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MLS hoping to reach deal for NYC stadium within next 30 days

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If MLS has its way, a deal for the much-discussed soccer-specific stadium in New York City will be finalized within the next month.

According to New York Daily News, MLS is hoping to iron out the finals details of a deal that would allow the league to move forward with their plans for a stadium in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens within the next 30 days. If that turns out to be the case, MLS commissioner Don Garber said construction of the stadium could begin in 2014, with 2016 or 2017 being the target timeframe to open it to the public.

Plans are to build a 25,000-seat stadium on 10 to 13 acres at the Fountains of Industry site, which is reportedly up from the original eight acres there were estimated. Officials, however, are hoping to get approval for a 35,000-seat stadium so as to give MLS the option for stadium expansion in the future.

The news of a deal for a New York City soccer-specific stadium making progress comes on the same day that a Washington D.C. politician said the district was in the final stages of negotiations with D.C. United over a soccer-specific stadium of their own.

What do you think of this development?

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Comments

  1. Harrison is not closer than flushing…taking the PATH to get to Harrison is a pain. A bigger pain is driving there…Stadium in queens will run on the 7 Line and have Long Island Rail Road access plus easy to get to by road. Its not really in a park…its right next to mass transit and next to Citifield, national tennis center… perfect location… can’t wait to it gets done. As a New Yorker, i will get season tickets as soon as it opens…

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  2. Any stats/census/facts to backup your “predominant nationalities” statement? Or are you just talking out of your a$$?

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  3. Only three teams posted a profit in the NBA last year. I run my own corp and haven’t posted a profit in 10 years. As a corporation a profit just means you pay more taxes. Companies don’t want to post a profit unless it is significant amount. So you equalized your expenses to match your revenue as much as possible. I promise there are more people interested in buying an MLS franchise. If they opened it wide up (it would be a mistake to do so) there would be dozens of people who want to buy whether teams posted a profit or not last year.

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  4. Attendance is reason No 1 why the Sounders should build a soccer stadium. We all think it is awesome that your team gets numbers like that. Your fans are awesome. I can’t believe they put up with playing on a curved pitch with artificial turf. The fans in SL couldn’t wait to get a soccer stadium. Sure it was fun to sell out the 45,000 seats at the college football stadium for big games but it is better to sell out the last 5 straight home games (even against loser teams) at our 26,000 soccer specific stadium.

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  5. JRP! It was soo stupid and sooo off base noone got it.

    Good try though for someone that doesn’t know what they are talking about.

    67,000+ tomorrow in a real stadium.

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  6. OK, that’s really funny. Newark is 26 sq. miles and Queens is 178 sq. miles. North Jersey has 3.5 million people. Plus, Harrison is more convenient for Manhattan, parts of Brooklyn, Bronx, Westchester, upstate NY, rest of NJ, etc. The original NYC area team is the true NYC area team.

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  7. Harrison is closer to Manhattan than this location, right next to multiple transit lines, and surrounded by an urban area. This location in Queens is literally in a park with no bars or anything around. It’s worse.

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  8. Yup. My family is Bangladeshi, so I know some South Asian families in Queens. Cricket is their main sport anyway, and for the soccer fans, good luck getting them to watch anything besides Manchester United.

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  9. True but you also have to look at the numbers alone. Newark is only home to about 270k people, whereas Queens alone as over 2 mil.

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  10. I don’t agree, Queens is soccer mad and people in NYC just don’t want to go to Jersey, simple as that. The stadium would be a farther journey for me in Manhattan than going to see the Red Bulls but I’d still much rather go see a team play in Queens, it’s just the way it is here. The supporters group for the Cosmos has already started up and is pretty vocal. If they build it, people will come.

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  11. RBNY’s attendance/ticket sales are down 15 percent this season so the fan base is actually shrinking. And being ninth in the tri-state area basically places RBNY at the bottom of the list for major league sports in the area. NY2 will be the kiss of death.

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  12. Especially when you consider that the predominant nationalities of the immigrants in Flushing are Chinese and Indian/Pakistani compared to the Portuguese, Brazilian, Mexican, Ecuadorian demographics of the Ironbound.

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  13. If you thought red bulls had a hard time drawing before, just wait until the cosmos, they’re never going to get fans. Its a shame too, nice stadium.

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