Let me put it this way. We certainly do not need to fork over 200 to 300 million dollars in tax payer money for a minor league soccer stadium two levels below the majors. Something more in line with the level of the team would be more appropriate.
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You can learn more about it here:
Also, a real MLB stadium obviously wouldnāt fit in this spot, but who wants to put a little pressure on Kane and the city to put a memorial, low maintenance, old school baseball field in there with a placard of some sort that tells the history of that park and itās connection to baseball.
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and, after it was a baseball stadium, I played soccer there as a kid.
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Is that allowed? From all of the drama and complaints about landing an MLS franchise, it sounds pretty difficult to go up the ladder than it is to go down it.
As someone who doesnāt really care about most sports at all, I donāt see much of a difference either in terms of what sort of game we can expect. Like you said, I donāt really care that the Bulls are only MiLB.
But I think I (and maybe several of us here) are trying to ask a different question: what about the economic potential of such a team? In the context of our community here on this site, I donāt think we only care about having a new pro team in DTR for the sake of having one. Rather, we want to know whether they can be good and popular enough to attract investors, inspire other dense developments, draw out more fans (who will spend money downtown and add to the tax base) etc.
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Umm, I donāt think this is a good business decision must usl league one teams most players head to MLS playing for the big leagues there, Malik will be losing a lot of money to trades. And the attendance ugh!
According to an article in todayās N&O it appears one of the biggest reasons that I see for the change downward is the āANNUALā cost:
League 2
$225,000
League 1
$100,000
Saving $125,000 a YEAR 
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Thatās likely what is going on. Itās a situation where you can save a lot of money and you only change for a year.
However, Malik needs a PR guy in the worst way. You donāt let this rumor get out there and spread. Especially when youāre looking for public buy-in for a stadium. The more unstable the situation seems for NCFC, the lower public approval will be for any kind of funding.
He should have floated information to the media, gone on podcasts, and hinted that there would be some options on the table that will boost the financials in the short term and make it more likely to have money on hand when theyāre ready to move to a larger stadium with bigger fan base. And thatās just one way to spin itā¦
But to let rumors fly on twitter from large accounts that players are being told they wonāt be playing and saying your future is TBD, thatād just be unacceptable to me if I was someone who was all-in on NCFC and their future in dt.
This isnāt the first time either. The public messaging, the setup of the 919MLS movement, and the tweets when it was clear Charlotte was beating out Raleigh, are all examples of why a PR team is a good investment for him and his businesses.
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Maybe with that extra $125k he can hire one or two PR reps. ĀÆ_(ć)_/ĀÆ
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It just seams to me that he has never really had the financials to make it work. If you are pinching these kinds of pennies in the minors, you were never going to make a professional level team work. He wants a professional level stadium for a minor league team that is two levels below the pros. You can build him a minor league stadium if you want, but we already have one in Cary. Donāt blow this sight on a minor league stadium when you can either get a new arena or a baseball stadium.
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I like to add, the whole cockamamy plan to build a stadium on state owned property (which was never going to fly) caused the delay that gave Tepper the time to swoop in and steal the team. I have lost patience with Malik.
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You do realize there are more cost savings than the fee? Malik has $100K in his wallet.
Also; he didnāt get to the wealth position he is in today by being frivolous managing money.
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What a cluster. I canāt say Iām an expert on any of this, and Malik probably has very good reason for doing what he is doing. But when downgrade your team, after a failed MLS push, while lobbying for a new stadium, doesnāt look good.
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Player salaries at that level are waaay less too. Its not really that surprising or terrible of a move. No fans in the stands basically cuts out most of the revenue too. 2021 is kinda a lost season anyway - guess heās thinking why waste the money when you can just drop down for a year, build the youth team, then move back up when things are more normal.
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He really does need a PR team cause it turned out he lied about the whole MLS bid when the other North Carolina city was given the team. Commissioner Don Garber said Raleigh never submitted a bid, you gotta have a bid, gotta have a stadium plan, gotta have corporate support". And I think personally Garner knew this was a good market for soccer Raleigh best market in North Carolina for soccer, and he was routing for us to get a team, cause he knows we could support a team. But Malik stadium place, and misleading business and by the time he realized that David stepper Tepper stepped over Raleigh in a deal to good to pass up! Malik is to misleading
It looks impossible!!!
You canāt keep defending this man he making decision asking for tax dollars on a major league stadium for a now minor league team looks bad!
The difference is I know what Malik/Kaneās long game strategy is and am not making an emotional claim because I donāt like his minor league team decided to change toā¦well another minor league team.
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The Raleigh City Sports podcast has Malik on this week to discuss this. I havenāt listened to it yet, but it popped up my feed.
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It really is true that MLB baseball stadiums can host, and have hosted, all of the things Lou listed above, plus the world championships of rugby sevens, college football games, NHL games, major cricket matches, and probably a bunch of other stuff Iām forgetting.
But itās not terribly common for any of these things to happen, because in all of these cases the non-baseball event is being shoehorned, sometimes rather awkwardly, into a stadium that was clearly designed for baseball and built to baseballās dimensions. But the even bigger factor is that thereās just not that much demand in the United States for outdoor stadiums that seat 40,000-plus people, aside from big-time football and Major League Baseball, because there just arenāt that many events that can draw that kind of attendance. (It turns out that baseball remains extremely popular in this country, and lots of people want to pay money to go to baseball games. Crazy, I know!)
Versatility, such as it is, is highly overrated in this context. Soccer-specific stadiums end up being used almost exclusively to host soccer matches. (Itās right there in the name!) Baseball-specific stadiums end up being used almost exclusively to host baseball games.
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Spot on. The only reason I made this point was to correct the idea that soccer stadiums are more versatile.
What you are saying here is completely true. Whatever stadium is eventually built should and likely will be built based on itās intended use only. The other uses are just a ānice to haveā once in a while. I know baseball isnāt realistically on the table at this point in Raleigh, but I think the argument of guaranteed stadium usage is vital when/if you start asking for public money.
Obviously, those with the most to gain will pitch any stadium as āmulti-useā in order to capture the attention and get the buy-in from a broader range of the population. All Iām saying is that itās good for us here to understand the truth about stadium usage.
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