Say goodbye to the MetroStars.
The much-maligned MLS club is no more. Austrian company Red Bull completed the purchase of the MetroStars from AEG and will rename the club Red Bull New York.
Red BullÆs agreement with AEG includes the two companies partnering to invest in a stadium for the team in Harrison, N.J. As part of the agreement, Red Bull also purchased naming rights to the soccer-specific stadium. Red Bull will have a 50 percent ownership stake in the facility, and AEG will remain responsible for constructing, managing and booking the venue.
The MetroStars are an original MLS team, launched by Metromedia and operated by investors John Kluge, the 30th richest person in the world in 2005 with a net worth of $11 billion, and Stuart Subotnik.
Kluge and Subotnik sold the Metros to AEG in 2001. Despite the presence of such well-known coaches as Carlos Alberto Parreira, Bora Milutinovic and Carlos Queiroz and such superstars as Lothar Matthaeus, Roberto Donadoni and Youri Djorkaeff, the Metros failed to make MLS Cup in the first 10 years of MLS. Only once in those 10 years did the MetroStars even advance as far as the semifinals.
Red Bull founder Dietrich Mateschitz didnÆt grow up with soccer û his first passion is car racing û but rather got involved through his friendship with German great Franz Beckenbauer, president of the World Cup 2006 organizing committee. Mateschitz, known to his friends as Didi, fell in love with soccer while attending Euro 2004 and bought Austrian club Austria Salzburg last April. The club was renamed Red Bull Salzburg.
MatschitzÆs background is in marketing as an executive for Procter & Gamble. He was in a Hong Kong hotel bar when he came up with the idea for Red Bull, taken from the canned drinks that are so popular in Asia.