Protesters were out in force in the Bronx on Wednesday night for a dramatic Town Hall meeting to discuss a proposed new MLS soccer stadium near Yankee Stadium
“Sour” is one way of putting it, yes. I’d opt for “highly incensed”. The proposed location is at 157th Street on River Avenue in the Bronx.
That said, this is one town hall meeting out of many that will be held before a final decision is made on the stadium site. It would be hasty to pronounce a Bronx stadium deal dead based on just this one meeting.
On a different topic, this made me chuckle:
Since announcing their plans, the league have fallen out with the owners of the New York Cosmos who, considering their local history and worldwide popularity, were the obvious choice to be the twentieth MLS team.
Yeah, I’m…not so sure about that. This is a recurring trope you see from diehard Cosmos fans, and from everything I can see, it’s based on wishful thinking more than anything else.
The original Cosmos folded in 1984, along with the rest of the original NASL. The Cosmos “returned”, in a manner of speaking, in 2010, but it was as a marketing vehicle more than anything else. They didn’t start playing again until this fall.
Claims of the Cosmos’ “worldwide popularity” seem, to me, based on the fact that back in the ’70s, they drew 77,000 to Giants Stadium for a few games. Simply put, it’s a preposterous claim, given how fundamentally different the game — and the context in which the Cosmos played — was back then. You cannot compare the two.
That’s not a dig at the current incarnation of the Cosmos, by the way. From everything I can see, they’re a good organization, having won a NASL title last year. But there was nothing obvious about their owners having the opportunity to own a flagship franchise in MLS.
