Hello all. This is another in a series of open letters
urging David Beckham & Co. to team up with Bill Edwards & Co. to take
the Tampa Bay Rowdies to MLS, should the Miami Beckham United bid to secure a
stadium in the Miami area fail. The Al Lang stadium location on the waterfront
in downtown St. Petersburg is the kind of ideal urban location that MLS and Don
Garber are looking for in new MLS Soccer Specific Stadia (SSS). Time is running
out for Miami Beckham United to make a stadium deal in Miami; please consider
the Tampa Bay Rowdies as your backup plan. As I am sure most of these
letters/emails are not read I won’t be doing many more of these letters and
will be instead blogging about this and other topics here:
Others (for instance the Kartik Krishnaiyer articles that I
linked to in my last letter) have dealt with the topic of why the Tampa Bay
area is still the leading region for youth soccer in Florida and the Southeast
and why it still has a better history of supporting pro soccer than Miami, not
to mention it is the largest TV market in Florida. MLS should recall why they
put a team in the Tampa Bay area in 1996 in the first place, in spite of not
having an owner for the team. The Tampa Bay Rowdies were not just the second
most popular team after the Cosmos in the original NASL, but they soldiered on
for years after the collapse of the original NASL, keeping the flame of pro
soccer in the USA alive in the 1980s and early 1990s, something they are never
given credit for. For example:
Meet long-time Tampa Bay Rowdies owner Cornelia Corbett!
By Bob Andelman (Originally published in Florida Business/Tampa Bay,
1989)
Before her, Cornelia Corbett’s team, the Tampa Bay Rowdies.
Behind her, a few thousand exuberant soccer fans who haven’t given up
the dream.
There isn’t much to cheer on this overcast Sunday night at Tampa
Stadium except that the rain has stopped. Despite the Rowdies having advanced
to this American Soccer League playoff game against the Boston Bolts, only
5,000 people have come out to support the team. Even their loudest screams echo
as but a whisper in the cavernous bowl, where 67,000 seats both end zones and
the entire north side of the field are empty. Even the concession stands are
against the Rowdies tonight; they ran out of hot dogs before halftime.
Still, Cornelia Corbett is unswayed. Watching the entire game in her
now familiar position on one end of the bench beside head coach/general manager
Rodney Marsh, the owner of the Rowdies concentrates her energies on the field.
She winces each time the Bolts score and claps enthusiastically when the
Rowdies engineer an elegant pass or steal.
It is this legacy which makes the Tampa Bay Rowdies such an
important and iconic American soccer brand, well known still worldwide, and why
it still has a strong reservoir of support in the Tampa Bay (Tampa-St.
Pete-Clearwater) area. The Rowdies currently suffer from a catch-22: they are not
going to get the media attention and fan support they need playing in a lower
league, because the Tampa Bay area soccer fan base is a sophisticated soccer
fan base that isn’t going to support something perceived to be minor league,
and which does not live up to the memory of the original 1970s Rowdies; but the
perception is also that the Tampa Bay Rowdies can’t get to MLS without more fan
support. A David Beckham and Bill Edwards partnership to take the Rowdies to
MLS would shatter that barrier and renew the original 1975 Rowdies spirit. That
“Spirit of 1975” however does still live on today with the new Tampa Bay
Rowdies and their fans:
Mary and Dieter Karnstedt are Rowdies' royal couple
The only time the couple have missed a Rowdies game was when Dieter
spent a short time in the hospital last year. He began attending Rowdies games
in 1976.
“Because I love football,” he said very matter-of-factly. “Not soccer.
Football. Let’s get that straightened out.”
He played professionally in Germany and caught his future bride’s
attention while cheering like a maniac in the stands decades later
.
“He was sitting this far away and he was purple. He’s screaming at the
linesman,” recalled Mary. “I said to my girlfriend, ‘That guy’s going to have a
heart attack.' I didn’t meet him until two years later.”
They wed in 1983. He took her to see the World Cup qualifying matches
in Orlando and she was hooked on soccer – ahem – football.
Apart from the MLS contraction in Tampa Bay, the other thing
people often mention against the idea of moving the Tampa Bay Rowdies to MLS is
the Al Lang location in St. Petersburg. While a downtown location in Tampa
would be perfect, the Al Lang location is still almost perfect, and is less
than half an hour drive from downtown Tampa; traffic would only be a problem on
weeknights, which is a problem for MLB with its much more frequent weeknight
baseball games but much less of a problem for MLS which is mostly played on
weekends when traffic is not an issue. People also have this outdated idea of
St. Pete as a city of retirees; but the green benches are long gone and St.
