Vote Yes in Miami for the David Beckham soccer stadium deal

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https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/editorials/article220722340.html

Vote Yes in Miami for the David Beckham soccer stadium deal

Here’s a rendering of the soccer stadium and commercial complex that will be built at the Melreese Golf Course track and surrounding land near MIA

EDITORIALS

Vote Yes in Miami for the David Beckham soccer stadium deal

Given the history of Marlins Park, recommending the construction of stadiums to Miami-Dade voters and taxpayers is like walking through a minefield.

It’s a prickly question being posed only to Miami residents: Should soccer star David Beckham and partner Jorge Mas be allowed to negotiate a no-bid contract to build a soccer stadium for Beckham’s Major League Soccer franchise, plus a commercial complex at the city-owned Melreese Golf Course near Miami International Airport?

If voters approve, Mas and Beckham can begin crafting a 99-year, no-bid lease for the development of Miami Freedom Park, a $1 billion retail, office, hotel, a 25,000-seat soccer stadium complex and a 58-acre public park on 72-acres of land.

If voters approve, Mas and Beckham can begin crafting a 99-year, no-bid lease for the development of Miami Freedom Park, a $1 billion retail, office, hotel, a 25,000-seat soccer stadium complex. The overall footprint of the redevelopment is about 131 acres. Of that plot of land, 73-acres would be leased for the soccer stadium and commercial complex. In addition, there is a 58-acre public park that would be developed but remains under the full control of the city.

We know the numbers are fluid and agreements are still fuzzy, but we’re going to recommend that Miami voters take a leap of faith and vote Yes, clearing the way for the Beckham/Mas project to be launched.

And here’s why:

We get that much is at stake. And if this deal was being proposed by an out-of-town mogul with no stake in our community, the Board would have no qualms recommending rejecting the project to voters. And we have been skeptical from the start. We swatted down Beckham’s early efforts to grab waterfront property. But joining him in his 4-year-old effort to build a stadium, not in Overtown but in Melreese, is Jorge Mas and his brother, who are well-known community leaders and philanthropists.

Their family fortune stems from the locally-based MasTec, an engineering and construction company that generates billions a year. They are not former Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria, or his arrogant stepson, David Samson, who gleefully saddled Miami-Dade voters with a years-long tax burden.

We know Beckham and the Mas family will make money on this project, but we also believe they will go out of their way to be fair and just to this community and to the residents around the proposed stadium complex. Miami has been home to the Mas family for decades. It’s the place where their late patriarch Jorge Mas Canosa became a popular Cuban exile leader.

Would we expect the same moral obligation from an outside developer who goes through the competitive bid process and wins? No.

We believed Mas when he told the Board that no public money will be tapped and that taxpayers will not pay any of the costs associated with preparing Melreese for redevelopment, including necessary utility work, underground infrastructure, road improvements and a pedestrian bridge over the Tamiami Canal to connect the park to the Miami Intermodal Center, making it a new stop for visitors.

We believe he will oversee a traffic plan to ensure that visitor traffic to and from the airport is not adversely affected. That would be irresponsible, damaging and unforgivable.

We believe that Mas will live up to his promise to address the long list of issues, expertly detailed in articles by Miami Herald reporter Joey Flechas.

They include concerns about soil contamination, a better focus on the financial benefits to the city, the value of public parks, traffic flow around a major airport and the fate of the First Tee Miami, a youth golf program at Melreese. Not to mention that a fair market value is paid for the city land.

Are we naive? No, we’re realistic. At some point, local residents, collectively, are going to have to move past the fear of being fooled again by a stadium project. The original Marlins Park 2009 deal had Miami-Dade and Miami contributing about $490 million for the privately owned $640 million stadium, which was then sold with the team for $1.2 billion in 2017. Loria did not share sale profits with the county.

The fact is that Miamians’ needs are changing and the landscape is also changing to accommodate them. Take note of how the Underline will eventually alter the look and use of South Dixie Highway under the elevated Metrorail tracks. And millennials have not embraced golf; only a lucky few enjoy Melreese now.

