(06-09-2017 11:21 PM)_C2_ Wrote:  

(05-17-2017 11:14 AM)Wedge Wrote:  The city owns the stadium and the land. Reportedly it costs the city $12 million/year to maintain and operate the stadium. To stop that bleeding, the city wants the stadium torn down after 2018 when the SDSU lease ends. I suspect that's one of the attractions of the MLS developer's proposal - they would tear down the Q at no cost to the city, relieving the city of both the annual operations cost and the cost of demolition/cleanup.

Looks to me like SDSU is taking two risks here.

1. Hoping there will be no backlash against SDSU if they kill the MLS proposal and San Diego doesn't get an MLS franchise. IMO they're probably safe there because the number of diehard soccer fans in San Diego is surely less than 50% of the population.

2. Gambling that either a billionaire angel will build a football stadium for the Aztecs at little or no cost to SDSU, or that SDSU can play on public sympathy to pressure the city to both leave the Q standing indefinitely and to pay all the operations costs indefinitely. I have no idea whether or not this is a good risk to take.

Surely less than 50%? San Diego is in SoCal and walking distance from arguably the most soccer mad country in the world. I wouldn't say surely and along with Tijuana, I'm assuming there's a big market for soccer in Sun Diego.

I doubt the city wants to deal tens of thousands of fans coming across the border, getting drunk, raising Cain, then going home. Sounds like a losing proposition. How many of those fans can afford to pay MLS prices?

There are discussions on this board about the difficulty of getting a team across the border. I wouldn't want the hassle of trying to cross the border for a 3-4 hour game, then the hassle of trying to get back.