Soccernomics: PGE Park Plans Released

The renovation plans for PGE Park have been released and it looks pretty darn great as a venue for soccer. Sadly, my worst fears have been realized and they will be playing on plastic. This means I will only be an occasional ticket buyer rather than a season ticket holder. I understand that the use of the stadium by PSU and high school football is a constraint, but high school football really has no business in the stadium (surely it is far too expensive to use it for this purpose?) and occasional high school football and the regular PSU football schedule can be accommodated as they are in other grass MLS stadiums. Hopefully in a few more years cooler heads will prevail.

But so it goes. I am still very happy that the stadium will have a new and exciting life as a venue for MLS and that the city will have a top flight professional team in soccer to cheer for.

NB: Since it is now a best-selling book, I shall ride the 'soccernomics' bandwagon!

Portland Home Values: Case-Shiller September Numbers

Okay, so I try to take a week off and something always happens, in this case the Case-Shiller September numbers. So here are two snapshots. The first is the raw data showing an ever so slight increase in the 20 city composite and in Seattle, but a every so slight drop in Portland (12% unemployment anyone?).


The second is the year-over-year change in the monthly numbers, and here we see the trend is still improving but weakening...



This is consistent with what I expect from the unemployment situation and what I talked about on OPB.

Soccer on Grass...Again.

The New York Times' Goal blog has a nice update on the new Red Bulls Arena and the transition of the team to the new surface. Here is the key passage which concerns the Red Bulls star Juan Pablo Angel and his concerns about artificial turf:

Angel, the team’s career leading scorer, has often complained about the artificial turf at Giants Stadium, which exacerbated his nagging back problems... “Everyone knows I’ve been the biggest critic, I never liked the turf,” he said.

Yes, Giants stadium has the new, modern turf. So it is not a matter of what fake grass it is, it is a matter of fake grass, full stop.

Juan Pablo Angel has been perhaps the most successful foreign star to join the MLS. While not a superstar, he was a successful striker in the English Premier League and could have signed a very lucrative contract with a team in that league when he decided to come to the MLS. He immediately became the most dangerous striker in the MLS (and he is all class to boot). So if he is dissatisfied with the turf, it suggests that other high quality players will balk at signing with a team that plays on turf.

Something else for the Timbers to think about...

MLS in Portland: Grass

An alert commenter has pointed me to this story that I had completely missed:

Toronto FC to get grass pitch

Toronto's BMO field, home to Toronto FC, will replace its artificial turf with a grass playing surface by the time the club begins its 2010 season.

Toronto council approved the switch last week, but the project needed the approval of both the federal and Ontario governments, which have paid for part of the construction of the $74-million stadium in 2007.

Mayor David Miller announced Friday that both governments have now given the project the green light.

Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, which owns Toronto FC and manages the city-owned field, is investing $3.5 million to replace the turf.

After only three seasons in the league they are abandoning their misguided turf experiment. That this means that now all soccer-specific stadiums in the MLS will have natural grass fields. So only Seattle (boo!) and New England, who play in NFL stadiums on turf have no plans (as far as I know) to construct a soccer-specific stadium.

C'mon Merritt, commit to grass!

MLS in Portland: A Comparison

As the Trail Blazers get ready for their new season, and as Bill Walton came-a-visitin' recently searching for forgiveness, I got to wondering how different was the NBA expansion to Portland in 1970 than the current MLS expansion to Portland.

As I am lazy and cheap and most archival new stories on-line are not free (can it be true, hasn't Google figured this out yet?), I am left to offer only some little tidbits of information.

Such as:

Average attendance of the NBA in the three years leading up to the Portland expansion year (1970): 5,967, 6,484 and 7,563.

So was the NBA such a (wait for it...) 'slam dunk' for the city? Perhaps not. The city owned Memorial Coliseum was already in existence and lacked a major tenant so it has parallels there. But the NBA was still pretty much a fledgling league (with the ABA as a competitor) and future prospects were uncertain. Since then the NBA, thanks in part to Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and the proliferation of color TV, has soared in popularity and became an international brand.