The Mas family and Beckham, who has held on longer than anyone thought to the idea of a Miami stadium, are the right team to get the community over their resistance to new stadium projects.

If things go south, the Mas family will face the public’s wrath — so will we. However, we’re optimistic.

The Miami Herald recommends a Yes vote on Miami Referendum 1 — #378.

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I vote no leave melreese alone

Completely for this! This will benefit everybody. Honestly, how many have gone to Melreese? It’s limited to the use of a few. Imagine having a gigantic public park plus other things that benefit everyone. Voting yes makes sense.

i voted against it. There is no reason not to award this deal through a competitive process except that Beckham needs to meet some soccer league deadline. That is really not an issue for the tax payers of Miami. Compete this deal and see if anyone can agree to pay more or to put the land to better use through a competitive RFP process.

Herald dead wrong.

Insane people give away green space and park land.

Wise people protect open space as one of the most precious resources on earth.

Vote this down.

Defeat this land scam and MSL will come anyway.

Soccer will land near transit and density.

Melreese will get cleaned up.

More park access will happen.

If you like giving away precious public land to the rich follow the Herald's (idiotic) lead...and watch them pave over paradise.

The precedent will be set forever.

Maybe your park will be sold out for condos, a mall, anything but safe, green, play space.

Vote No. Remember the Miami Herald was a huge cheerleader for the Marlins deal (scam) which diverts over $3 Billion, including debt service, to the Marlins Stadium and Garages. $3 Billion that could have been spent on affordable housing, education and other causes benefiting tourism. No-Bid deals are never beneficial to the taxpayers. Vote No on #379.

I voted no, use marlins park which is underutlized and the taxpayers were screwed with it. Maybe we can get some of that money back.

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https://stpetecatalyst.com/evolving-entertainment-from-the-bayfront-center-to-the-mahaffey-theater/

Evolving entertainment: From the Bayfront Center to the Mahaffey Theater

Vintage postcard image (1960s) of the Bayfront Center complex. The present-day Mahaffey Theater is on the left side; the City razed the arena (right) in 2004. The Dali Museum was erected on the arena site seven years later. Photo: Florida Memory Project.

The Mahaffey Theater has been part of the downtown St. Petersburg landscape since 1965, although it’s changed considerably in appearance and stature. For 22 years, it was a boxy little part of the city’s ambitious ($5 million in early ’60s money) Bayfront Center complex, attached at the hip to a 7,000-seat arena where families gathered to see Holiday on Ice, the Lipizzaner Stallions and the Ringling Brothers/Barnum & Bailey Circus, where sports fans cheered on the Tampa Bay Rowdies, and where the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Van Halen and the Grateful Dead attracted massive amounts of screaming fans. All the big “adult” spectacle acts – Elvis, Liberace and Lawrence Welk – performed in the big hall, too, which everyone referred to as simply the Bayfront Center.

The Bayfront Theater, as the Mahaffey was known, was reserved for smaller crowds (the original venue had slightly fewer than 2,000 seats) and more sophisticated entertainment like orchestras, operas and ballets.

The Bayfront Theater, 1960s. Photo provided by the Mahaffey Theater.

In the early years the theater was programmed almost exclusively for St. Petersburg’s older population – easy listening acts such as Ferrante and Teicher, Sandler & Young, Peter Nero and Roger Williams made annual appearances.

Louis Armstrong, who in previous years had performed at both the Manhattan Casino and the St. Petersburg Coliseum, headlined at the Bayfront Theater in December, 1966.

The City was slow to put popular music acts on the stage. The first “rock groups” to play the theater were the Turtles and Bubble Puppy in March, 1969 – nearly four years after the place had opened.

Victor Borge

By the mid 1970s, “soft” artists along the lines of Gordon Lightfoot, Melissa Manchester, George Benson and Chuck Mangione were infiltrating the lineup, interspersed between the bread and butter acts – the Fred Waring Orchestra, the Lettermen, Johnny Mathis, the Vienna Boys Choir – and septuagenarian Victor Borge, whose cornball comedy mixed with classical piano-playing was such a hit with the St. Pete oldsters the Bayfront Theater was on his touring itinerary every year for decades.

