More fighting between SDSU and SoccerCity over stadium agreement
sdsualumnipastpres.com/
sdsualumnipastpres.comPosted May 25, 2017, 12:13 AM UTC
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sdsualumnipastpres.comThis is pretty simple. The University wants all the land to expand the campus.
Soccer City wants to be able to develop it to make money and use the profits of the devlop to offset the cost of the stadium.
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its actually not that simple..sdsu doesn't want all the land it just wants more land. soccercity offered 5 acres, sdsu wants 35 for university facilities (land is over 165 acres).. and secondly capacity and control over the stadium. as is the mls team has complete control, and dictates its use (sdsu is subject to the will of the owners)..and SC'S max desired capacity was 25k (Ideal for mls), they are willing to negotiate to 30k...sdsu wants control so they can do other university things on the stadium besides football. and sdsu had numerous games over 40k last year and regularly does over 30k (despite being historically bad) they are projected to be way better in future years. A few more years of success they could grow into a 45-50k stadium if that was an option...they want atleast a 40k stadium
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Even if we disregarded the complexity, I think it is very well worth it. If SDSU does get the land, they will give space to UCSD for a research center.
In my opinion, the opportunity to have more facilities for colleges is a lot better than giving facilities to a business.
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Knowing next to nothing about the situation, I feel the need to weigh in. I hope UCSD and SDSU can combine whatever political clout they have to share the land between the two universities. Then, my pipe dream of UCSD football can be preserved for some unlikely, but theoretically possible, future.
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They are developing 80 acres? An SDSU wants an additional 30?
How the hell are they going to make enough money to demo The Q in an environmental friendly way, build the 55 acre river park, and build the stadium?
If this plan doesn't get done, nothing will anytime soon. In that case, SDSU can figure out what high school stadium they are going to play at. Additionally, they won't need to worry about stadium capacity because Cal and Stanford will not be coming to town.
While I am at it ... According to the city, SDSU averaged 25,617 fans through the turnstile for its six games last season at Qualcomm Stadium, well short of the 37,289 announced attendance. Additionally, only 11 of the last 44 games surpassed 30,000. Thus a 35,000 stadium would be fine.
I want SDSU to be in a Power 5 conference and yes they'd need a bigger stadium to do that. However, it's not happening any time soon. They are never getting into the PAC 12. The SEC, ACC, and B1G 10 are never going to happen. Thus the weakest Power 5, the Big 12 is their only hope. Which, at this point is much more like to collapse and be absorbed by the other conferences than to expand and bring in SDSU.
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The land being discussed is ~230 acres, not 80. Also the issue isn't the size of the stadium (Soccer City has agreed to 32K with reasonable expansion plan to 40K) but the use of the other land outside of the stadium.
SDSU wants an open proposal process where multiple bidders can submit offers and the city can pick the best option. Soccer City is trying to rush it by negotiating exclusive rights to a MLS franchise in San Diego and pushing through a special election in November. So far Soccer City has been winning the PR battle and painting SDSU as the obstructionist. It'll be interesting to see what happens over the next few months.
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No, it's 165 of which they are developing 80.
Boo frickin who about an open proposal process. Nothing is more open than a public vote.
It would be hilarious if they went to a open bid process and SDSU got shut out. No land for expansion, and no stadium for football. However, it feels like a lot of collusion in the city and that wouldn't be the case.
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It's awfully bold to say they'll never get into the Pac-12. I actually think they're the most underrated of the Pac-12 potential expansion candidate. They can bring a new, large market to the Pac that doesn't have any NFL competition, and they can bring the Cal State system into the Pac, which could drive fan interest from other Cal state's up as well. The Pac would do well to broaden their reach beyond the UC system upper crust students.
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For starters San Diego is not all that large of a market (TV wise).
Additionally, most of the college football fans here are already UCLA or USC fans.
Right now UCLA and USC get to pick off all the top San Diego football and basketball talent (not to mention the leftovers ASU and Arizona go after) They'd push hard against allowing SDSU in and losing that as part of their backyard recruiting.
Finally, although greatly improved in the last 2 decades, if SDSU came into the PAC-12 they'd still be the worse school academically.
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Fight for our enjoyment, Aztecs!
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The thing that is really scary for a joint MLS/SDSU proposal is the fact that the MLS team would be far from guaranteed. What if the MLS doesn't pick San Diego for expansion? Where does that leave SDSU and this development? And as I understood the proposal, the developers wanted SDSU to pay half of the $200M for the stadium up front and then maybe, possibly, perhaps, someday down the road, the developers would pay back SDSU through another method, but in the end through tax breaks and other deals, the developers wouldn't pay very much at all on their end for the stadium (like $10K). It's a crappy deal for SDSU.
