Less than a month after the death of Lamar Hunt, who pioneered the building of stadiums for MLS teams, the league's flagship franchise has been bought by a consortium fronted by real estate developers.
Somewhat ironic is the fact Anschutz Entertainment Group, which sold D.C. United for a reported $33 million, has its own powerful real estate division, yet has apparently relinquished any role in a 27,000-capacity stadium being proposed in the southeast section of the district.
Developers Victor MacFarlane and William H.C ''Will'' Chang, and former Duke University basketball stars Brian Davis and Christian Laettner, who formed Blue Devil Ventures, a real estate development company, several years ago, have virtually no connection to soccer. Combined they are worth many millions of dollars, which mitigates greatly how well they comprehend the values of man-marking versus zonal systems, although Davis and Laettner surely played both variations in their basketball careers.
They also have heavy political backing, the lack of which has stalled – if not scuttled – many of the league's stadium projects. Remember Columbus Crew Stadium failed twice at the ballot box, what became Pizza Hut Park was originally awarded to McKinney (Texas) before a city council reversal its forced a move to Frisco, and AEG had to wield some muscle in ramrodding Home Depot Center through several layers of governmental bureaucracy.
D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty attended the press conference announcing the sale and strongly favors revitalizing the area, which is blighted by crime and abandoned buildings, with real estate development. The team has already moved its offices from RFK to southeast D.C.
John Hendricks, founder of the defunct WUSA, has been negotiating an investment in the team, but according to a D.C. United press release announcing the sale, he has not yet officially signed on.
Fears abound among fans and observers that this sale, like several others in MLS, overload the league with real estate issues when competitive aspects should predominate. President and CEO Kevin Payne, who had been working for several years to form an ownership group, and technical director Dave Kasper will retain control of soccer operations.
Safe to say, Payne and Kasper and head coach Tom Soehn won't be under any less pressure to win. D.C.'s fans are the most passionate and demanding in MLS and they won't be the only ones clamoring for success after being knocked out of the playoffs two straight seasons.
Few wimps ascend the ziggurat of the development and construction industries, and Davis and Laettner were teammates on Duke's championship teams of 1991 and 1992.
Losing an historic edifice like RFK Stadium will be sad but not entirely regretful, despite its rich United legacy: barra brava bouncing the stands, magical Marco Etcheverry and crafty Christian Gomez slicing up opponents, repeating as league champion as the host team in 1997, and knocking off Vasco da Gama to win the Interamericana Cup a year later.
Falling concrete chunks, football markings (in 1996), infield dirt, and being scheduled around the baseball Nationals are part of RFK's MLS history as well. The foundation of the league in its next phase, figuratively and financially, is the facilities in which its teams play. By staging events – ranging from concerts to rugby matches to the X-Games — in addition to soccer games, MLS-run facilities are profitable, even if the teams they host aren't.
In the seven years since Columbus Crew Stadium opened in 1999, three stadiums – Pizza Hut Park (Dallas), Home Depot Center (Los Angeles, Chivas USA), and Toyota Park (Chicago) – have opened. Scheduled for christening this year are Dick's Sporting Goods Park (Colorado) and BMO Field (Toronto). A deal has been struck after years of political upheaval and logistical snares to construct Red Bull Park in Harrison, N.J.; Real Salt Lake operator-investor Dave Checketts is doggedly battling to get his project rolling in suburban Sandy; and Kansas City's ownership group, OnGoal LLC, is formulating Plan B for a stadium after its ballot initiative failed.
A deal that would have transferred ownership of D.C. from AEG to Willi Lauterbach and Tim Kissler in 2005 for $26 million collapsed, partially because the prospective owners weren't willing to share stadium ownership while fully absorbing team operations. The team's sale to D.C. United Holdings isn't another grim specter of a dark, forbidding world, it's merely another piece in the puzzle foreseen by the league's patriarch.
The new breed of MLS owners may not love the game and the league as much as did Hunt, but they crave success and making MLS work as a business. Thus soccer's stigma as a money pit can be slowly eradicated, and more competitive-oriented innovations like development programs and the Designated Player can be implemented.
This path to prosperity ain't perfect but it's the destination, not the process, that matters. It may be the next generation of owners who truly love the game and treasure their teams as much as where they play.