Because the Bayfront Center was city-owned, the two venues were also booked for high school graduations, business conventions, political rallies and other civic events. (Richard Nixon famously spoke to a packed arena in October, 1970, the first time a sitting U.S. president had ever visited Pinellas County.)

The major rock artists began to make regular stops at the arena – mega-acts of the mid to late ‘70s including Jethro Tull, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Jimmy Buffett, the Police, Rush, Cheap Trick and Journey.

Things began to change in the 1980s. Competition for those big touring dollars meant newer, more state-of-the-art venues like the USF Sun Dome in Tampa and the Lakeland Civic Center began to tear away at the Bayfront arena’s business.

The little theater had fans with deeper pockets.

In 1987, St. Petersburg’s Mahaffey family spearheaded a $24.5 million renovation of the theater, which had become seriously outdated. Among other significant physical changes, “window box” seats were built, to give the newly-plush venue the appearance of a European opera house.

By 2004, the aging arena was hemorrhaging money, and the City decided to tear it down. The Mahaffey Theater was left standing on its own, the anchor property on big, open and otherwise vacant waterfront acreage.

Things went well for the Mahaffey for a few years, until poor programming choices and the waning interest of the public delivered yet another showdown. It was either admit defeat and shut it down, or try to bring it into the future.

The Mahaffey Theater today. Photo provided by the Mahaffey Theater.

In 2011, businessman Bill Edwards was granted a contract to manage the facility through his Big3 Entertainment. Edwards also kicked in for upgrades and expansion of the lobby – today, you’d never know it was once bolted to an ice-skating arena – and the construction of the trademark glass atrium windows.

That same year, the new Salvador Dali Museum building opened, across the grass courtyard from the Mahaffey (today, the museum, and the courtyard, rest on the former site of the Bayfront arena).

The city has extended Big3’s management contract several times, as more high-end shows – from the likes of Jerry Seinfeld, Tony Bennett, Diana Ross, Steve Martin and others – and a growing reputation for both quality and luxury have generated profits and positive word-of-mouth.

Find the Mahaffey Theater’s website here.

Making history

The Bayfront Center was officially dedicated on May 6, 1965. Comedian Jonathan Winters emceed a glitzy gala, co-starring singer Nancy Ames, the Highwaymen and a TV-style orchestra.

The St. Petersburg Times covered the event with three next-day stories. “Both the young and old attended,” said one, “choosing a wide array of outfits – from sporty shifts with sequined cocktail dresses, with sport coats and dark suits for the men.”

Buried on a back page of this same edition of the Times was a story with the headline Near-Riot Cuts Short Teen Program:

CLEARWATER – A group of screaming teen-agers climbed out of the bleachers at Jack Russell Stadium last night and tried to rush the bandstand where the Rolling Stones were belting out rock and roll music.

On the very same night St. Petersburg was formally dressed and applauding – for the first time in its history – Hollywood show business on a local stage, music history was being made in a ratty Clearwater baseball stadium. The two events could not have been more different – nor, as the Times’ choice of coverage made clear, did anyone recognize the significance of the “near-riot.” Teens, of course, were just teens, and the choices they made were fickle and unimportant.

The Stones’ performance had been cut short that night, the band members directed to a waiting station wagon and hustled back to their hotel. They never finished the concert. “There will never be another show like this as long as I am here,” the head of Clearwater’s recreation department was quoted as declaring.

Afterwards, in his room at the Fort Harrison Hotel, Keith Richards came up with the music for “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.” Mick Jagger wrote the lyrics the next day, at the pool.

“Satisfaction,” of course, became the Rolling Stones’ breakout record in America, in the summer of 1965, and one of the pillars of mid ‘60s rock ‘n’ roll. After “Satisfaction,” many, many things would never again be the same.

And so the grand opening of the Bayfront Center was headline news, but not a watershed moment in popular culture – that was happening up the road in Clearwater.