I suspect, however, that in the late 60's there were many who questioned if the NBA would go anywhere. What is interesting to me in retrospect is how much the Blazers are a part of the fabric and identity of the city.

So why so much skepticism about MLS? It is as established a league as the NBA was then. Unlike the NBA at that time it is already part of a global market, and one that is staggeringly enormous. And the league's franchise values have skyrocketed in recent years.

One big difference is that the city does now have an established major league franchise. Though it is also worth noting that their schedules complement each other's nicely - unlike the NHL which so many were so excited about a few years back.

But I am but a youngster, barely out of diapers. Anyone remember the talk surrounding the NBA coming to Portland in the late 60s?

On another MLS note, this is another troubling sign that, in the grass seed capital of the world, the Timbers may end up playing on plastic...

Nemo's original idea was to set the slogan against a carpet of lush grass, Nemo account manager Jessie Grav said. But team owner Merritt Paulson suggested the image be replaced because nobody knows yet whether the 2011 Timbers will be playing on grass or artificial turf, she said.

This is about the photo above. I suspect he would not be that worried if he didn't already suspect that plastic was almost certain.

Real Soccer Stadiums Have Grass Surfaces

The New York Times' Goal blog has the this story on the installation of the natural grass field at the Red Bull Arena in Harrison, NJ, future home of the MLS New York Red Bulls.

How can they possibly make it work in such a climate?!? They are installing a SubAir system that helps control the moisture in the turf and can keep it warm as well in freezing temperatures. It is what the Broncos use in Denver and has been installed in the beautiful grass fields at the new MLS stadiums in Salt Lake, Denver and Chicago (as well as in Bolton in England). The system actually uses vacuum pressure to help keep moisture down in periods of heavy rain.

From the blog post:

On Wednesday, only hours before the Red Bulls lost their 27th straight road game in Major League Soccer, the first pieces of the grass playing surface, Kentucky bluegrass, were rolled out at the team’s new $200 million stadium — Red Bull Arena — in Harrison, N.J.

The balance of the turf will be placed over the next week in preparation for the stadium’s debut when the Red Bulls play Chicago on March 27, 2010, to open the new season. The grass is only one component of what the club is calling a “cutting-edge underground field drainage and turf-heating system” that uses the SubAir System.

According to the club’s news release: “The SubAir System applies vacuum pressure to accelerate the speed at which moisture moves from the playing surface through the soil system. At the same time, the system can apply pressure through the subsoil pipes to stimulate moisture movement through the soil during particularly dry periods, as well as regulate the core temperature of the soil throughout the year to help stimulate grass growth.”

The stadium, across the Passaic River from the Ironbound section of Newark, is inching toward completion. Only 13 panels remain to be installed on the signature, silver-toned translucent panels that will allow natural light to pass through into the bowl. When finished, the roof will cover the stadium’s entire seating area.

Now if teams in places like Utah and Colorado and Illinois which can get cold and have tremendous rain and hail storms, can get natural grass to work out just fine, surely the relatively mild Portland climate poses no real obstacle.

There seems to be a sense that the only technological innovation in athletic fields has been in artificial turf, making them the only real choice for most applications, but this is false. Modern natural grass fields are high tech and durable. There is also a sense that modern turf fields perform just as well as grass for all sports. This may be true of football, but definitely not of soccer. Everything form the speed of the ball, the bounce of the ball and the players ability to tackle changes on turf - for the worse. Its pretty fun to play on, but pretty dismal to watch.

Oh, and one final note, Merlo field at the University of Portland is natural grass, so if the Timbers blow it and install turf, there will still be one place to watch high-level real soccer in town.

And, by the way, the stadium in New Jersey is awesome, but there will be none better than Portland's if it is done right.

