2015-09-30

2015-09-30

Dear Sir or Madam,

This is a continuing open letter from a life-long Tampa Bay Rowdies fan, to the current and possible future owners of the Tampa Bay Rowdies, to Miami Beckham United, to Major League Soccer, and to the City of Tampa. Please forward on this email and/or snail mail as appropriate, and apologies in advance for this somewhat blind mass mailing.

There has been speculation that the stadium deal in Miami may not ultimately work out, and that if so, other cities in Florida should be considered by MLS and Beckham, in particular the Tampa Bay Rowdies; I refer to this as an example:

http://worldsoccertalk.com/2015/03/11/time-for-mls-to-look-beyond-miami-for-second-florida-soccer-team/

If reading paper version of this letter, Google “Time for MLS to look beyond Miami for second Florida soccer team”; an article by Kartik Krishnaiyer at worldsoccertalk.com.

In my previous open letter I outlined a number of reasons why the Tampa Bay Rowdies should be considered for MLS expansion. I won’t go over that again (original letter is below); what prompts me to write again are rumors I have heard that MLS would not consider putting an MLS team in the Tampa Bay area if the stadium were located in St. Petersburg. I have no idea if that is true or not; I can understand the reasoning as a stadium located in downtown Tampa would be a lot more centrally located for the Tampa Bay area population than a stadium in downtown St. Pete would be. And of course the attendance problems of the Tampa Bay Rays, playing in St. Pete, is concerning; although an MLS team would have far fewer weeknight games to contend with than a MLB team has, and should be able to get weekend crowds to cross the bridge to St. Pete, in theory.

On the notion that MLS would require a stadium in downtown Tampa, I am increasing the distribution of this open letter to include the Mayor of Tampa, Bob Buckhorn, and Jeffrey Vinik, the owner of the Tampa Bay Lightning who has often come up as a possible future Rowdies owner amongst Rowdies fans, due to his real estate dealings in Tampa, particularly in the Channelside area. Mayor Buckhorn and Mr. Vinik may have ideas about where a Rowdies stadium could be built in Tampa. Long term there has been a desire to move the ConAgra plant, which may open up a possible site. While a stadium is being built for MLS, the Rowdies could play in Raymond James stadium, which if the Glazers were brought in as minority owners in an ownership consortium, could facilitate the process of moving the Rowdies to MLS more smoothly. Based on that idea, I am sending a copy of this letter to Malcolm Glazer as well. 

Would the current Rowdies majority owner Bill Edwards be interested in such an arrangement? Mr. Edwards is a real estate developer in St. Pete and the Rowdies are seen as part of his St. Pete plans, so many Rowdies fans are concerned that he would not be interested in any Rowdies developments that involved moving the team back to Tampa.

I speculate, however, that Mr. Edwards may have foreseen some future possibility of moving the Rowdies back to Tampa. The registered trademarks for the Rowdies includes, not just the Tampa Bay Rowdies, but also the St. Petersburg Rowdies. If the Tampa Bay Rowdies enter MLS as an expansion team, their reserve team could continue to play at Al Lang stadium in St. Pete, as the St. Pete Rowdies, playing in either NASL or USL, with Mr. Edwards as a co-owner in consortium with Mr. Vinik, Mr. Beckham, and others. This would allow Mr. Edwards to continue to develop and control the Al Lang site even if the Tampa Bay Rowdies move back to Tampa.      

I realize that this letter is just a fantasy and speculation from a die hard, life-long Rowdies fan, but there are plenty of good reasons for something like this to happen. Tampa lost out to Orlando in 1994 when it came to choosing World Cup stadiums, and lost out again recently when Orlando City joined MLS, in spite of the much longer and more illustrious history of pro soccer in the Tampa Bay area. If Miami cannot agree with Mr. Beckham’s group and MLS about a stadium deal, this could present a golden opportunity for Tampa to rectify some of these past shortcomings. MLS is growing every year, and it is only going to become harder to get an expansion team in MLS as the years go by. The Tampa Bay Rowdies still have a recognizable name and a history recognized by soccer fans all over the world; it would be a shame if the Rowdies, and the Tampa Bay area, were locked out of MLS during these crucial upcoming decades because no one had the vision or the inclination to make this happen.

I send this open letter to hopefully plant some seeds in influential minds, assuming something isn’t happening there already, which the public is not aware of yet. 

Regards,