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http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sports/padres/sd-sp-padres-owners-chargers-stadium-nfl-mlb-mls-20181028-story.html

Column | Padres owners "on same page" on measures targeting former Chargers stadium site

Padres Hall of Fame inductee Trevor Hoffman, second from right, sits with Ron Fowler, right, executive chairman, Hoffman's wife, Tracy, General Partner Peter Seidler and San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, far left, Sept. 28 at the unveiling of Trevor Hoffman Way. (Hayne Palmour IV/San Diego Union-Tribune)

When the Chargers’ relocation was announced, valuable land in Mission Valley came open.

Among the powerful San Diegans paying attention were Padres lead investor Peter Seidler and Executive Chairman Ron Fowler.

They’d presented a unified front as Padres stewards, but here seemed to differ.

Seidler was for the “SoccerCity” plan, investing $2 million in it. Per a Voice of San Diego report last month, Seidler also attended a Valentine’s Day 2017 meeting arranged by Mayor Kevin Faulconer and former Mayor Jerry Sanders to bolster SoccerCity’s prospects.

Fowler, meantime, stayed off a SoccerCity bandwagon whose City Hall occupants included Faulconer and mayoral chief of staff Stephen Puetz, whose wife had joined the Padres’ front office.

I reached out recently to the Padres’ tandem to clarify their Mission Valley position in advance of the general election Nov. 6, when San Diego voters will decide the fate of SoccerCity (Measure E) and the “SDSU West” (Measure G) initiative that came about after talks between SoccerCity and San Diego State crumbled in early 2017.

Fowler responded.

“Peter and I don't have a difference of opinion,” he said via email. “We made some comments along the way, but we are on the same page. We both regret that we have dueling initiatives rather than a unified approach to the property.”

Not of one mind

The Chargers’ relocation announcement came Jan. 12, 2017.

Within three weeks, Faulconer joined SoccerCity’s point men, private-equity investors Nick Stone and Mike Stone, and Major League Soccer Commissioner Don Garber, at the USS Midway Museum for a news conference championing the plan.

While Seidler supported SoccerCity with not just money but through public comments and lending his name to SoccerCity partners, Fowler noted that February that many plan details were still private.

“Once we see the citizens’ initiative,” Fowler said Feb. 23, to 1090-AM, “I think people will be able to make informed decisions.”

SDSU West supporters would say some negotiating discoveries and the initiative itself, spanning some 3,000 pages, raised concerns.

SoccerCity backers said opposition had come from Mission Valley developers whose projects could suffer if the initiative passes (and who’ve spent about $4 million opposing Measure E).

When March arrived, Mike Stone was acknowledging the jarring outcome of not having SDSU on board. “We are surprised, candidly … with our failure to be able to deliver a consensus solution with San Diego State,” he told 1090, “but we’re not giving up.”

If someone had the clout to broker a SoccerCity-SDSU reconciliation, Fowler belonged on the short list of candidates.

Not only a partner to Seidler since 2012, he was a longtime sponsor of local sports endeavors, a soccer booster who owned the San Diego Sockers in the 1980s and a SDSU benefactor who donated $50 million to State’s business school in October 2016.

Fowler, though, remained unenthusiastic about SoccerCity and seemed to blame the plan for the split with SDSU.

“I think the problem was that there was a soccer plan, so to speak,” he told 1090 that June, “but I think it was really more of a real estate development plan.”

SoccerCity backers, meantime, would imply that SDSU President Elliot Hirshman had reneged on a verbal deal with them before announcing that March he was leaving to become president of Stevenson University in Maryland.

Faulconer and Seidler

Making his support for SoccerCity official, Faulconer endorsed the initiative in May 2017 but failed in his bid to get the City Council to put it up to special election.

Two months ago, Faulconer and Seidler made statements softening their stance on SoccerCity. The mayor said he still supported the measure but wouldn’t urge San Diegans to vote against SDSU West.

Seidler, who runs his own private equity fund, acknowledged he’d invested in SoccerCity, but, in a reach that Padres fielders would appreciate, said he’d been “neutral” on it all along. He said he held the same view of SDSU West.

“I told both sides that I will not comment publicly so I need to honor my word,” Seidler said Thursday, via email, when asked why he’d seemingly downshifted on SoccerCity.

