City of San Antonio Says NO to Hartman’s Stadium Plan
The city of San Antonio announced on Friday that they will not be supporting a stadium plan for Gordon Hartman’s North American Soccer League team, the Scorpions. The city staff advised the council after reviewing Hartman’s proposal.
That’s our recommendation. Obviously, council could revisit it. But our recommendation is not to advance any capital dollars for the soccer stadium. And early indications are that council supports that recommendation.
Deputy City Manager Pat DiGiovanni
A story in the San Antonio Express this morning cites a Chicago company, Sports & Entertainment Services, who reviewed Hartman’s proposal for the city. That report concludes that a proposed stadium would not created enough profit to support the expenses for the stadium and the team.
According to the My San Antonio.com story: The review, released Friday, cites a discrepancy between Hartman’s forecasted net income of $799,350 a year and its own forecast of a $111,020 loss — a $910,000 difference.
The HVS study also says the local market’s propensity to spend on sporting events is “below average.” That Hartman has already received more than 1,000 commitments for season tickets is promising, the report says, but its authors balk at the ticket-pricing structure for Hartman’s Soccer for a Cause, which plans a cost range between $10 and $50 — with an average price of $18.
Working together, both the city of San Antonio and Bexar County had ordered a joint independent study in December on the feasibility of professional sports in the area with a focus on pro soccer. The results of that study were revealed in February and the findings were not favorable for Hartman and his “Soccer for a Cause.” Hartman’s organization has claimed profits from a pro soccer team will help fund his theme park, Morgan’s Wonderland, which serves the disabled. The study found that of all the pro minor league soccer teams in the country, all but one was losing money.
In a report last December, IMS questioned Hartman about his claim that he could make a profit on his minor league soccer team when NASL teams generally lose between $500-thousand to $1.5 million per year.
“I know people question that and have questioned a lot of my business opportunities but I retired at 41 so I think I know business pretty well,” said Hartman last November. “I don’t mean that in a cocky way. Could I be wrong? The answer is yes. Analytically we think we can make it work.”
Gordon Hartman
Evidently the city of San Antonio didn’t agree with Hartman and felt he was wrong. But the former real estate developer remains steadfast to his “Soccer for a Cause” claim. He told the paper he’s confident that his analysis of the San Antonio market is accurate.
Recently Hartman had said he would find other ways to build the stadium and in today’s newspaper story he stated he will build the stadium but it will be scaled down. He did say that stadium will still have a 5,000 seat capacity.
Hartman was looking for $8 million ($4 million each from the city and county) in public financing to build the stadium. Recently he claimed to have $11.5 million in private donations of the $17 million Hartman needs to get the project started. Even with scaling back the project, it’s expected Hartman will need to find more private funding.
“This is going to be a reduced version, which will take away some of the funding potential that we would have had with the other version,” said Hartman.
The recent speculation in San Antonio has Hartman looking for a vehicle to refinance Morgan’s Wonderland which was launched last April. The park is believed to be far more expensive to operate that Hartman had originally thought and he may have been looking for options to refinance it. Soccer for a Cause may have been the vehicle Hartman thought would help to achieve that refinancing. He was quoted last month saying he might have to pull out of soccer all together and sell the team if public funding was not found.
Comments are closed.
“The local market’s propensity to spend on sporting events is “below average.” ”
Not to stir the pot, but this statement is certainly not a very positive one for the San Antonio sports scene and cannot bode (Yes, Kenn. Thats what I meant to type) well for those who have told me that they are sure SA will be the next choice for an MLS city. Evidently market studies say differently. I would think that MLS has probably already done similar studies in markets across the U.S.
SA is frequently knocked for it’s perceived inability to support another pro team. There certainly is evidence to support that notion. That being said, the city has surprised even MLS with its abilities. The attendance at the qualifier back in 2006 or so was enough to get that MLS offer.
I am well removed from the situation but I haven’t heard anything that indicates to me that SA is even significantly on MLS’ radar.
It’s nice to get a good draw at a qualifier but that doesn’t translate to people showing up on a weekly basis for MLS or any other sort of soccer.
It sounds like the gentleman is going to attempt to move forward. Any chance that the NASL and Traffic kick in some ca$h in order to try and keep the league afloat. The SA franchise appears crucial to the league’s survival unless they can find alternative potential ownership groups in other markets by the next sanctioning request.
@yankiboy Totally agree. I thought it was odd that Garber made that offer based largely off that qualifier as well. I’m sure there were other factors, yet that was one of the most publicly stated reasons.
In any case, my point is that those who say they are ‘sure’ of MLS in SA are probably looking back to that summer flirtation as evidence that it’ll happen again. It will probably take something odd like whatever happened in 2005 to get another offer as I am sure the market surveys were similarly pessimistic then.
Hopefully Hartman can get this all worked out. Perhaps sparkling attendance at the new smaller stadium will be enough to sustain the team and the NASL.