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I called this in the sense that the soccer proposals did not seem very CFB friendly.... and didn't seem to involve SDSU at all.... but they kept making them.
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Does this mean SDSU is going to move to Carson City too?
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Maybe, I mean if this doesn't get built the football team has no place to play come 2020.
The emergency plan is a high school stadium.
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What about the Padres stadium?
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Petco has said SDSU can play there in 2019 if necessary.
The reason being is Petco is going to want to take over the 2 bowl games that are currently played at The Q.
Additionally, if SDSU has a permanent solution that'll be available for 2021, the Padres organization could probably be pressed to give them use of Petco for 2020 even though they have publicly stated they are against it.
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I haven't lived in San Diego since 2014, but I did live there 12 years prior. I am struggling to think of a high school stadium that can accommodate the requirement of an FBS school.
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That's kinda the point: There isn't one. Cathedral Catholic, Escondido, or Oceanside would be the best 3 options.
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It is a sad day when an FBS school may have use a high school stadium.
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The comments for the discussion on r/MLS is cancer
MLS only averaged 21k fans per game as a league. It's funny watching them talk down about CFB when even the average G5 team outdraws them
Eh. For a non "Big Four" sport I would say 21K is pretty impressive. Especially for a 34 game regular season.
34 games x 21,000 = 714,000
714,000 / 12 games = 59,500
Not one G5 team averaged that many fans per game. Only a handful of G5 teams even have a stadium that can hold 60K most of which are NFL stadiums. Three of the five G5 conferences have an average attendance under 20K.
So unless I did my math wrong or that 21K figure and 34 games figure is wrong, there isn't any basis for that comment.
Do things really scale that way though? It produces some funky numbers when applied to MLB
162 games x 30,168= 4,887,216
4,887,216/12 games= 407,268
You do bring up a good point. But MLB brings in 73 million total spectators a year, the NFL brings in 17.5 million which is only a couple million more than AAA baseball (14 million).
So the "fair" interpretation is somewhere in the middle. Obviously college football would have a drastic reduction in attendance without its finite amount of games. The finite amount of games is why CFB stadiums dominate the list of largest stadiums in the world despite being nowhere close to the most popular sports league worldwide. But obviously the massive number of games in baseball is allowing for "repeat guests" at such a rate it is unfair to compare with leagues who play only 7% to 20% as many games.
*17 regular season home games, then add in some friendlies and US Open Cup games, and if they make MLS Cup.
Exactly. But 5th down also uses a full season of CFB games, so it washes out in terms of average.
Well, they claim to. That Empty Seats twitter account kinda throws some doubt on that, MLS is a staple of that feed.
It's r/MLS so nothing new. Every time I go over there my brain cells commit suicide en masse.
There is an elitist douche factor in soccer that is really unpleasant.
I even played (nothing like MLS of course) I remember getting along with my teammates but they often did not with each other.... it was just how it was.
LMAO elitists in a 4th tier league to boot.
Any one of those squads would get wrecked in the Championship or Serie B.
It's r/soccer, so take it with a grain of salt, but the consensus is that MLS is usually between the upper end of League One and the lower end of the Championship. The best teams could probably stay out of a relegation battle but definitely wouldn't be pushing for promotion to the Premier League.
No shit. I love my new team ATL UTD, but hate soccer culture in America. It's a carbon copy of European soccer and has zero originality. The arrogance you speak of probably comes from the fact soccer is still not that popular in America so there is a chip on their shoulder. "I follow a European sport I'm obviously smarter that you blah blah blah"
So true. Man I was pummeled by folks when I said I didn't like the MN "united" name because I felt like it was a "hey me 2!" little brother like thing and it is time for MLS to grow up and be its own thing.
If popularity continues to grow I feel like there will be a subtle split like happened with hockey when they decided they weren't going to cater to booze swilling drunkards looking for blood all game and wanted a wider audience and wanted to bring in more families and fans.
I personally play. It's not everyone, but there is group of people playing to relive their glory days.
Are they all killing SDSU?
yes
They should.
The University was caught flat footed (not the football team), they want the land to expand but have no plan for how to pay for the land, develop the land, tear down the stadium, or build a new stadium.
So they are no resorting to obstruction and politics to delay and try and stop the soccer city plan.