However the vote turns out, it’ll be interesting to see if Faulconer and Seidler, who share an interest in alleviating San Diego’s homeless problem downtown, align on other issues going forward.

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https://www.wtnh.com/sports/dillon-stadium-construction-underway-for-usl-team/1560463517

Dillon Stadium construction underway for USL team

HARTFORD, Conn. (WTNH) - An old football stadium will soon be a new soccer stadium!

Dillon Stadium construction is underway in Hartford.

Related Content: Minor leagues helping Hartford re-establish sports identity

It will serve as the home for the new professional team, Hartford Athletic.

The team is part of the United Soccer League, which is just one tier below Major League Soccer.

Related Content: Former MLS All-Star Jimmy Nielsen named head coach of Hartford Athletic

Hartford Athletic will be hitting the field for fans

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https://stpetecatalyst.com/business-briefs-raymond-james-volunteers-commerce-park-expansion-and-more/

Business Briefs: Raymond James volunteers, Commerce Park expansion and more

Financial advisors and associates at Raymond James Financial Inc. (NYSE: RJF) volunteered a record number of hours in support of the firm’s annual Raymond James Cares Month in August.

More than 2,500 professionals contributed 7,253 hours to benefit 172 non-profit organizations across the United States and United Kingdom, the company said. The number of volunteer hours reflects an 18 percent increase from 2017, and the number of participants increased by more than 16 percent.

Since the inception of Raymond James Cares Month in 2012, advisors and associates have volunteered more than 36,800 hours, the company said.

Groundbreaking

Mayor Rick Kriseman and City Administrator and Deputy Mayor Kanika Tomalin were among those turning the first ceremonial shovels for a Sunday groundbreaking for Euro Cycles of Tampa Bay. The motorcycle sales and repair company is expanding in Commerce Park, a south St. Pete development along the 22nd Street corridor. The City Council initially approved a development agreement with the company in 2016.

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Rick Kriseman

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Ground has been broken at 22nd Street South's Commerce Park. Euro Cycles of Tampa Bay + job opportunities coming soon! #SunShinesHere

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Welbilt CEO

William Johnson, president and CEO, Welbilt

Welbilt Inc., a commercial food equipment manufacturer in New Port Richey, has named William Johnson as its new president and CEO.

Johnson previously was CEO at Chart industry (NASDAQ: GTLS), an engineered equipment manufacturer, and before that he held various senior level positions at Dover Corporation (NYSE:DOV), a manufacturer of industrial product

Hubertus Muhlhauser resigned as CEO of Welbilt (NYSE: WBT) in August to CEO at CNH Industrial N.V. (NYSE: CNHI).

Johnson will get a base salary of $820,000 and be eligible for short-term and long-term incentives, Welbilt said in a regulatory filing.

He’s expected to assume day-to-day leadership of the company next week, and he joined the board of directors today.

Bloomin’ sales

Bloomin’ Brands investment in the customer experience are working, says Liz Smith, chairman and CEO.

Outback Steakhouse

She pointed to a 2.9 percent increase in comparable U.S. restaurant sales in the third quarter of 2018, with the gains led by Outback Steakhouse, where sales were up 4.6 percent.

Bloomin’ (NASDAQ: BLMN), the Tampa-based restaurant company whose brands are Outback, Bonefish Grill, Carrabba’s Italian Grill and Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar, posted $965 million in total sales for the 13 weeks ended Sept. 30, up 1 percent from the same quarter last year. Net income dropped for the just-ended quarter to $4.1 million, or four cents a share, down from $5.6 million, or six cents a share, a year ago.

The company also increased its guidance for earnings per share in 2018.

The revenue gains come one week after Barington Capital Group, an activist investor, called on Bloomin’ to spin off or sell three of its restaurant brands and leave Outback to operate independently. Barington cited underperformance by the company.

Home sales

Nearly one of every 20 foreign buyers who bought residential property in the United States in the past year have purchased property in Florida.

Additionally, nine percent of those foreign buyers bought property in the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater metro area, a new report from Florida Realtors said.

