Legal Commentary

Can Mayor White pull off another "win-win" deal

By Tom Kirkendall

Although the developers of the proposed Ashby high-rise condominium project didn't know it at the time, Houston Mayor Bill White did the developers a huge favor by putting up roadblocks to that project.

Can you imagine trying to peddle those condos in the current real estate market? Mayor White's blocking of the condos ended being a classic "win-win" deal.

Accordingly, I wonder if Mayor White might be inclined to do the same thing in regard to Houston's proposed soccer stadium?

Things aren't looking too rosy for MLS soccer these days:

Major League Soccer is not quite ready to carry its own night on TV.

After two years of anemic ratings that started low and finished lower, ESPN executives decided to cancel the league’s regular Thursday night telecast on ESPN2 this season.  .  .  .

“We didn’t see the kind of ratings climb we’d like to, so we’re trying something different,” said Scott Guglielmino, ESPN vice president of programming.

The decision to cancel the regular Thursday night game marks a stunning turnaround for a league that two years ago believed it was creating destination programming that would increase interest in MLS. But even the 2007 arrival of David Beckham couldn’t boost MLS ratings.

MLS games averaged a 0.2 rating and 289,000 viewers on ESPN2 in 2007. Those numbers dropped to 0.2/253,000 viewers the following year. Its highest rating during that period was Beckham’s second regular-season game in August 2007 that earned a 0.6/658,000 households.

Canceling “MLS Primetime Thursday” is a tacit admission that MLS is not strong enough to anchor a regular prime-time slot on its own. ESPN is entering the third year of an eight-year rights deal that pays MLS $8 million annually.

So, MLS franchises are being downgraded by the most important sports programming network in the nation, which can't be good for the value of those teams. The attendance at MLS games is poor, at least outside Houston and a couple of other cities. And the perception in sophisticated soccer circles is that the MLS is decidedly minor-league.

Meanwhile, Mayor White has already had Houstonians invest $20 million or so in buying downtown property at a premium price for the proposed soccer stadium, despite the fact that the city already owned nearby property that would have been perfectly fine for such a stadium. Moreover, the city will be on the hook for tens of millions of dollars more in infrastructure improvements if the Dynamo owners somehow cobble together their private financing for the stadium.

Now, it's looking as if the Dynamo may not even have a viable league to play in by the time the proposed soccer stadium is completed in a couple of years.

Pull the plug on the soccer stadium, Mayor. It will be another "win-win" deal.

Full post as published by Houston's Clear Thinkers on January 25, 2009 (boomark / email).