Friday, August 10, 2007

One More Jewel in the Crown?

St. Louis is already a major league city, but the prospects of bringing Major League Soccer to the STL area are exciting and real.


For full details, click here.

Be sure to read the blog section, where the promoters talk about how "STL Soccer United" has the potential to unify the STL region:

"As the name suggests, we truly believe this project has the potential to unite us as a community. Not that we are divided here in St. Louis, by the river or anything else. But as World Cup and other international soccer competitions have proven for decades, soccer has more of a galvanizing effect on a nation, state or community than virtually any other sport on the planet. That's what we envision unfolding here in our community. A St. Louis team will call Illinois its home, and the benefits to the entire region will be too many to count."

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh brother, the things that are said to justify public funding of costly private ventures is amazing. Yes, we will all be united around a stadium surrounded by interstate highways with no access to light rail lines to get there.

Wait, or all we going to be united by SLU's new arena? I'm not sure I can take all this togetherness.

Anonymous said...

The man said we would unite around soccer. Not highways, public financing, or light rail.

We are already united around baseball, and he thinks soccer has a greater unifying potential.

What about the rest of St. Louis? I don't know. It's hard to top baseball in a baseball town.

Maybe we should market ourselves as simply a great sports town? That's the bigger truth.

Highways? Not so great. Sports? Yes, great.

Anonymous said...

Yep, 'cause that's what this region needs: another largely empty stadium/performance venue to compete with all the other largely empty structures of similar utility. Marketing the region as a "sports town"? Quite possibly the worst idea I've heard over the last 30 yrs.

Rick Bonasch said...

What's wrong with marketing the STL region as a big sports market?

We have:

horse racing
auto racing
ice hockey
pro football
college sports
baseball
amateur sports
washers

Most people like sports.