Thursday's season opener against the New York Red Bulls at Qwest Field.

The seating configuration for the other home games has been increased from 24,500 to 27,700, and the team has put a cap of 22,000 on season-ticket sales.

The club's marketing approach has included placing billboards throughout Seattle and "blanketing the city with (Sounders FC) scarves," as Gary Wright, senior vice president of business operations, described it. The scarves have been sent to all season-ticket holders and handed out in the community.
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If PGE park keeps its average attendance between 7500 - 8500 this upcoming season and we know we will get an expansion team in 2011 I bet we would get at least 9,000 average our first year in the MLS.
 
Nate Dogg said:
9000 seating stadium is going to be significantly smaller than the 19,000 seating PGE park.
Have you guys seen the buzz that Seattle has been having with their new MLS team?

If PGE park keeps its average attendance between 7500 - 8500 this upcoming season and we know we will get an expansion team in 2011 I bet we would get at least 9,000 average our first year in the MLS.
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This town is soccer crazy. I've always been a football guy myself, but we were way ahead of the soccer curve when I was growing up. If we get MLS, it will be huge here. And if Vancouver also gets a team, then the Timbers/Sounders/Whitecaps rivalry will be reborn, making MLS even bigger in the Pacific NW.
 
maxiep said:
This town is soccer crazy. I've always been a football guy myself, but we were way ahead of the soccer curve when I was growing up. If we get MLS, it will be huge here. And if Vancouver also gets a team, then the Timbers/Sounders/Whitecaps rivalry will be reborn, making MLS even bigger in the Pacific NW.
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I agree with maxiep. Politicians will find out if we do get the MLS, and we get some mexican or brazilian star player from their home country you know that they have a fan base. Thats at least another 500-1000 people right there.
 
They're adding up the 15m in proposed URD or ticket/alcahol tax money with the 11.8m Paulson already agreed to seek, which could include adding MLS to the Baseball Bill.

There is nothing new in this article.
 
Baracuda said:
They're adding up the 15m in proposed URD or ticket/alcahol tax money with the 11.8m Paulson already agreed to seek, which could include adding MLS to the Baseball Bill.

There is nothing new in this article.
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Well, if being an additional $15 million short and using even more tax money to simply try and start the team isn't "new", then I guess there is nothing new. Meanwhile, some of us are concerned that the process of simply putting together funding to start the team has been full of over-promises and under-financing, and all for a league that has struggled to be relevant. I heard Paulson on The Fan last week basically say they expected to sell out every game (~22k) and were using that as a part of their financial model. Anytime somebody has to put the absolute best-case forward as a part of their presentation, I start to get even more skeptical.
 
The RG is a horrid area for development. It just will never be a happening place. Blocked by freeway... river.. bridge... just sucks. Works fine to go for a game... but what idiot would buy a condo there? I don't see it... they couldn't even keep a few restaurants afloat.
 
PapaG said:
Well, if being an additional $15 million short and using even more tax money to simply try and start the team isn't "new", then I guess there is nothing new. Meanwhile, some of us are concerned that the process of simply putting together funding to start the team has been full of over-promises and under-financing, and all for a league that has struggled to be relevant. I heard Paulson on The Fan last week basically say they expected to sell out every game (~22k) and were using that as a part of their financial model. Anytime somebody has to put the absolute best-case forward as a part of their presentation, I start to get even more skeptical.
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The MLS/AAA plan is not "an additional $15 million short", nothing has changed since the plan was voted on at City Council nearly three weeks ago, nothing. The $15 million hole was created when Saltzman asked for that amendment eliminating the proposed URD before voting on the plan. The other $11.8 million that Paulson would seek was already part of the original plan negotiated by Leonard and Paulson.

How long did the NFL and NBA struggle to be relevant? Decades. There is a long ways to go, but I believe MLS will continue to grow and become more relevant, especially in Portland and the Northwest.

Paulson does expect to sell out the stadium at 20,000-24,00 a game the first year, but all his projections are based on selling 15,000 tickets and not on sell outs. You are not correct on that point. I believe the MLS average is about 16,000.

Peace
 
Paxil said:
The RG is a horrid area for development. It just will never be a happening place. Blocked by freeway... river.. bridge... just sucks...
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If they extended the annex parking garage into the open area they could make more money. They could put another parking lot where the big silo is but make it low enough that you could still see the Blazer banner on it. Parking has always been an issue. Yes traffic is going to be worse if stadium is built there. The real bottle neck is the I-5/I-84 merge.
 
Paxil said:
The RG is a horrid area for development. It just will never be a happening place. Blocked by freeway... river.. bridge... just sucks. Works fine to go for a game... but what idiot would buy a condo there? I don't see it... they couldn't even keep a few restaurants afloat.
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On the contrary, it's a fantastic place for high density development. Easy access to freeways, light rail and the West side. Fantastic river views. Close to Lloyd Center.

If you put condos there with a convention center hotel and ground floor retail, it would be tremendous. The problem is the grain silo and the old Red Lion hotel. Those need to go. The answer for that area isn't less dense development, but more.
 