Portland Home Values: Case-Shiller June Numbers

The June Case-Shiller numbers are in and the news is good for Portland: a healthy jump in home values from the month before. No one should get too excited, we are still well down from the peak, the numbers could reflect simply a seasonal bump, and there are still many out there who predict housing prices will continue to fall especially due to the rising foreclosures arising form unemployment. Nonetheless, it is another indication that we are, hopefully, nearing the bottom of the recession. It is also an indication that efforts on the part of the Fed and the Obama administration to stir a little life into the housing market has worked. Mortgage rates are exceptionally low and it appears that many are choosing this opportunity to become first-time homebuyers. All in all, I expect that the erosion in home values is essentially over, we may see a little more in the fall and winter, but nothing too substantial, but it will be a few years before any really healthy appreciation happens again.

The above graph charts the raw numbers and this graph below shows the year over year percentage change in home values for Portland, Seattle and the 20 city composite.

Oh, and by the way, apropos of the previous post, the stabilization in the housing market should help stabilize the MBS market, perhaps restoring the market for those 'toxic assets.' Maybe the Fed was right after-all...

Bad Omens

The Oregonian today reports on preliminary plans to renovate and expand PGE Park for soccer in preparation for the Timbers 'promotion' to MLS. Near the end the article addresses the field itself and states:

And the kind of field is also under debate. Although nearly all the soccer-specific stadiums in the league have natural grass, it's unclear how well that would work for Portland's climate vs. the park's 1-year-old artificial turf.

As I have stated before soccer on turf is a vastly inferior product to soccer on grass and the fact that they would make such an assertion reads to me like they have already decided on turf and are slowly rolling out their excuse: 'it's just too rainy in Portland." Please. Clubs in the Premier League in England often play in excess of 40 games in their home stadiums in the middle of the English winter. And every single one of them has a natural grass field. Surely if they can manage, an MLS team that plays largely in the summer can too. More forward thinking MLS teams that have built stadiums recently in cold winter climates have even installed field warming systems under the natural grass.

Besides, turf is a real obstacle to hosting top European and international teams. Witness Seattle, who last night drew almost 67,000 fans to watch the Sounders play FC Barcelona. To host Barca they had to spend $100,000 on a temporary natural grass field that was laid on top of the artificial turf. This expense may be justified in a stadium that can draw 67,000 fans, but is probably not economical in PGE Park. As an aside, these temporary installations of natural grass on top of turf suck: they provide bad footing and a rough surface which may make the quality of the soccer even worse than on turf. But at least you don't have the ball ping-ponging around.

Since the city has approval rights over the design, they should insist on grass as it will have a real bearing on the long term success of this agreement. I, for one, am not paying top dollar to see soccer played on plastic. And big European clubs, who are a top draw when they come over for summer warm up matches often refuse to play on it. Since the city has a financial interest in the success of the team, they should not be passive on this issue.

MLS and The Beavers: Can it Still be a Public Good if it is For-Profit?

The Oregonian has the news that Beaverton has expressed interest in being the new home of the Portland Beavers. This makes a lot of sense and seems to be the best of a host of second-best alternatives (what exactly are we going to do with the Memorial Coliseum that we hadn't thought of before?). I am not sure why it is necessarily better than Lents except it would be Beaverton, not Portland partnering with Paulson.

In the same article the O reports that the plan to renovate PGE Park will come before the city council on Thursday for a vote, and it appears that everyone on the council is reasonably happy with it given that it does on include new urban renewal funds. Thus Portland is one step closer to the reality of MLS.

All this is interesting in its own right, but not what really strikes me, what strikes me is the many commentators who think that public goods and private ownership are incompatible. Most Oregonians would probably accept that art museums, cultural facilities, zoos, science museums, etc. are all important public goods and enhance the lives of most residents of a city and a state. The fact that they have a large positive externality argues for government participation in these activities. But spectator sports also have a positive externality - just look at how many people showed up to support the Blazers for simply making the playoffs. [Of course this externality can be negative, witness the JailBlazer era]

Just because wealthy owners like Merritt Paulson are in it for profit does not mean that there is no public good aspect of spectator sports, nor does it necessarily mean that such sports would exist without public involvement. But I do understand that it is as much about perception as anything else. Still, though there may not be any great economic growth enhancing aspect to spectator sports does not mean the city does not benefit from their existence.

