Will be fun to see him play. I'm skeptical as to how much he has left and what he'll be able to give them.
2017 General MLS Transfer Rumors
- Thread starter LionNYC
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Will be fun to see him play. I'm skeptical as to how much he has left and what he'll be able to give them.
No kidding.
I guess I could see them having him play a regista role with Juninho and Dax beside him. The other option would be have Dax sit behind him and let Basti and Juninho play more freely, but I don't like that too much for their attacking style. Better to have Basti hit long balls to their fast-ass wingers to start the counter.
Agreed. Good luck offloading that team with the horrible 30 year stadium lease they signed in 2005. Unless the new owner is buying only to relocate the team to another city which would be a shame. Aside from being in a terrible location with crappy access from the city, highlights of the lease include:
- The Fire pay an annual Facility Fee originally set at $300,000.00 that increases at 2% every year. They also cover event expenses for each use of the facility.
- Naming rights are owned by the Village, along with marketing and advertising rights for the stadium.
- The Fire have to reimburse the Village for any home games held outside of the facility. International friendlies included.
- No MLS team can play in the Chicago market area in any stadium other than Toyota Park, even if the Fire cease operations.
- The team is responsible for reimbursing the Village for use of ancillary facilities, including the main field for practice sessions.
- Concessions and box office are controlled by the Village, although there are shared revenues: Team at 92% of gross ticket revenue; 50% split of net parking and net concession revenue; Team receives 30% net license, net event suite revenue, and net sponsorship revenue. Team receives 22.5% of gross merchandise revenue.
I don't think NYCFC/CFG would ever be foolish enough to agree to anything this ridiculous but it's a good cautionary tale as we all hope for a stadium.
On that 4th bullet (and I realize that this is a completely ridiculous hypothetical), what if a 2nd MLS team were to come into the Chicago market with the Fire still playing there? Would they also have to play at Toyota Park?
Moreover, if that new team built its own park and was allowed to play there; what if the fire then went out of business? Would the new team be forced to move out of their location and into Toyota Park?
You're right, it's silly. How did MLS ever sign off on that?
The other team would be allowed to build its own park but would not be allowed to play there unless they paid the village of Bridgeview every time they played there. The 30 year deal Bridgeview has with MLS is that all MLS soccer occurs in Toyota park, no exceptions unless Bridgeview is compensated on a per game basis.
AEG wanted a stadium so they could sell at a higher price. They didn't care about the long term consequences. They also built stadiums in less than ideal locations in Houston and NY, and off loaded those teams. You can even argue that Carson is not ideal for the Galaxy.
So.... all legal documents are made of words, and very specific words cause certain things to be binding and others not. Just yesterday(?) there was a court case that hinged on a single missing comma that was worth hundreds of millions to one side. What I'm getting at is if the Bridgeview/MLS contract stipulates an "MLS" team is bound to them, what if MLS broke into two divisions that people have wanted to call MLS1 and MLS2, or maybe the "lower" division is MLS and the "upper" division that included Chicago is now the Premier Major League (or some jargon like that) - this way the Chicago team isn't bound.
Lawyers, is something like this possible?
For both sides, remarkably. Bridgeview is bleeding money every year on the stadium.
So for the All-Star game at Soldier Field this year, the league has to split revenue with the village? That's rough.
Of course, it's hard to really judge without knowing how much Bridgeview shelled out in up front subsidies.
From my understanding, Bridgeview basically paid for the stadium. The fire paid nothing.
Ugh... MLS was stupid to sign that contract and Bridgeview was stupid to build the stadium.
That may actually be good news for MLS, no? It puts a price tag on what it takes to buyout the contract from Bridgeview.
The second issue is where the hell do you build a stadium in Chicago proper anyway? Hyde Park?
It could indicate the village might be willing to be bought out. Whether there is a mutually agreeable price I couldn't say. And as you point out nothing can happen without an exit plan that includes a new location.
Well, at the moment there's 414 pages in the stadium thread that all say how easy it is to find a site for a stadium.
Piece of cake!
Overlay showing where Chicago fits in NYC in 3...2...1...
Well you know I did think about it…
I actually looked at the maps as I know very little about Chicago and there's a couple of parks where you could fit a stadium. One's next door to Hyde Park (not an actual park by the way) but not actually within the borders and the other's on the lake but most of that one is in another town as well, I think. And by town I mean that it's a neighborhood in Chicago, same way Long Island City used to be a separate city but it now just a neighborhood in New York City.
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