Hi Folks, it’s me, your trusty PTFC blogger here on Blogtown. You haven’t heard much from me since the last home game, because, well, the Timbers finished the season at the bottom of the table and missed the playoffs for the second time in three years.

It was a season many of us would prefer to forget, but until the Boys in Green take the field next season, we can lick our wounds, kibbutz about how Coach/GM Gavin Wilkinson will be returning (despite royally sucking), and keep our ears to the ground about Timbers and Beavers owner Merritt Paulson’s plans to bring Major League Soccer to Portland.

Children, I am the bringer repeater of good news.

Before yesterday, we knew a few things:

Yesterday, a short press release flashed around the internet.

“Today, on behalf of the greatest soccer fans in America, we submitted our formal application to bring Major League Soccer to Portland. We expect to get a response to our application no later than March of next year. In the meantime, we will continue to work with MLS, city officials and the community to turn this exciting idea into reality for Portland and Oregon.” –Merritt Paulson

Yippee! said the Timbers faithful. I wanted more. I’m not naive enough to think that the public would get a look at the official MLS franchise expansion application, but I thought that maybe we’d see what Paulson’s company, Shortstop LLC, submitted to the city, or perhaps some sense of what the city thinks of the MLS plans.

Well then, lucky for us–and thanks to some crack reporting from Ryan Frank and Mark Larrabee at the Oregonian–we have a rundown. The article covers a bunch of stuff, including bits about the $700 billion bailout, which is annoying and largely irrelevant.

I thought I might summarize all of this stuff, but I’m no city politics expert. Instead, here are links to three documents that accompanied the article:

In those, I point your attention to these facts

  • –“MLS Commissioner told Merritt that if Portland solves the venue issue, we will get the next expansion franchise (team #17) and would start in 2011,” Logsdon wrote in his email.
  • –The PFM Group notes that the financial estimates from Paulson’s group are conservative, and do not include several possible sources of income, such as concerts and high school sporting events.
  • –There have been no commitments or final decisions from the city regarding how much public money or in what form that money may come for this project.

    • I humbly suggest interested parties download these docs and take a look-see. I wish there was a way to turn off comments without proving you’d downloaded the docs, but alas, I don’t hold that kind of sway. Let the flame war begin!

    7 replies on “MLS2PDX plans see the light of day”

    2. Major league sports are fine, as long as they can exist without public monies.

      from Paulson proposal:
      “Public Investment: The total public investment necessary to accomplish the improvements described here are $80 – 85 million: $40 million for modernization of PGE Park and $40 – 45 million for the development of a new stadium at Lents Park. including collateral development.”

      Can someone name me another industry other than professional sports that has the balls to ask for so much of our tax dollars and gives so little back to the community?
      And before someone argues that “People travel from out of town to see major league sports team. So it’s good for hotels and restaurants”, I’ll remind them that people also travel from out of town to go shop at Powell’s and other businesses in PDX. I don’t see any of them asking for $40 million when they want to expand their business.

    3. Um, I think you meant “kvetch” not “kibbutz.” Kibbutz is an Israeli communal living arrangement, often considered to be of a socialist and Zionist bent.

    4. Given the current state of the economy and people’s resentment toward government and finances, if there were ever a worse possible time for Merritt to try and pull this off, I’d like to see it. Ugh. Everything is stacked against him.

      With that said, however, this would be great for the city, I support Merritt’s plan, and I hope the local politicos have the vision and balls to approve it.

    5. Since he’s getting $2 million a year in tax subsidies now his company certainly should be doing well.

      If you had read the PDF documents and checked on the small hints as to where his income is coming from to pay his bills, you’d find that of the $3 million a year Paulsen is “paying” for the stadium now $2 million dollars per year of his income is in the form of subsidies by Portland taxpayers.

      His projected income figures are rosy best outcome scenario estimates.

      If he’s saying it will cost $75 million, sorry, last month’s figure, he says it will cost $85 million to Portland, then the final cost will be at least twice that when you add in the additional costs for roads, replacing the park in Lents that is given up for this, and very poor planning which is always present in Portland projects.

      That is just scratching the surface. The more you look at the numbers the worse it looks. Economically this is not viable at all. All Paulsen and his fans ask is that Portland accept the risk of paying for it if it doesn’t work out – and continue to pay for it through tax subsidies if it does.

    Comments are closed.