International sales accounted for $22.9 billion from August 2017 through July 2018, down five percent from $24.2 billion in the same period a year earlier. The state’s rising property values coupled with a lack of for-sale inventory impacted the slower pace of international residential real estate activity, according to the report.

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https://ussoccerplayers.com/2018/10/a-new-hall-of-fame-faces-american-soccers-generation-gap.html

A NEW HALL OF FAME FACES AMERICAN SOCCER’S GENERATION GAP

US Soccer Players - First things first: The new National Soccer Hall of Fame is gorgeous. The sleek, airy $55 million facility is a welcome addition to the American game’s “bucket list” of must-see attractions, restoring the Hall to life after nearly a decade after the closure of its previous home in Oneonta, New York. Yet as with so many matters of history, memory and collective experience in these times, it’s also complicated.

Built into the remodeled south end of Toyota Stadium, home of FC Dallas, the new Hall opens to the public on November 2. A few journalists, VIPs, and other visitors got an advance preview of the place last week as it hosted its first major event, the induction ceremony for a 2018 class that included USMNT legend Brad Friedel and a busy weekend’s worth of related activities.

Chief among them was a 50th anniversary celebration of the old North American Soccer League, which came into existence in 1968 and died in 1985, yet still casts a long shadow across the sport. That occasion reunited dozens of NASL old-timers in Frisco for the weekend, capped by a “legends game” at the stadium after Sunday’s MLS match between FC Dallas and Sporting KC.

The NASLers gathered at the Hall for a tour of their own on Friday afternoon. I had the pleasure of experiencing the exhibits with that group of trailblazers, who shared many laughs and old stories as they meandered through.

“Having seen the setup in New York, they worked hard for a long period of time, but it was dated. And it didn’t have the traffic that comes by in a city like Dallas,” said former Dallas Tornado striker Kyle Rote Jr, one of the NASL’s few homegrown stars and a USMNTer with five caps to his name. “The common population can get exposed to the Hall of Fame here. And the technology that is put into so many of these presentations here is at an A+ level, and it brings back great memories, and a great sense of satisfaction that we indeed had lives that counted for something. And what it counted for in many ways was distributing the game of soccer in this country.”

The new Hall of Fame is the first landmark of its kind in major-league North American pro sports that's part of an active stadium. In addition to the usual artifacts like jerseys, photographs, boots, and balls, it features advanced technology like facial-recognition and virtual-reality software to provide a customized, cutting-edge experience. Unlike its predecessor in remote upstate New York, it’s located in the midst of a massive metropolitan area, a short drive from millions of North Texas residents as well as one of the world’s busiest airports.

Everyone seemed to agree that the new place is, on balance, a marked upgrade on the old one. That it represents a necessary evolution from the past. And that it sensibly seeks to connect with younger generations who view the game and the world differently from their elders. That part connected with their own experiences as soccer evangelists.

“When we came to Dallas in ‘71, [legendary coach Ron] Newman said you’re 50 percent a player, 50 percent an ambassador,” said English ex-Tornado Bobby Moffat, one of the NASL reunion’s lead organizers. “And that’s what we all were and we still are. That hasn’t stopped.”

Another influential figure, former Baltimore Bays and Tampa Bay Rowdies and briefly, USMNT coach Gordon Jago, beamed as he took in the scene. He’s already making arrangements for participants in the famed Dallas Cup youth tournament to tour the new Hall. Still, there was a bittersweet tinge to the NASLers’ visit, even with icons of their era like Pele, Johan Cruyff and Giorgio Chinaglia occupying prime real estate.

“Well, this is kind of sweet and sour, in a way, because we were part of the growth of soccer since 1967,” said Charlie Schiano, owner and chairman of NASL’s Rochester Lancers. “And this is very handsome and well done, but I think there should be a little more attention to the work that was done in the ‘60s and early ‘70s by the North American Soccer League, which I think laid down the roots, the taproots which we see today … It’s really magnificent but it lacks – I don’t think there’s enough recognition given to the North American Soccer League, what they accomplished, starting the fires, igniting the interest in soccer.”

Schiano’s words reflect the strange place the old days still occupy in our sport’s consciousness.

