I had no idea he was only 32. When DC United signed him, you would've thought from the fan response that they were actually bringing him out of retirement.
The Austin city council should be voting today on whether or not to enter into a stadium development agreement with the Columbus Crew ownership. I say "should" because this is the Austin city council and there are a few members who appear to be deliberately dragging their feet on this process despite being obvious "no" votes. That includes Leslie Pool, the council member who represents the district where the stadium would be built. My gut feeling is that this will not pass. Pool and Alison Alter are the clear "no" votes on the council and mayor pro tem Kathie Tovo appears to be on the fence about this (and she is retiring this fall, so there is no electoral pressure on her vote either way). PSV has appeared heavy-handed in their pitch and there's a bad taste among certain council members about the lack of property taxes coming from the team. All that said, this is classic Austin. An abandoned chemical plant owned by the city for 20 years is now, suddenly, a contentious development argument. Until this proposal came up, there were no plans to develop McKalla Place. Now they're letting the perfect be the enemy of the good and I believe they'll turn down this stadium proposal allowing the land to sit vacant for many more years.
I was wrong! Austin city council voted 7-4 to agree to build a stadium at McKalla Place. As an Austin resident for the last 11 years, I think I now have to jump ship from the rest of you Dynabros once the 2019 season kicks off. Until then, I'm pulling for the Dynamo in the Open Cup!
Psh...whateves Good for Austin. I hope they succeed there. In my 15 years there, I never got the sense that the citizens were pining for a professional team. It's just not a professional sports city. I was part of the soccer community and, maybe because they never thought it would actually happen, no one ever mentioned even wanting a team in Austin. That and it's not a particularly large soccer community. I always thought San Antonio was a much better fit. A more natural fan base. A stadium built such that it could easily be expanded. More people in general. I do hope it goes well, though. Would be bad for the league for an original team to pick up and move only for it to fail.
I agree with almost everything you said. I've always been skeptical about a team succeeding in the shadow of UT, but now we'll get to see if that notion can be disproved. I'll do my part when they start playing and hope this works.
MLS now joins the NBA having 3 Texas teams in one state. I never expected MLS to have more pro teams in the state of TX than the NFL and MLB but I understand that the owners like Jerry Jones, Bob McNair and Jim Crane don’t want to lose their fan base in S.A. I’m excited for this new Texas Triangle derby/clasico next year and looking forward to it into the coming future.
I don't think UT has anything to do with it. There are plenty of young transplants there that don't give 2 ***** about UT. But they also are the types that likely don't care about sports more generally. If there is a sport that could gauge the interest of younger/hipster/millenial/creative types it would be soccer.
Asking because I don't know the answer...have you ever lived in Austin? The UT effect is real. While there are plenty of transplants, it's a UT dominated sports scene and many there do not want that to be changed. It's not that there's not room for more...it's just that the city has never had a real urgency to bring in pro sports. It's why the Express are in Round Rock and not Austin.
Kirk Bohl's recent column about MLS suggests that the Express play in Round Rock because that city was a lot easier to work with than Austin when it came time to build Dell Diamond. His quip about the Phoenix Firebirds is before my time in Austin. I think the fact that there are so many transplants here with no connection to UT could mitigate the pull of Longhorn athletics and make this a success. Plus, logistically, game day could be a lot of fun with all of the craft breweries that exist along the Metric corridor. I anticipate a lot of pre- and post-game parties at places like Circle, Adelbert's, Austin Beerworks and 4th Tap.
Man...I left at the wrong time. There wasn't s*** on Metric in 2014. IIRC, there was a backlash from the citizens and the city council had decided it wasn't going to "play ball" with Ryan-Sanders. There was no interest at all in having a stadium in the city (not unlike the backlash from the original stadium plan Precourt brought to the table). I thought there was an actual vote but I can't find any info on that and I'm probably just remembering it wrong.
I thought there was a vote on the stadium for the Express, too. Maybe I'm combining the 2 situations. But with that one failing so spectacularly, I can understand why there wouldn't have been and why Ryan-Sanders went straight to Williamson County. Maybe @Deckard or @DaDakota or @Buck Turgidson remember what happened better than I do.
They are close to reaching 1990s Oilers level except the babygate, players committing suicide, and assistant coaches fighting each other. The Dynamo have one month to fix this problem before the U.S. Open Cup. They better find a way to salvage whatever is left in the season.
That Final is the only thing they should really be concentrating on. At this point, they should be doing exactly the opposite of what they've done in all previous seasons...play the kids in the regular season games and focus only on the Open Cup final. The regular season is a lost cause. My one concern going forward is what happens after they win the Cup. Does the complete failure of the regular season matter? Will anyone be held accountable? Winning the Cup is great but to say it was a successful season would be short sighted.
All in all, it's not a horrible name, logo, color scheme and badge. It's not blow you away amazing, but one could see some pretty neat jerseys out of it, the color scheme and even the tree match the city of Austin a bit. I would be curious what the potential other names would have been (eg. Austin Oaks... since they tried to go with an oak tree, or Austin Bats). The tree itself is a bit bland looking... kind of like an bro went in to get a tree tattoo and that's what they got... but in the same way in its genericness, it probably works for everyone. As for support, I suspect they will be well-supported. For one, its soccer. So it won't encroach on anything UT related or Dell Diamond related. For two, location wise its a solid spot. The Domain+ is really going to be the second downtown, in a way that Buckhead is to Atlanta for example. Personally, I HATE the fact that it was more giveaways (no property tax required for example) to a for profit entity and there were multiple other solid development options that would have created a crap ton more revenue for the city and county. But it is a solid location. For three, I think Austin is kind of a soccer town. Younger. Lots of transplants. Decent demographic mix. But like everything else... success will correlate with attendance. Personally, as a transplant to Austin, with young kids, I can absolutely see us going to a game or two a year and sporting the gear.
