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Report: St. Louis soccer stadium bill is dead

SC STL dead stadium

At one point St. Louis seemed like a leading candidate in the next round of MLS expansion, but things have fallen apart for SC STL in a big way.

Just weeks after incoming Missouri governor Eric Greitens publicly stated his opposition to any public funding for a proposed soccer stadium in St. Louis, a sponsor for the funding bill has stated that the bill is dead.

“That bill will not be moving forward,” Alderman Christine Ingrassia said at Tuesday’s meeting of the Aldermanic Ways & Means Committee.

The decision deals a major blow to St. Louis’s MLS aspirations. The league has publicly stated time after time that a secure stadium bid would be a major factor for expansion candidates, and with the January 31st deadline to apply for an expansion spot just weeks away, SC STL find themselves lacking a crucial component of what made their bid so strong.

The original proposal for the $200 million stadium called for $80 million in public funding, a number that the city requested SC STL to bring to a lower level. A revised bid, while possible, would almost certainly take more time than SC STL has to fill out their MLS application.

 

Comments

  1. “Timber Danny

    It’s not that simple. You’re forgetting all the revenue from the operations of these white elephants goes back to the owners and franchise, not the community. You cannot name a single example of a stadium constructed in the last 30 years that ever yielded the returns the owners and developers promised. Not a single one.”

    Verizon Center in DC.

    Reply
  2. This has NOTHING to do with “fandom” in STL. It has EVERYTHING to do with this country being fed up with billionaire welfare. These jamokes even say paying the $150 million MLS expansion fee is part of their input into the construction. That’s like saying “You buy me the fancy sports car, I’ll buy the membership at the Auto Club, then in the future I’ll let you pay me to use the thing every so often.” Enough with the billionaire welfare in STL, and everywhere else for that matter

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    • yeah, but it hasn’t stopped it from being the MO still. Move your team if you don’t get the money.

      This is tougher. Not because it is soccer, which does make it tougher, not because of the environment, which I agree with too…..because it is trying to start a new team. Not trying to save the Sonics from moving, which didn’t happen either, after them spending 40 years playing for a city.

      MLS is now thick in the game. We have slots, build us what we want. If not others will.

      Reply
  3. There is this long parroted meme of St. Louis being a soccer hub and a natural fit for an expansion club. For many years, it is always near the top of the list when this discussion comes up. Much has changed in US Soccer and most of all, the city since those now very long ago good ol’ days. Perhaps it simply isn’t true a anymore. Certainly from an outsider’s perspective, there seems to be much greater needs in terms of infrastructure, education…. the basics needed before the luxury of funding professional sports is considered.

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    • Your last statement covers every city in the US, but asking for $80mil is a far cry from the $700 million+ that tax payers are stuck with for various NFL & MLB stadiums around the nation.

      In reality the $80mil would cover the cost for site infrastructure, which you could argue the city should be paying for anyway. The DC stadium deal is an example of this (though slightly more because it was a brown-field site).

      St. Louis just got very unlucky with timing by having the new gov be anti-soccer.

      Reply
      • It’s not that simple. You’re forgetting all the revenue from the operations of these white elephants goes back to the owners and franchise, not the community. You cannot name a single example of a stadium constructed in the last 30 years that ever yielded the returns the owners and developers promised. Not a single one.

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