Does Houston Need Another Sports Stadium?

Among the stories I've been negligent in covering is that Houston finally has a MLS Soccer franchise. Easy to skip over for me, since I'm not quite the soccer fan that at least a few others are. Coupla things, though, that stand out as cause for concern. First is that the team has named Oliver Luck as it's soon-to-be President. This ought to stand out as a glaring conflict of interest since Luck is presently president of the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority. But even if we assume there's nothing wrong with that, now comes the obligatory request for a new stadium (the team will play at UH's Robertson Stadium in the interim). Leading candidate for the gig is rebuilding on top of Delmar stadium, which is a prime-location HISD Football stadium/bus barn.

The normally mild-mannered Tory Gattis goes off (in a mild-mannered sorta way) on the fact that the team ownership (Anschutz Entertainment Group) is seeking a public partner for the new stadium and wonders if such a stadium will be our latest public boondoggle. A couple of cavaets that Tory doesn't seem to put into context:

First, and I should cavaet this myself as "ideally," a public partnership is going to be for land (ie - the property of Delmar stadium) in exchange for the pro team building a facility of it's choosing and offering some extras for the school district (smaller, surrounding community soccer fields). The entire net result of this would be to displace the heretofore eyesore of a bus barn that resides next to Delmar. But on the whole, there's no reason why this part of the deal couldn't be win-win. The team gets a stadium they draw up, they can keep revenues from any professional events, and they can manage. The school gets an improved stadium and more soccer fields for their own use.

The rub, of course, comes from how the construction costs are split. AEG spokesfolk Scott Elackmun states in the Chron: "We are not looking for someone who would pay 100 percent of construction." Fine ... but what percentage are they looking for?

This gets us to the second of Tory's concerns - whether or not we'll have yet another domed stadium in Houston. If there's a way to do that for under the stated $80 million limit that AEG is seeking, then I'd love to see the plans. The Chron offers up some other examples of stadiums done under the terms we're talking about. And for the record: THIS is what an $80 million stadium looks like. We're not exactly talking about the Seventh Wonder of the World. And if the bulk of what's involved is HISD turning over land, where's the harm here?

Perhaps the biggest, most disconcerting issue of the whole MLS team, as stated, is the move by Oliver Luck from the HCHSA to Soccer team president. To that end, the report offers this:

Luck said the Harris County Sports Authority will not contribute anything toward a soccer stadium.

Fine and well, I suppose. But I'd hope that the records of the deal signed by HISD (the leading candidate with the Delmar refurb) show only reasonable costs by the school district. By way of examples, I'd think any costs that go toward savings down the road make some sense - ie. those that get picked up by the soccer team on an ongoing basis.

If the team looks for HISD to build a $40-million parking garage, however, look for stuff to hit the fan. That's about the biggest exclamation-point moment I can foresee in the whole deal. When you're talking about a $65-80 million budget, there's no part of that that Phil Anschutz himself couldn't write a check for ... and presumably make money on. If it's not profitable for AEG, then I don't see why the cost should be borne by a school district that has to be a little nervous about property tax backlash.

But at some point, if we're not going to talk seriously about disbanding HCHSA (an idea I'm 100% behind), can we at least write a law that prohibits HCHSA leaders from going to work for entities that may very well suck at the teat of HCHSA? Maybe there's little to worry about with Oli Luck (who I recall fondly as a QB with West Virginia and the Houston Oilers) as President of the soccer team, but what about that leading to a job with one of the sports teams that DO do business with HCHSA? What about it leading to the soccer team eventually calling on HCHSA for a handout of some sort down the road? The dynamics are different. I mean, if a soccer team threatened to bolt over a lack of funding, would more than two dozen people cry over it? Based on the example of our experiments in indoor soccer (a team I loved) and our Arena Football team (a team I stopped caring about once Jimmy Klingler was dropped) ... no. Similarly, the folks back in San Jose don't seem all that depressed over their team heading here to play next season, either.

SIDENOTE: One other point that I seem to have glossed over from Tory's post ... I think we can declare the era of mixed-use sports arenas dead. Basketball and hockey may be an exception (and football & rodeo may be a Houston thing), but for the big, clunky, outdoorsy sports, it looks like the trend line is going towards unique stadiums for baseball, football, soccer, and ... well, whatever comes next. Someone let me know when an Austrailian Rules Football team starts negotiating with Alief ISD. Unlike soccer, I might actually watch that.