Pete (and Clearwater and Tampa as well) is looking much more like a hipster
burg, like Portland Oregon, than like a retiree city. For instance on my recent
trip to St. Pete I discovered newly opened Central Melt on Central Avenue, and
what is more hipster than artisanal grilled cheese sandwiches?
New offerings in St. Petersburg: gourmet food to grilled cheese, Boho
chic to high-end bongs
ST. PETERSBURG — More than a dozen new businesses are open, or in the
works, along four blocks of Central Avenue on the edge of downtown.
Central Melt is going in at 685 Central Ave. on the east side of the
State Theater in the space formerly occupied by Schoolyard Skateshop and, many
years before that, a soda fountain. Owner Ed Allen plans to keep the Sealtest
logo painted across the outside of the shop. He won't sell ice cream, but
something almost as decadent: grilled cheese sandwiches.
I had the Notorious P.I.G. (BBQ Pork, Red Onion and Bacon
Jam, White Cheddar Cheese, White American Cheese on Sourdough Bread). I have no
idea how those hipsters manage to wiggle their way into their skinny jeans
after eating that. Central Avenue and the area around it has lots of bars,
restaurants, pubs, boutique shops, art galleries, and the like. Nearby is the
Sundial (formerly Baywalk) owned by Bill Edwards with lots of high end shops
and restaurants. Al Lang Stadium is next to the Mahaffey Theater, and next to
that is the Salvador Dali Museum, on the site of the former Bayfront Center
where the Rowdies played their first (indoor) soccer game on St. Valentine’s
Day, 1975. North of Al Lang is the Museum of Fine Arts. Shortly there will be
another museum in the area:
Philanthropists Tom and Mary James unveil plans for new St. Petersburg
museum
ST. PETERSBURG — Looking for spectacular? Philanthropists Tom and Mary
James are bringing it to downtown with a new museum that will make a commanding
architectural statement and be filled with works from their vast art
collection.
Plans for the grand project came one step closer to reality Thursday
when the Jameses revealed their vision and never-before-seen details to St.
Petersburg's City Council. The $55 million Tom and Mary James Museum of Western
and Wildlife Art will be at 100 Central Ave. Their desire, said Tom James,
executive chairman of Raymond James Financial, "is to create a real arts
destination in St. Pete with another high-quality museum."
St. Petersburg is definitely growing and Al Lang would be an
ideal location for an MLS SSS, hosting the Tampa Bay Rowdies who have, like the
three Cascadian clubs (Portland Timbers, Seattle Sounders, Vancouver Whitecaps)
a 41+ year history and tradition to uphold, which should be a part of MLS,
playing at the highest level of US soccer where they belong. But with so many cities now vying for MLS
expansion slots, time is running out. A possible failure of Miami Beckham
United to secure a stadium in Miami presents a unique opportunity for the Tampa
Bay Rowdies, and a potential win-win solution for Bill Edwards & Co. and
David Beckham & Co. There is David Beckham’s discount to consider:
MLS franchise fees may hit $200m, Beckham’s Miami dream looks good
business
August 5 –David Beckham’s Major League Soccer (MLS) franchise option of
$25 million looks very cheap with league officials indicating earlier this week
that they were preparing to double franchise fees to $200 million.
Indeed, Bill Edwards and David Beckham may have already met,
or at least been in the same room at the same time, if I am reading this
article from February 2012 correctly, which states that David Beckham was one
of the celebrities in attendance at an event organized by Bill Edwards in Las
Vegas:
Bill Edwards Knocks Muhammad Ali Out in Vegas
St. Petersburg's own Bill Edwards may just be the busiest man in show
business. He's got his recording studio. He's managing the Mahaffey Theater.
He's got big plans to renovate BayWalk. And his company, Bill Edwards Presents,
just finished throwing the birthday bash of the century for 70-year old boxing
icon, Muhammad Ali.
Bill Edwards is involved in the mix of sports,
entertainment, and real estate that would make for an ideal MLS owner. In
combination with the David Beckham brand and the Tampa Bay Rowdies brand, they
would be a winning team. As I suggested in my previous letter, other local
investors (Vinik, Sternberg, the Glazers, the Steinbrenners, etc.) would also
be useful additions to the Tampa Bay Rowdies MLS ownership consortium. If they
had use of the Raymond James stadium in Tampa while Al Lang was being expanded
or rebuilt, they could even launch the MLS version of the Tampa Bay Rowdies in
2018, right on time, if the Miami situation does not work out. There is still
time.
On my recent trip to St. Pete to watch the Rowdies play at
Al Lang, I got to see Joe Cole perform a bicycle kick goal. This goal was
replayed on ESPN and lots of other places and I had people who never talk to me
about soccer mention it to me. For me, it was worth the 1,370 mile trip.