Stunning, sexy, fabulously flawed and devastatingly doomed all at once, the NASL showed us both the best- and worst-case scenarios for soccer in North America. MLS’s founders saw it as a case study in what not to do, taking pains to avoid treading a similar path – only to find fans, competitors and even their own member clubs drawn to those glory days like moths to flame. Purists extol the legacy of the 1950 World Cup team that shocked the world. Yet relatively few kids of today even recognize names like Gaetjens, Keough, and Bahr, let alone their faces.

A game eternally labeled as this country’s sport of the future continues to wrestle with the ghosts of its past. Schiano’s old friend Joe Sirianni, the Lancers’ trainer, equipment manager and longest-serving employee, wistfully summed up this awkwardness between yesterday and tomorrow in American soccer.

“It’s a beautiful building, but a building’s always a building,” said Sirianni of the new Hall. “Oneonta contained a lot of memorabilia, a lot of history, but really where soccer was, not what soccer is today…. It’s a beautiful building, state of the art, all the sophistication and technology of today, but today we’re celebrating 50 years of history and the history is not here. So that’s my views.”

Some in attendance suggested that a Hall of Fame located inside an MLS venue could never pay full and fitting tribute to the NASL. Others took the more pragmatic view that this was the best-case scenario after so many years with no Hall at all. In the end, the project in Frisco, which reportedly ran some $16 million over budget, became a reality because of the Hunt family, owners of FCD as well as the descendants of leading NASL investor Lamar Hunt. Few organizations in modern American soccer can claim such close ties to both the old days and the present state of things.

The Hall of Fame itself will probably evolve, too. It’s said that there’s far more memorabilia still in storage in Soccer.com’s North Carolina warehouses than there is room to display it in the relatively compact dimensions in Frisco. Maybe even the most obscure corners of our game’s history will get their turn in the spotlight, and not be completely overshadowed by the VR penalty-kick games and design-your-own-jersey activities.

Hopefully, the rest of us can soak up a few more colorful tales and lessons from the NASL generation before they too fade into memory.

“The 50th reunion is of people who’ve given their lives to try to help young people fall in love with the game of soccer,” said Rote. “It’s not just about playing, it’s also about being a missionary for the game of soccer to the local communities... that’s very satisfying. That’s a great part of why I’m here.”

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http://www.espn.com/soccer/major-league-soccer/story/3679965/landon-donovan--logical-to-have-league-with-mlsliga-mx-sides

Landon Donovan: 'Logical' to more games with MLS, Liga MX sides

Landon Donovan said he believes a potential North American league that features teams from the U.S. and Mexico would be beneficial for both the sport in both countries.

"For me it is logical, because they're the best leagues in this part of the world, they have the biggest players, if we want get better compete with Europe and parts of South America, I think it's important," Donovan told ESPN Deportes.

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https://www.cincinnati.com/story/sports/soccer/fc-cincinnati/2018/10/27/fc-cincinnati-moves-forward-only-mls-mind/1793946002/

FC Cincinnati moves forward with only MLS in mind. Here's what that means for the club

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https://www.cincinnati.com/story/sports/soccer/fc-cincinnati/2018/10/27/fc-cincinnatis-3-years-usl-were-historic-its-final-loss-not/1790207002/

FC Cincinnati's 3 years in USL were 'historic.' Its final loss was not.

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https://www.cincinnati.com/story/sports/soccer/fc-cincinnati/2018/10/26/fc-cincinnatis-alan-koch-man-lead-club-into-mls/1684468002/

FC Cincinnati's Alan Koch: The man to lead the club into Major League Soccer

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http://www.startribune.com/memories-of-landycakes-evoked-as-new-u-s-soccer-stars-head-to-europe/498672211/

Memories of 'Landycakes' evoked as new U.S. soccer stars head to Europe

New players seek success overseas, where Landon Donovan didn't last.

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https://www.goal.com/en-us/news/mls-expansion-ranking-the-remaining-potential-markets/1r8xo6ok3s4ee1p5ob31e779pf

MLS expansion: Ranking the remaining potential markets