Rose Quarter has none of the coolness of Pearl. *If* the grain thing went it could be someplace cool, but it would take a ton of work. People who like the downtown lifestyle want to live someplace where it is cool to hang out and walk around... ever went to the Rose Quarter to do either of those? Not me.
 
Baracuda said:
The MLS/AAA plan is not "an additional $15 million short", nothing has changed since the plan was voted on at City Council nearly three weeks ago, nothing. The $15 million hole was created when Saltzman asked for that amendment eliminating the proposed URD before voting on the plan. The other $11.8 million that Paulson would seek was already part of the original plan negotiated by Leonard and Paulson.

How long did the NFL and NBA struggle to be relevant? Decades. There is a long ways to go, but I believe MLS will continue to grow and become more relevant, especially in Portland and the Northwest.

Paulson does expect to sell out the stadium at 20,000-24,00 a game the first year, but all his projections are based on selling 15,000 tickets and not on sell outs. You are not correct on that point. I believe the MLS average is about 16,000.

Peace
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Paulson specifically said that they expect sell-outs in season one and used that as a part of recovering money. You can say that everything is fine, but the fact remains that there are still more financial hurdles to clear, possibly on the backs of taxpayers, before an MLS team is a certainty. The Paulsons are worth hundreds of millions of dollars. If this is such a great enterprise, why not just put up all of the money now and get started on a groundbreaking?
 
MLS isn't great but it is still fun to see live.
 
The convention center expansion cost 110 million. I don't know how much the initial construction was... but safe to assume well more than twice that. I think I am been there once. Personally... I'd rather have soccer.. and I am fine with spending taxpayer money for it. *gasp* Hell yeah... I'd take a sales tax if we could have baseball football hockey and soccer teams.
 
PapaG said:
Paulson specifically said that they expect sell-outs in season one and used that as a part of recovering money. You can say that everything is fine, but the fact remains that there are still more financial hurdles to clear, possibly on the backs of taxpayers, before an MLS team is a certainty. The Paulsons are worth hundreds of millions of dollars. If this is such a great enterprise, why not just put up all of the money now and get started on a groundbreaking?
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Paulson's projections forwarded to the MLS/AAA task force are based on 15,000 fans a game, which is a conservative estimate to make sure his soccer projections pencil out to the city council. This was covered at the first task force meeting here are the meeting notes.

I never said everything is fine. I know there are plenty of hurdles to clear. I was commenting about the recent Oregonian article not having any new information, that's all. I suppose you could argue that the details of how the hole would be filled are new, but the hole is nothing new.

Paulson doesn't own PGE Park and won't own the baseball stadium, that is why he isn't paying for all of the construction costs. I believe he's adding $12.5 million to construction costs at PGE.

Did anyone watch the Trinidad match today?

Peace
 
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I did, good game. Wish McBride was still on the team. Bring him back for the WC!
 
Paxil said:
Rose Quarter has none of the coolness of Pearl. *If* the grain thing went it could be someplace cool, but it would take a ton of work. People who like the downtown lifestyle want to live someplace where it is cool to hang out and walk around... ever went to the Rose Quarter to do either of those? Not me.
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It's easier than you think to make someplace "cool". I never hung out on Harbor Drive, but I sure spent a lot of time on Waterfront Park. Mississipi Ave used to be wretched; now it's pretty cool. Sellwood used to suck. I could go on and on and on and on with neighborhoods in Portland. Urban renewal for the Rose Quarter would be about the easiest place to do it. It already has the infrastructure, the location and the mass transit.
 
USL got some coverage on ESPN.
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/columns/story?id=635013&sec=us&root=us&cc=5901
1. Farewell Tour, part 2: The Seattle Sounders said goodbye to the USL last year and hello this season to MLS. The Portland (Ore.) Timbers and Vancouver Whitecaps will do the same over the next two years, giving Major League Soccer a tradition-rich, three-way Pacific Northwest rivalry when they join in 2011.

MLS hopes Portland and Vancouver's fans follow the same pattern as Toronto and Seattle. Toronto drew crowds of barely 1,500 when it had a USL-1 team. But Toronto FC has averaged 20,000-plus in its first two years in MLS, and Seattle, a much better USL draw than Toronto, has an MLS-record 22,000 season-ticket holders.

To prepare for the departures, the USL-1 will add Long Island-based New York FC and the Tampa Bay Rowdies in 2010.
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I still think, if the timbers attendance stays between 8500 - 10,000 the next two years, I bet it will reach 12,000 in the first year in the MLS.
 
There is a huge difference between fan support of a major league team and a minor league team. People say MLB could never work because of the flaccid support of the Beavers (man is that a Freudian phrase), but Portland's support of the M's is one of the strongest fan bases (ticket sales, tv ratings, etc.) of any out of market team.

I suspect the same will occur when the Timbers join MLS.
 
i heard some guy on the radio say yesterday he wouldnt goto beaver games at the new stadium. only PGE park.

why do people say stuff like this? PGE is not like a high quality stadium. im sure the new one would be nicer, and still on the max line..?????
 