Joe Cole Scores Stunning Bicycle Kick
Published on Jul 16, 2016
The Tampa Bay Rowdies midfielder provided some magic in the club's win
over Puerto Rico FC.
After the game I got into the elevator at the St. Pete
Bayfront Hilton and a man, noticing my Rowdies hat, scarf, and socks, told me
“good result tonight” in a British accent; he was from London visiting and had
also been at the game. St. Pete is an international city, and the Rowdies in
MLS would add to that international appeal. Last year when I was visiting the
Salvador Dali Museum I also noticed a lot of European tourists. St. Pete is not
the provincial retiree city some people still think it is. It is every bit as
international as Orlando or Miami; it is just that outsiders don’t seem to
realize it. You see it in the tourism shows on cable TV: the European host
visiting America blasts through Florida with visits to Orlando and Miami, but
never mentions the Tampa Bay area which is the biggest area with some of the
oldest and most interesting history in the state (apart from St. Augustine of
course).
Everyone knows about the Cuban connection in Miami, but the
Cuban connection in Tampa is older (due to the location of cigar factories in
Tampa in the late 1800s which attracted Cuban, as well as Italian, cigar
factory workers). Yes, Tampa invented the Cuban sandwich, not Miami! Tampa and
the surrounding cities (St. Pete, Clearwater, etc.) have their own distinct
cultural and culinary identity which is not well known nationwide or
internationally. For instance there is the deviled crab:
Deviled crab was originated in Tampa, Florida where it was established
by the Spanish, Cuban and Italian immigrant community of Ybor City. The dish is
traditionally made with blue crab. The seasoning uses a unique Cuban-style
enchilada / sofrito sauce (locally known as "chilau")[2] whose
spiciness lends the "devil'" moniker to the dish's English name.
Deviled crab is meant to be eaten with one hand. It was developed during a
cigar workers strike in the 1920s and is still popular in the Tampa area.
Or crab chilau:
The waters of Tampa Bay teemed with blue crab back then, making it a
staple in local recipes. If the deviled crab was Tampa’s signature street food
— portable and quick — crab enchilado was a homey crowd pleaser that brought
family and friends together for long, steamy afternoons. Every major ethnic
group in Tampa ate it, and though they called it chilau or shelah it always
meant the same thing: blue crabs simmered in a slightly spicy tomato sauce and
served over pasta. This simple description doesn’t do the dish justice — it is
more than the sum of its parts. The tomato sauce is light enough to let the
crab play lead, substantial enough to cling to the pasta, and spicy enough to
keep it all interesting.
Or scachatta:
Tampa scachatta is one of those culinary-linguistic conundrums, sharing
a similar name and heritage to various pizza-like breads on both side of the
Atlantic, but with a murky origin that’s hard to pinpoint. On my tour of
Tampa’s Cuban and Italian bakeries, I saw it spelled scachatta, scacciata, and
at the more Spanish and Cuban-leaning establishments, escachata. An old article
from the Tampa Tribune in the 1950s (the earliest reference I could find to
American scachatta) spells it scaciata and scaciato, and it describes a recipe
that calls for oregano, chorizo, and Worcestershire sauce. In Sicily,
scacciatta (not to be confused with scaccia or sfincione pizza) is a
double-crust baked pie that’s more calzone-like than the Tampa version, where
farther north in Italy, schiaciatta usually refers to a denser focaccia or
flatbread with various toppings.
Tampa scachatta (I’m sticking with the Italian-American spelling to
differentiate from the above Italian specialties) is more like Philadelphia
tomato pie or Rhode Island pizza strips, sauce-based with a lighter dough and
served at room temperature. You’ll find it almost exclusively at Cuban-Italian
hybrid bakeries, side by side with Cuban bread, guava pastries, and cannolis.
But even within one region there are variations; some of the more Cuban-leaning
scachatta goes heavier on the spices, and possibly even includes corn or
cassava flour in the dough.
Hmmm…I seem to have gotten sidetracked by food. Well, know
the food, know the people, know the place. The Tampa Bay area suffers from a
lot of misconceptions people have about it which are not true; it is not just a
place for retirees. It has a history and culture of its own; Orlando and Miami
do not represent Florida by themselves. The Tampa Bay area, and the Tampa Bay
Rowdies, and Al Lang Stadium in St. Pete, are the whole package: a great soccer
legacy, a great potential for the future; they are what MLS needs. If Miami
does not work out for David Beckham, and time is running out for getting into
MLS, please consider the Tampa Bay Rowdies.
COYR!
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