By the way, not to be too anglophilic, but my suggestion for the MLS ready PGE park (other than real grass) is to have a big sign in the rafters saying "Welcome to Goose Hollow" in the tradition of many English clubs that are defined more by their neighborhoods than by their cities.

Soccer News

Two soccer stories pop up at the same time making for one efficient blog post. And I know you all turn to the Oregon Economics Blog for your soccer news...

The USA soccer team defeated world number one Spain 2 to 0 in South Africa today in the FIFA Confederations Cup. Spain is far and away more talented top to bottom, but soccer is the ultimate team game and the USA just plain wanted it more. Bravo. They will now likely face Brazil on Sunday as Brazil play South Africa tomorrow. But after today, don't count South Africa out, especially as they are playing at home.

Closer to home, the Portland City Council did the right thing and decouple the Beaver's search for a new stadium and the MLS to PGE park deals. Bravo again. Without this, MLS in Portland would certainly have been scuttled. As I have said many times, is there is better model for the viability of PGE Park than MLS? I don't think so. The Beavers are leaving anyway, best to focus on how to save PGE Park from being a budgetary black hole and provide another entertainment option for poor deprived Portlanders.

Now at the risk of sounding like the crank extraordinaire, Jack Bog, whose rants to me are entirely pointless - what the heck is up with Amanda Fritz? She does not seem very engaged and her stance against the stadium deal is without nuance or sense. I worry that she gets the static picture but not the dynamic one when it comes to economic growth and financial stability. Even Fish is on board with this one...

Bravo!

As I said a few days ago, it is time to separate the MLS soccer deal and the Beavers conundrum.

Looks like I am very persuasive:

Portland will pursue soccer renovation without settling plans for a new baseball park

Oregonian Edition: MLS, Credit and Taxes

David Sarasohn has an Op-Ed in today's Oregonian (not on web site) in which he suggests the MLS team and the Beavers could share PGE park and in which he makes the erroneous claim that "several" MLS teams share stadia with baseball teams.  This is demonstrably false and very easy to check - only Kansas City shares at the moment in a temporary two year arrangement while they develop a soccer-specific stadium.  It also ignores the fact that on most days, the Beavers fill less than 10% of the seats of PGE park making for a fairly dismal fan experience.  I think it needs to be recognized by members of the press that MLS is the only current viable plan for PGE Park, full stop.  MLS will not work in PGE park sharing with the Beavers because of space constraints (permanent stands will need to be constructed long the 18th Ave side) and the difficulty providing a top quality natural grass field with a baseball infield.   MLS has made it clear to all teams that the sharing will not work and most MLS teams are either playing in, or in the process of, developing soccer-specific stadiums.  What to do with the Portland Beavers is a tricky problem, and the abandonment of the Rose Quarter so quickly thanks to a tiny, but vocal group who want to preserve Memorial Coliseum for ... what exactly? ... makes their continued presence in the city questionable.  And maybe having them depart for the 'burbs is the right answer.  Saltzman's Leonard's insistence that his support for the MLS plan is contingent on keeping the Beavers is myopic and may end up costly when, in a few years, PGE Park is vacant.  

Also in Sunday's paper, Ryan Frank has a great story on Tom Moyer and his stalled tower.

And finally A very nice editorial by Susan Nielsen asking the same questions I have: why hasn't there been any real effort on the part of Democrats to go after wholesale reform of the states fiscal system.  This dovetails nicely with a good article on the state tax system in general - mirroring some efforts I have made to try and make sense of it.  Dems' insistence on piecemeal hole plugging is pretty troubling and their justifications pretty weak in my opinion.

