1,000 days after David Beckham's MLS team announcement, is it time to give up on Miami?

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1,000 days after David Beckham's MLS team announcement, is it time to give up on Miami?

Leander Schaerlaeckens

Oct 31, 2016, 3:48 PM

Remember when David Beckham was going to become the owner of a Major League Soccer franchise?

When he activated the clause in his original contract with the league and the LA Galaxy that allowed him to buy the rights to a franchise at a $25 million price tag, now an outrageous bargain in the expansion fee hyperinflation wherein the cost of franchises to others was creeping towards nine figures? When he brought a slew of apparent heavy hitters along with him, sure to be able to crack through the legendary difficulty of getting a stadium built in Miami?

That was a long time ago. On Monday, in fact, it was 1,000 days ago.

On that sunny Wednesday morning of Feb. 5, 2014, Beckham, his business partners and league commissioner Don Garber announced that a team would be coming to Miami. When would it begin play? That was a question a fawning pack of local reporters, who were more interested in whether Beckham and his famous family would be moving to the city, barely even got to pose.

As it turns out, that was the crux of it. Because MLS’s awarding of the franchise was contingent on Beckham’s ownership group getting a stadium deal done. And when one targeted site after another – in Miami’s port, on its water front and then next to Marlins Park – fell through, pressing questions were asked. Late last year, Miami Beckham United, as the ownership is called, finally secured a lot in the historic but badly depressed Overtown neighborhood, but the land has apparently not even been closed on yet. Zoning hurdles might also remain. And the purchase of one section of the proposed stadium site still has to be negotiated, according to the Miami Herald. Also, The Telegraph reported that final lot won’t even be purchased until another investor into the ownership group is found, something that hasn’t happened yet.

“We are still working with the investor group to finalize their stadium situation and to solidify their total ownership structure,” Garber told Sports Illustrated last month. “It has taken more time then all of us had hoped.”

Needless to say, a proposed 2017 start date for the team proved far too soon, and now even 2018 is looking ambitious.

Meanwhile, Atlanta United, announced two months after the Miami team, is set to begin play next season. So is Minnesota United, announced almost 14 months after Miami. LAFC, announced almost nine months after Miami, looks set to kick off in 2018, for which Beckham’s team is still a question mark.

It leaves you wondering what it will take for the Miami ownership to lose its turn in line – especially with expansion fees now reportedly creeping towards $200 million. There is no shortage of major markets with an interest in an MLS team. Sacramento, St. Louis, Las Vegas, San Antonio, San Diego and Detroit are all viable and interested potential expansion towns somewhere along in the process of putting together strong ownership groups and sound stadium plans.

Miami is obviously an attractive town to expand into for its cultural and cosmopolitan cachet. But it still hasn’t demonstrated, as a city, that it’s all that interested in supporting an MLS team. The Miami Fusion, of course, lasted only four seasons, albeit in a dinky high school stadium out in Fort Lauderdale. This is a different time in MLS, although the history of failure in South Florida re-emphasizes the need to get Beckham’s stadium right. But more acutely, Miami is a question mark. Will it consistently and ardently support a professional team in any sport over the course of decades, rather than just a few years of on-field success? Does anybody really know this for sure?

At what point is Miami more trouble than it’s worth? Other cities are actually enthused about having an MLS team, both in their legislature and would-be fan bases, with a long record of supporting local teams no matter their performance. Detroit has a semi-pro soccer team that pulls in more than 5,000 per game, an astonishing figure at that level. St. Louis is the historic home of the American game and has a Rams-shaped hole in its heart now that the NFL has left town. San Diego is bleeding soccer fans to the Xolos, just over the border in Tijuana. Sacramento and Las Vegas have ample disposable incomes and a shortage of pro sports.

And the thing is, you could think of a half dozen other places that could conceivably do better – and do so more quickly – than Miami.

There’s no telling what kind of legal entanglements would present itself if MLS tried to pull out of its semi-commitment to Beckham and Miami – or to ask him to move his would-be franchise elsewhere. But if it’s at all possible, the time to give up on Miami isn’t another 1,000 days away.

It’ll be much sooner than that.

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Something

I was a Miami Fusion season ticket holder. The atmosphere was good all things considered. There is a community of people that support the sport but in the scope of national team and professional teams in countries they used to live in.

After living in Seattle and being a STH there for the first 4 seasons, I can't see Miami coming close to the enthusiasm the Pacific Northwest has in the MLS. The only thing that Miami has going for them is it would be an attractive destination for washed up players looking to finish their career in, something Seattle, Portland and Van City having trouble with. Players want LA or NY.

(My comment: precisely the problem with Beckham choosing Miami. It's a sexy city that a foreigner would choose. It's not the best potential new market for MLS, but foreign players would like it, certainly.)

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EdouardF

the site for the latest stadium will never attract anybody, it's not in the best area of town. The 1st site, in the water, would have maybe been successful but overall south florida fans stink, only if the team win will people go see them, ask the dolphins and now the heat as well as marlins. South florida has the lowest attendance in all major league sports.

(My comment: it does seem that the Overtown location is the worst site of the four sites considered so far, by far. I have to think that any potential billionaire investor looking into MBU's proposal, would immediately reject it because of the Overtown location. No idea why MBU are hanging on to it; but it is their last hope I guess. It is never a good idea to build a stadium in a bad area with the notion that it is going to help turn that area around economically.)

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Radu

I would hope MLS has some sort of clause that lets them out of the deal if a stadium is not secured by a certain date. I'd say let Sacramento in with LAFC in 2018. They're ready to start building.

(My comment: I don't get where the writer gets the notion that Beckham has any kind of legal recourse if he can't work a deal in Miami. MLS would have written all kinds of opt out clauses into its contract precisely to ensure that they would not be on the hook forever if Beckham can't work things out. MLS would not have stayed in business for 20 years if it was in the habit of writing blank checks.)

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Geoffrey

Time to stop speculating with Miami and start speculating with Cincinnati!

(My comment: free or very low cost tickets to a college stadium are nice, but you need a billionaire ownership group and a SSS or equivalent to get into MLS. Also Cincinnati is a smaller market. FC Cincinnati could get into MLS, but one season of good attendance in USL doesn't do it. Ask the Rochester Rhinos about that.) 

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Fred

Please give up on Miami. We do not want soccer here. It will fail miserably so take it someplace else. Soccer does not work in America. When will these people figure that out?

(My comment: low quality troll. "Soccer does not work in America": have you been asleep these past twenty years? Soccer works quite nicely in America. Has done so far quite some time.)