(08-09-2017 09:01 AM)blazers9911 Wrote: The USL prefers soccer specific stadiums. Sharing a stadium with a football team does not work. It is an issue to have football and soccer play on the same field, and there is a reason most teams are getting away from doing so.
The USL is a very strong league and it's great that Birmingham is getting a team. I'm still hoping to see promotion and relegation in the lower divisions of soccer in the country, but the MLS is not likely going to participate in that any time soon. Too much money was involved in starting that league up, and the return hasn't been there for the owners yet. Maybe years down the road something will change, but we won't see that anytime soon.
I think we're probably beyond the appetite for building yet another stadium for someone, so if it were a soccer specific stadium it'd have to be paid for by this team or shared, probably with UAB, and if UAB's soccer field is acceptable, then a shared football facility would've been too big.
I don't buy your argument though, that they can't share. The Falcons and Atlanta United specifically built Mercedes Benz Stadium to be a shared facility, and seem to have pulled it off without too much compromise. We'll see when the first game is played by each team, but having two potential tenants up front before ground is broken gives you a lot of leeway in designing it to be shared.
And MLS isn't going to do promotion/relegation, ever. MLS is structured such that every team is owned by MLS, and the local "owners" just invest in MLS centrally and get to manage their local team. There is never going to be a chance at a Birmingham team getting promoted or added or a new team joining while Atlanta United exists.
(08-09-2017 09:08 AM)imjustafatkid Wrote: Could this mean UAB football is pushed out of the new downtown stadium in favor of this new pro soccer team? Seems the soccer team would have more pull since it is a professional team with a longer season and would likely pull more out-of-town visitors.
There is no way this pushes UAB out of a new downtown stadium, UAB and other American football events would outdraw this team significantly. There's also zero evidence that it'd pull more out of town visitors than UAB games. How many out of town folks come to Barons games?
(08-09-2017 10:38 AM)hooverblazer Wrote: Here's what one of the owners told the BBJ:
"We would like to have our stadium decision finalized before the end of the year. Ideally we would like to be coordinated with UAB, we've been in discussions with UAB and others about finalizing on our home," Styslinger said.
Initially this reads like they're going to use UAB's soccer field, but, the "and others" might indicate joint discussions about coordinating around the BJCC stadium
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New BHam Soccer team to be announced today