Econ 101: Opportunity Cost and MLS

John Canzano finally makes the point that journalists at his paper have not seen fit to discuss when reporting the 'economics' of the MLS in Portland deal - that the Beavers are not a viable tenant in PGE park:

Ignored in the great soccer-baseball debate is the possibility that the current Lents ballpark proposal blows up and Portland loses minor league baseball, too. The Beavers' lease at PGE Park runs through 2010, and the franchise pays the highest rent in the league.

So here is a little lesson in economics, reporters: the economic 'cost' of an activity includes opportunity cost. So if you are looking at the cost to the city of doing the deal versus the cost to the city of not doing the deal, you have to consider what the alternative is. In this case it is pretty likely that it would be an empty PGE Park with a sizable debt load and no revenue stream to service it. In fact the 'cost' of not doing anything hasn't be reported on at all.

Baseball at PGE Park has been tried by a number of entities in the last 20 years, none with any real success. MLS is quite possibly the best option for keeping the stadium viable.

Of course, following my same argument, you would have to ask what the opportunity cost of keeping the stadium as a stadium and not selling off the property to developers. This is a serious question. But at least for the next few years, it is hard to imagine that there is any private capital for a new development project there and you would need some measure of the social benefit of the stadium and the events it hosts.

Poll Results and Portland Politics

The poll is closed and the masses have spoken: MLS in Portland is a Boondoggle.

Given that I have been an ardent supporter of the deal, this result can be interpreted in many ways:

1. My readers are intelligent and independent and are willing to consider my opinions but are not unduly influenced by them.

2. I am not very persuasive.

3. I was fighting against truth and reason all along and I should wake up to that fact.

4. Some dude was stuffing the poll.

I hope the truth is 1. I hope this is true in general and if this poll is an artifact of this fact, then this is wonderful news. 2 is also probably true. I am not ready to accept 3 - I am not convinced that the opportunity cost of turning down this deal has been adequately understood. I suspect 4, however. The poll suddenly took a decided turn in the opposite direction and continued its trajectory suspiciously. Though the economic indicators of the Oregon economy did the same...

But who knows? And who really cares, the point is that if this is any indication of the mood among the general population, Paulson and City Hall have some more work to do to convince people.

And speaking of City Hall, will The Oregonian ever give up on trying to run Adams out of office? Regardless of what their personal opinions are, he is our mayor and needs to be effective for our well-being and their crusade is contrary to our interests. Normally I respect David Sarasohn's opinion pieces, but when he writes the following I wonder what he is thinking:

Friday brought yet another development in the endless tale of the mayor's admitted lies and his desperate effort to survive in office. From Freedom of Information Act requests, Ryan Frank and Brent Walth of The Oregonian reported 33 phone calls from Adams to Beau Breedlove before Breedlove turned 18, a very different view of the relationship from even the mayor's most recent account of it.

There was actually another City Hall story Friday, about Portland's new budget, with higher than expected revenues allowing the city to maintain more of its services.

Guess which was the top City Hall story of the day?

Ummm, it was The Oregonian that made it the story of the day and could have (AND SHOULD HAVE) made the budget the story of the day. When the major daily of the city is not focusing its reportorial energies where it should, don't blame city hall. This is like saying "I hit you for no reason and therefore you must have been at fault."

Two-Sided Risk and the (Portland) Paulson Plan

Merritt Paulson is obviously weary of sounding like he is threatening the city so, in his opinion piece today in the O, he very carefully makes a point that I have mused about before: without this deal to bring MLS and build a new baseball park, will the city be considerably worse off then it is today?

People who criticize the deal seem to assume that Paulson (or a new owner) can afford business as usual, but I am not at all sure that is true. Beavers crowds are paltry and Timbers crowds are not much better - are these franchises viable in the long run as tenants of PGE park? I doubt it. The Beavers are probably going to need to move anyway and the Timbers are not going to service the debt to PGE park. Without a permanent tenant in PGE park, the city is on the hook for all of the past debt. So while the risk of doing the deal has been discussed ad-nauseum, the risk of not doing a deal seems pretty high as well.