I hope things work out for Hartman and the Scorpions. He may not be the quintessential “soccer person”, but his heart certainly is in the right place. If they can build something like Silverbacks Park in Atlanta, it will do fine to start out.
I doubt Traffic steps in because they already need to divest themselves of Atlanta and Carolina. They need San Antonio to replace Montréal next season but I don’t think Traffic funding San Antonio is an option. Now Traffic helping with the funding for the stadium, not the team, may be an option.
Good luck San Antonio. Hope to see the Scorps visiting Lockhart in 2012!
“…cannot bid well for those who have told me that they are sure SA will be the next choice for an MLS city.”
a) “Bode” well
b) Anybody who’s told you they’re “sure” SA will be the next choice for an MLS city is on crack.
“In a unrelated story, members of the San Antonio review staff were seen last evening enjoying champagne and lobster tail at a Spurs game in the VIP reserved box.”
Ain’t no way Traffic will provide funding for the construction of a stadium in San Antonio. They would have been better served to have funded a stadium in Miami/Lauderdale.
Much like the Battery, it would create a much better venue and fan excitement than any public venue, and it creates a step for MLS to consider a possible expansion team.
Hartman’s only goal has been to save Morgans Wonderland. He should accept the City’s offer to help him with the park’s funding, and be done with it.
Well at least Hartman is looking to move forward without public funding.
On the other side things might not be looking good for the Spurs with the public schools falling apart.
Did I read that right? $50 for a ticket to a D-2 match (a range from $10 to $50)? Average price of $18? Dream on, dude, dream on. MLS maybe, but D-2? No way!
“Well at least Hartman is looking to move forward without public funding. ”
Does he have any other choice? Hartman always seemed in over his head with his quest for a soccer team. I don’t see the corpoins ever taking the field.
Of course this effects the NASL as a whole. Between this and the Edmonton problems, this is looking like a one year league.
^ Messed up writing Scorpions.
The MLS offer came back in 2006 because the then-mayor, Ed Garza, offered a sweet-heart deal for the team to use the Alamodome. The attendance at the qualifier was just icing on the cake. Once Garza was out of office, the next mayor, Phil Harberger, gave MLS the middle finger and I think Garber said at the time that it would be hard to consider San Antonio as a potential MLS destination in the future.
@Eaashley79: Thanks a lot for breaking it down. Now that you refreshed my memory, that is closer to the way that I understood things (the Garza connection).
I don’t pretend to understand this story or what NASL, Hartman or MLS is thinking but it would seem to me with no funding and the sure chance of loosing money in the first couple of year this is a no deal even if the NASL hold up. I think MLS could work in San Antonio beside having major cooperate sponsors and television rights they have a rival in Houston that I believe can fuel a soccer frenzy in that town. If not in San Antonio then in Austin with as also shown that it is to be consider as a soccer city. Houston Dynamo are the only Texas team that is doing good in the stands at this time as far as attendance. I think Their attendance could bring out fan in the other two cities. I think with the state that Dallas FC is in with attendance the would be a good candidate to be move to one of these cities if not for betterment of the franchise then the betterment of the league. Perhaps San Antonio is a better soccer supporting city then Dallas.
@Redcard: Dallas can’t move from Frisco because of the stadium. They built it out there. Now they are going to have to make it work.
I don’t really see MLS expanding to anyplace else in TX. It just doesn’t make very much economic sense. San Antonio and Austin had there possible moments and those moments are gone.
No disrespect to our wonderl Texan brothers ans sisters but now the premium on getting into the MLS club are significantly higher than they used to be. You have to be able to bring an awful lot to the table in order to get in. Those markets have some nice things to offer but to the MLS club, I think that unless freaking Club America or some sort of Euro club comes in to help push that then you are looking at needing some sort of guy like Jerry Jones guy to have to want to get in on it. MLS is now looking for the intangibles (like hype) in addition to big pocket capital and expansion fees.
I’m not sure that it would be enough to hope for the Casacadian effect to be replicated in Texas. I don’t think that the league would just say, “OK. Maybe the tv market isn’t that appetizing. Maybe the potential sponsors won’t much care but hey–if we can get a Seattle-Vancouver-Portland thing really going then we can replicate it and make a Texas version! It just isn’t that simple. There had beeter be a stadium clearly in the mix for any potential Texas group.
Just my 2…
And another thing to remember, Texas is FOOTBALL country… and I mean American FOOTBALL. Better to be a West Texas High School football star than play pro soccer in Texas any day.
I haven’t read into this whole thing in quite a while, but whatever happened with the suggestion that Scorpions FC use a renovated Alamo Stadium as its home?
Blake, too lengthy to go into but it wasn’t the Scorpions who would be using Alamo, it was SS&E. Click on the gold image above that says “get the facts” which will fill you in on a very complicated situation.