Now, I don't know how things work in Salt Lake City. I couldn't keep track of all the twists and turns of the stadium saga. I was waiting for a done deal for the good, or for the not so good. This latest statement of Checketts may be a ruse.
However, the smoke and fire may have finally burned soccer in Utah for good. I don't know enough about the situation to cast blame, but I do know I'll miss Real Salt Lake as part of MLS if that's what all this means.
I'll never forget the view from the Rice-Eccles press box (best in the country), or the fans going crazy for the U.S. team versus Costa Rica, or Landon Donovan claiming Salt Lake was among his favorite cities. Even with the crappy season the first year, the fans had a way of marking the bitter irony that was unique, such as the black crepe paper streamers to mark their club's ignoble record.
Most of all, I'll miss the Salt Lake City journalists, who were the only ones I ever saw travel regularly with their team to matches, and, who, in RSL's short existence, raised the level of soccer reporting with both the depth and breadth of their coverage. The trio of Lauren Gustus, Michael Lewis, and James Edward were also really nice people - smart, funny, good to have around the game.
It's sad if it's true it's over.
As disappointing as it is, I think this is a much-needed reality check for soccer in the U.S. Too many fans and journalists and others have drunk the soccer-specific-stadum kool-aid to do a critical realistic analysis of the situation. Soccer-specific stadia need to happen not be enforced, like the 2002 WC quarter-final trip happened -- the American game evolved to that point. Asking for soccer-specific stadia all over the country is like the expectation placed on the Nats for the 2006 edition of the WC -- too premature, unrealistic.
ReplyDeleteL.A. has serious fan support and the HDC came about in a natural way; it looks like Chicago's story is the same, and from the early look of it, Toronto might pull it off. Expecting Denver or SLC or KC to have an SSS is unrealistic, IMHO. Even San Jose couldn't pull it off; I'm curious to see if Houston (a lot like LA in size, demographics, etc.) successfully builds one.
The soccer management brains in smaller markets (and I'm including the SF/SJ Bay area) need to find ways to intelligently coexist with other sports, share stadia, and work on the more important thing -- building fan support. I've watched the Quakes in SJ for a few years now, and I don't believe they successfully tapped into the fan potential of Northern California (don't know how many fans drove over from Sacramento, the way fans in Rochester, NY, drive to watch the Buffalo Bills). I am happy to see new attempts to forge better busines deals with SJSU for Spartan (reasonable renovations/reconstructions, decent sharing of parking/food-beverage sale profits, etc) -- they are grounded in reality, and might just work.
Siva