The risk to the servicing of the existing debt exists in either scenario, the appropriate question is: is it higher or lower with the plan? This is the story I wish the The Oregonian would cover.

Spectator Sports and Economic Growth

I have said this before but as The Oregonian has once again put it on the front page it bears repeating: No evidence for the positive is NOT evidence for the negative.

I am, of course, referring to the link between investing in spectator sports and the economic growth of the city.  Here is what we know: when you look carefully at the basic measure of economic growth, GDP per capita through time, and introduce a sports stadium and/or new sports franchise there is no apparent 'bump' in the data.  Or more precisely, sometimes you see a bump from the direct construction spending, but it is temporary.  From this you can conclude that there is no evidence that such investments create a measurable spurt in local economic growth.  You CANNOT conclude, however, that such investments do not spur growth because you cannot compare it with the counterfactual (like you could in a lab - see yesterday's post).  The fact is that any sports franchise investment is a relatively small part of any city's economy and finding a measurable effect on overall growth would be so extraordinary as to rouse suspicion that the correlation is spurious.  

Think of a study which looked at the the GDP of Denver over the last 50 years and controlled for many other factors that effect the local economy including, for example, revenue from natural resources.  Then you add the addition of the Rockies baseball team and see if there is a jump in the time series.  Nope.  But does it mean the rockies did nothing for the local economy?  No, it means that there is no identifiable boost, but since we don't know what growth would have looked like absent the Rockies we can never truly say anything meaningful about what their presence has meant for growth.  

My guess is that investments in sports franchises are not considerably more or less stimulating for growth than any other average business investment in the short and medium term.  The difference in my mind is the much bigger social welfare that spectator sports provide than, say, a new restaurant.  Just look at the folks that turned up for the Blazer rally yesterday.  What this means is that you may not get outsized private returns on the investment but you may get outsized public returns.  

What I don't know, and will probably never know, is what such franchises do to the long term trajectory of the growth of a metro area.  Would Portland be any different if the Blazers never arrived?  I don't know, but I suspect that, just like theaters, museums, concert halls, spectator sports make a place a nice and stimulating place to live and are part of the decision to live somewhere.  So I suspect that the Blazers have had a small role in making Portland a desirable place to live over the past 30 plus years and this cumulatively has created a different growth trajectory than there would have been without them.  Since Oregon does a particularly bad job of educating its residents, we benefit from the flow of educated people who choose to live here, and cultural amenities, including spectator sports, are important in this regard.  

This leads to the argument that we should spend more on education.  This argument is powerful, but the city's investment in the stadium is an investment in a revenue generating asset paid for by borrowing from the future.  Conflating this with current investment education is a mistake - it is not a zero sum game.  I would love it if investments in public school buildings could lead to increased future revenues that would pay for such investments, but the reality is that they don't - or at least not ones the city can capture.  

The essential story of economic growth is the mixing of educated workers, technology, capital, infrastructure, etc.  To put it simply, you need to create educated people AND a local economy in which they can be productive.  I think that given the relatively small cost to the city and the potential benefit to the residents of the city it is worth it.  But as always, I get a lot of personal benefit from spectator sports and soccer in particular, so I am inclined to think the overall benefit is large. Judging from the movement of the poll, I am in the minority.

It's Official: MLS to PDX in 2011

Confirmed: MLS to Portland

Oregonian gets confirmation from City Hall: MLS will announce Friday that it has awarded the expansion franchise to Portland.  

MLS: Vancouver In, Portland Waits

The Vancouver Whitecaps got the nod from MLS today to begin play in the top league in 2011 in (yuck) the BC Place football stadium.  But, they are still trying to get a waterfront stadium built in five years (how cool would that be with Grouse Mountain in the background?).

