Wizards Moving

[Pounder]

I'm just going to post what I posted at soccercityusa.com...

http://www.soccercityusa.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1194367625/0

I know the parameters of this situation, but this still plays to me like a cry for help.

[nksports]

Problem is Arrowhead is shutting down after the end of the Chiefs' season for renovations. The Bannister Mall site for the new stadium isn't a done deal, and wouldn't be ready until 2010 at the earliest anyway. Memorial Stadium in Lawrence was discussed along with finding and expanding an area high school stadium, but those ideas were abandoned.
If Overland Park or Olathe would have acted when the opportunity arised, this would all have been moot. I don't hear anyone in Frisco, Texas complaining about FC Dallas.

[Pounder]

Was it Overland Park that had the election? Could I really blame the citizens who voted against $75 million for, get this, 24 soccer fields and not even SUPPOSEDLY a pro stadium? Folks know that you can put up a field with no stands for, um, a touch less than $3 million. That merely shows that the public trough is drying up for these purposes.

I heard Curt Onalfo on Fox Soccer Channel last night talking up Bannister Mall, something I haven't followed up on otherwise since I'm blocked from bigsoccer at work and since my Neanderthal computer only handles it so well at home. I'm clearly in the business of not counting chickens before the hatchlings escape their eggs these days. They had another month IMO to couple the CAB announcement with a Bannister Mall announcement, which is absolutely necessary in my book. I understand everything's in flux in the middle of a negotiation, but the timing here doesn't give me really warm fuzzies.

BTW... I hear plenty of soccer fans complaining about the distance to Frisco and the lack of transportation. MLS must realize that Toronto FC stumbled on the future of the league. The target audience is not soccer mom with the hope of snagging their kids... who'd rather follow the urban bohemians to the game anyway.

[Pounder]

Sure enough, my bleating is a little premature.

http://www.kansascity.com/news/columnists/mike_hendricks/story/349879.html

The thing that bugs me... this site is 17 miles out of town. It's a failed suburban mall site, though it seems that area is a part of KC that has yet to really take off population-wise. Still, I'm not convinced these things work in the suburbs... with very few exceptions.

[nksports]

Sure enough, my bleating is a little premature.

http://www.kansascity.com/news/columnists/mike_hendricks/story/349879.html

The thing that bugs me... this site is 17 miles out of town. It's a failed suburban mall site, though it seems that area is a part of KC that has yet to really take off population-wise. Still, I'm not convinced these things work in the suburbs... with very few exceptions.

Side to side and up and down, the Kansas City metro area is a about 75 miles by 75 miles of sprawl that is getting bigger all the time. The site it right on I-435, which when traffic isn't snarled, isn't too hard to get to.
For the most part, when there are fans at Wizards games, they tend to be the traditional soccer mom and pop in the mini van loaded up with the kids.

[logoguru]

With Hunts death I feared the death of the Wizards. His sons are supposed to be huge soccer supporters but this situation doesnt make it seem like it.

Wasnt there a huge draw in Oklahoma City for an exhibition a few years ago?

[nksports]

With Hunts death I feared the death of the Wizards. His sons are supposed to be huge soccer supporters but this situation doesnt make it seem like it.

Wasnt there a huge draw in Oklahoma City for an exhibition a few years ago?

Hunt sold the team about a year before he died to a local group. Hunt kept threatening to sell unless he could get a soccer-only stadium. That fight's about five years old. If Johnson County, KS, had its stuff together, they could have had a stadium finished by this summer, but the local chapter of CAVE (Citizens Against Virtually Everything) stepped up and stopped it, along with two arena proposals, one of which was days away from breaking ground and sent the NAIA headquarters from Olathe to KC, Mo. due to breach of contract on Olathe's part (no arena).

Considering the Wizards are the only team in KC to win at the moment, just missed the MSL Cup with a loss to Houston last week, I'd think people would be getting behind this a little better.

BTW, I was at a sold out exhibition between Dallas and Memphis at Welcome Stadium in Dayton, Ohio around 1977 or 78, and we never got our pro team.