We know it’s coming. Major League Soccer wants a second team in New York. Queens seems to be the place to do so. Now, a couple local politicians are getting into the act.
In a New York Daily News op-ed, Assemblyman Francisco Moya and Councilwoman Karen Koslowitz argue for the new stadium in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park.
The arguments:
1. There’s a huge population (2.3 million) to support the team
2. More specifically, the large immigrant community will go to games
3. Jobs, jobs, jobs
4. Tourism dollars
5. J-O-B-S
I’m not entirely sure I agree with a lot of the reasoning — especially the tourism part — and there are some significant obstacles to overcome (where are all the fields going to go?) but they are getting closer to this becoming a reality. As one publication says, getting some local allies is an important first step. They journey of 1,000 miles and all that jazz.
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- suckittrebek76 - Aug 2, 2012 at 3:44 PM
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What JOBS? As a long time opponent of publicly subsidizing stadiums I have researched this topic and found that the only well paying jobs these stadiums produce are players and executives. All the other jobs are temporary (construction workers and contractors) and low paying seasonal jobs.
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- Noah Davis - Aug 2, 2012 at 3:51 PM
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Interesting. Like I said, I don’t agree with the reasons in the op-ed, I was merely reporting the arguments made. I’d love to see some scholarship/articles that talk about the impact of stadiums on jobs.
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- ricecloudnine - Aug 2, 2012 at 5:59 PM
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I highly recommend the book Field of Schemes as a good starting point. The authors also have a blog by the same name discussing current stadium plans (including some viewpoints/info on the proposed MLS stadium in Queens).
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- Ted Meyer - Aug 2, 2012 at 10:05 PM
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For a stadium to actually create growth much more needs to go into than just finding a section of land and building a stadium. There needs to be a plan in place for development around it. A good example of this is the Verizon Center in Washington. The Chinatown area was pretty much a dump before the arena was built and many will say that the Verizon Center was a huge part of the transformation. Business are now booming and the area is completely different. Most of that also comes from the size of the facility. A 90,000 seat facility is probably only going be used by the team occupying and maybe a few other large events. What MLS is talking about are small 20,000 seat facilities. Those can be used far more often for concerts, high school and college championship, and other smaller events. Those in my opinion do create jobs and can lead to economic growth
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- suckittrebek76 - Aug 2, 2012 at 4:04 PM
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After reading your piece a second time I now see that they weren’t your reasons. I just get so fired up about these BS reasons for public funding. If owners and politicians want taxpayers to pay for new stadiums then let them decide through a public referendum.
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- smolloy18 - Aug 2, 2012 at 5:31 PM
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The stadium is SUPPOSED to be privately funded. We’ll see how that goes. At least publicly, the main hurdle for this project is replacing the parkland that would have to be eliminated in order for the stadium to be built.
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- joeyt360 - Aug 3, 2012 at 6:43 PM
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Well, this is NYC, and I don’t think the league would be dumb enough to expect they’ll front money to Major League Soccer to help a stadium get built. I’m sure they understand fully that they’ll have to do it on their own, the issue comes down to land (which there isn’t much of in that town).
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- kselvig - Aug 2, 2012 at 6:46 PM
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Maybe its me, and I don’t pretend to understand such things, but when the red bulls are one of the better teams in the league this year and still can’t fill their 25K stadium, why does a 2nd New York team make sense?
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- smolloy18 - Aug 2, 2012 at 7:56 PM
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I think MLS views northern NJ and NYC proper as two different markets. The thinking is that a team in one of the boroughs would attract fans from NYC and Long Island who would be less willing to make the trip to Harrison, NJ. From experience, I can tell you that I live in Suffolk County on LI and have gone to a few matches at RBA, and while the stadium is great, I spent about twice as much time travelling as I did watching the game.
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- ndnut - Aug 2, 2012 at 6:52 PM
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Because NYC=$$$ and I believe they think it would be better to have a team in the city rather than NJ.
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