MLS Commissioner Don Garber stated that the league hopes to announce the other expansion franchise 'shortly.'  Both the Ottawa and St. Louis bids have serious problems and, lets be real, they suck.  St. Louis is a sports saturated medium-sized market with a failing team across the state in KC.  Ottawa is smaller, colder, less-interesting and Canadian.  Actually the last bit is a good think, there is more passion for soccer in Canada and they are more ready to embrace the sport.  But my grandmother hails from Smiths Falls, Ontario and I have family in Ottawa, so I know of what I speak when I say - go for a wonderful summer vacation, but don't put a soccer team there.  Actually, Ottawa is a delightful city (in the summer) but a pretty small market and Ontario already has a team, so I don't think it is a good move for the league.

Why wait? MLS should give Portland the nod now!

UPDATE: Portland Biz Journal reports that an announcement awarding MLS to PDX may come Friday.

MLS and Public Goods: Grass Fields

Okay, now that I have been all rah-rah about MLS in Portland, I think it is a good time to look back at the league's history and future. The summary is: it is mostly a big success story but there are some troubling signs on the horizon - most importantly the move away from natural grass playing surfaces.

The league started as a single ownership structure with 10 teams and only a couple of wealthy backers, most notably, Kansas City Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt. Play was mostly in football stadiums and, truth be told, neither the play nor the atmosphere was very good. For a little while the future was uncertain, the expansion Miami Fusion folded, but the expansion Chicago Fire thrived. Losses were common, but Lamar Hunt's construction of Columbus Crew stadium was seen as a glimpse of the future: soccer specific stadia in which the team controlled all the revenue sources.

Slowly the league became established, more stadiums were built and new teams added, but the most important change was the number of new, deep-pocketed, investors in the league that diversified the league and sent a signal that it was here to stay. Now most existing teams are stable, many have their own soccer-specific stadium, and more stadia are in the works, and the league has solidified the broadcast rights and most games are now shown on TV.

A number of very important decisions were made along the way that facilitated the rise of the league in my opinion. The first was to scrap the silly rules that made MLS an international oddity, most notably the shoot-out that determined outcome in the case of ties. The second was a steadfast determination to get the game out of NFL stadiums and to keep it off of artificial turf. The atmosphere in big stadiums is awful (I know from my time in Denver), and the game on turf is horrible: the ball bounces and skids, and players are reluctant to tackle - a key part of the sport - and in stadiums with football, the gridiron mars the visual experience. All of which degrades the spectator sport badly.

This is where my concerns come in. Recently, in the interest of expansion, the league has gone away from the last two criteria. The Toronto franchise built a soccer specific stadium, but it has a turf field. And the Seattle franchise was allowed to play in Quest field and on turf. Vancouver will likely be awarded a franchise and will play in a NFL-style indoor stadium on turf. The degradation of the quality of the product for the spectator is deeply troubling. The Seattle decision is especially so. In the beginning MLS was seen as a good way for NFL owners to get some revenue out of their otherwise idle stadiums. But it has been a terrible failure: most teams that started in NFL stadiums have either folded, left (or are leaving) or are struggling to fill seats. Seattle may be an exception in the short-run, but the long run impact on the televised product of these reversals in decisions will be painful - especially as TV revenue is the key to the future.

So, should Portland get a franchise, I hope (pray) that Paulson puts in real grass. It is expensive to install and maintain. Apparently Chicago spent 1.7 million on a state-of-the-art natural grass field with heating and drainage compared to about $1 million for a new turf field. Maintenance is more costly for grass and there are concerns about durability. But Chicago is a stadium that hosts football and concerts in addition to soccer so if they can do it, surely Portland can too. I know it is a more expensive short-term option and may even be the individually rational long-term option, but turf is a bad option for the league as a whole. It is time for MLS to insist on grass again and the Timbers should too.

[Note, here is a consenting view, and one that makes another point: if MLS teams want to make money by hosting major international clubs, it is likely that those clubs will refuse to play on turf]