I'd like to ask Mr. Paulson if he plans on compensating the people of Portland for his greed.

Will his new stadium have special offers like "Mental Health Mondays" or possibly "Transient Tuesdays", oh, and maybe "Soup Kitchen Sundays"?

Will his concession stands accept food stamps?

Will you get a discount on your $30+ ticket price if you show your unemployment check-stub?

6% What a gentleman! Maybe we can use it to pay off the millions still owed from the last remodel.

Well, I was out of town for this, but the Pittsburgh (almost Portland) Penguins won the Stanley Cup. The series kicked ass and, after watching the USA vs. Brazil this week, made FIFA soccer look like a bunch of old men farting around in the yard. The fact that David Beckham makes more than the average NHL roster while playing 30 games a season (as opposed to 82 for hockey), gives one a bit of a pause. If world-class soccer talent costs this much, and is this pathetically boring, why aren't we looking at more affordable alternatives?

Orgengine, you use phrases like "the series kicked ass" and "this is pathetically boring." It's fine if you think that way, but what we need in government are people who don't go around pushing their opinions as facts like you apparently are.

The soccer deal was made with good, conservative projections, which show clear signs that Portland will average about 20,000 people to their matches (as their intense rival Seattle has done, averaging about 30,000 people and with 14,000 season ticket waiting list) . Such a deal will make the team very profitable given Major League Soccer's small finances, and with such profitability, maybe the all the past renovations in PGE can actually be paid off, instead of having the deal fail, causing Paulson to bail on both currently existing minor league teams, and having PGE become a disastrous debt ridden white elephant.

GrandPDX, it was apparent from the beginning that the Timbers Army were also pushing their personal opinions, and our government went along with it. Projections are nice, but if Paulson is in danger of failing if this deal doesn't go through, what does that say about his foresight when he got into PGE Park in the first place?

zipitup said:
6% What a gentleman! Maybe we can use it to pay off the millions still owed from the last remodel.
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It's a good point that the last remodel was a mistake. . . but it was a mistake because it was for two sports for which a 20,000 seat stadium is too large, as opposed to Major League Soccer, for which it is ideal.

And let's contrast Paulson, who actually has paid off some of the debt--debt that he did not ask for, as he did not own the team for years after the remodel--with the previous owners (Portland Family Entertainment) who *created* that debt.

And at any rate, the last remodel cannot be undone. What can be done is to put a sport in PGE that is suited to it.

orgengine said:
"GrandPDX, it was apparent from the beginning that the Timbers Army were also pushing their personal opinions, and our government went along with it. "
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And yet, it's plain that Portland does consider MLS to be an upgrade over AAA baseball:
http://www.bizjournals.com/portland/storie…


"Projections are nice, but if Paulson is in danger of failing if this deal doesn't go through, what does that say about his foresight when he got into PGE Park in the first place?"
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Paulson couldn't have known that Seattle and Vancouver would bolt for MLS. Besides, that's a circular argument: "if we vote it down, we will make of him a bad decision-maker, therefore we'll have made ourselves right to do it."

This was a brilliant idea from the very beginning?

Why are our Portland hacks as bad as the hacks in Washington?