New Developments!
1. PGE park must be Soccer only
2. No new location of AAA Beavers, means MLS expansion team would be reportedly off.
http://www.kgw.com/news-local/stories/kgw_042709_news_baseball_stadium_soccer_deal.119590b35.html

The MLS commissioner originally thought PGE park was too small (19,250 approx) but Merrit wants to add seating on the west side of the ballpark which probably allowed the commissioner to change his ruling in Portlands favor. I agree too, that PGE park will lose 71-72 days of events (baseball) but the Timbers are already booking more international clubs in the schedule and I would imagine the same would be when the MLS gets here.
 
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Lets see how long Portland leads the top 5 in attendance this season. Right now its at #1 averaging 7,646 fans per game with 2 home games under its belt.
http://www.kenn.com/the_blog/
julius said:
Hopefully the MLS team doesn't fold or leave after a few years. I'm tired of the 2nd rate leagues running rough-shod through Portland.
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Did you check out the attendance stats? I definitely saw more public fans in the stands than what I remember seeing last year. The MLS buzz is growing.
SodaPopinski said:
I think there are several reasons why you should bet on MLS vs previous failures in this city:

  • The team will be starting from day one with one of the largest and most passionate supporters' groups in all of North America. So the atmosphere is already spoken for.
  • The league plays during a time where there are no competing sports in Portland.
  • It's an outdoor sport during a time when Portlanders love to be outdoors.
  • Merritt Paulson, based on his track record with the Beavers and USL-Timbers, promises to be an active and involved owner, and he has a good amount of financial backing compared to most owners in the league
  • The team will play in its own stadium, which gives them a stronger position to sell luxury tickets to corporate interests, sell sponsorships, etc.

-Pop
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I agree with Pop. Merrit Paulson is a dedicated owner believing in his fan support. Again Nike has already indorsed PGE park as a sponsor.
 
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This also passed on April 28, 2009.
A state House committee voted 7-1 today to approve a bill that would raise about $5 million to renovate Portland's PGE Park for a new Major League Soccer team.

The bill is a critical piece of Merritt Paulson's proposal to bring a Major League Soccer team to Portland. It would tap soccer players' income tax payments to back public bonds.

The bonds would raise about $5 million toward PGE Park's $33.7 million renovation into a soccer-only stadium. The bill is modeled after a previous bill aimed at recruiting a pro baseball team to Portland.
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source: http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2009/04/house_panel_approves_bill_to_h.html
 
this whole thing seems rushed and orchestrated by the few on behalf of the many who dont want the MLS or dont care.

i am a huge Timbers supporter, make most of the games and best friends with one of the head honchos of the Army. but all this just doesnt sit well for a number of reasons already discussed.

why do the Beavers get the short end of the stick? they are, particularly if they have to move out to freakin Lents. closing off the stadium? that's crazy one of the most fantastic aspects of PGE is the open view of downtown, the MAX train rolling by and the ivy wall. it's beautiful.

i dont like how MLS wants to have their cake and eat it too. that's no way to do business with a small, promising city such as portland. they bent their "MLS mandate" for the Seattle Sounders in allowing them to play in Qwest (with the top sections tarped off), surely something of a compromise can be made here.

they'll never get 20,000 people into the stands at PGE for MLS on a regular basis. it's going to be dormant every single other day of the year.

ugh, i want MLS as much as the next person. but none of it sits well. here we've already had the big "announcement", rally and all that hoopla and we're still wondering if it's a go. it's just not a clear business plan.
 
garden of oden said:
this whole thing seems rushed and orchestrated by the few on behalf of the many who dont want the MLS or dont care....
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Everything in local or state legislature has to pass within a 9 month to a year time frame. How is that being rushed? MLS is coming in 2011.
why do the Beavers get the short end of the stick? they are, particularly if they have to move out to freakin Lents. closing off the stadium? that's crazy one of the most fantastic aspects of PGE is the open view of downtown, the MAX train rolling by and the ivy wall. it's beautiful.
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People only show up to Beavers games for Thirsty Thursdays. You don't get 7500 Beaver fans on a Saturday like what the Timbers get. Its obvious that Merritt saw the numbers. Theres tons of space to put more seating along the east side of the stadium (ivy wall). Whose saying that the max train view is going to be blocked?
i dont like how MLS wants to have their cake and eat it too. that's no way to do business with a small, promising city such as portland.
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MLS know that US soccer is growing and what is better yet to expand teams on the west coast. Portland has almost the same population stats as Kansas City, Missouri (home of the MLS Wizards) and the rest of that metro area.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_City,_Missouri.
They'll never get 20,000 people into the stands at PGE for MLS on a regular basis. it's going to be dormant every single other day of the year.
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True, but I think the timbers could easily get between 9,500 - 12,500 per game beating out Kansas City in the first year. Its not going to be dormant. Go to the next timbers game and you will see.
ugh, i want MLS as much as the next person. but none of it sits well. here we've already had the big "announcement", rally and all that hoopla and we're still wondering if it's a go. it's just not a clear business plan.
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How are business plans not easy? I bet when the Portland Trailblazers got established it was a hassle too. Things are just more complicated because we have max / tri met involved, local schools, bridges, economy, and other factors all once. Be glad that the city of portland has a major money sponsor and backer for this deal.
 
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