What Did I Just Read/See?!
Statement from Robert and Jonathan Kraft
In 2015, we were invited to put together a stadium proposal for the former Bayside Exhibition Center site. Since then, we have invested millions of dollars and thousands of staff hours to design and structure a venue that would benefit UMass Boston, the City of Boston and serve as an asset to the surrounding communities, with an operating plan that would benefit all local constituencies. We were committed to a fully-funded, privately-financed stadium that would have totaled an investment in excess of $250 million. There was also a full-value land lease to UMass that would have provided annual payments to the university. As is the case with any development opportunity, there were numerous hurdles to overcome and we regularly adjusted our plans to cater to the needs of the project. Unfortunately, and for reasons beyond our control, it has been determined that this project is not feasible to pursue on this site at this time. It is our goal to continue to seek development opportunities where we can invest in a soccer specific stadium that will benefit its surrounding communities while giving our fans and our players a venue they will be proud to call home for generations to come.
So, that’s another “swing and a miss” (I know, wrong sport) with a, “it’s not our fault” thrown in for good measure.
Guess what, Krafts? Nobody cares who is/isn’t at fault anymore or why yet another stadium deal has fallen through. The club is now approaching a quarter century of existence and yet it remains one of only five MLS clubs not already playing in a soccer-specific stadium or preparing to move into one by 2018. All any Revolution supporter cares about is that you GET IT DONE.
Oddly enough, the statement wasn’t the oddest thing in the press release. The Krafts/Revolution provided multiple renderings of two different proposed stadiums for the site mentioned above. Why? “See supporters, you know we were serious this time because we had pictures!!” If you’d like to see the pictures of the two stadiums that are never going to be built, click here. If you’d like to see pictures of something else that doesn’t exist, click here.
I was going to end with that, but I’m not going to. I hate it when people criticize somebody or something and offer not better ideas, so here is one.
Dear New England Revolution/Kraft Family,
Here are a few things you could do to distract us from the fact that you cannot get a stadium deal done:
- Redesign the awful club crest. I’ll make it easy, find this guy and give him thousands of monies for his designs (cheaper than a new stadium!). I like his secondary crest design better than the primary one, but that’s just me.
- Sign a player on the level of Sebastian Giovinco, Diego Valeri, or Bastian Schweinsteiger. This will cost millions of dollars, but unlike a new stadium, not hundreds of millions of dollars.
- Win MLS cup. If the club become champions nobody- very much including yours truly will care whether the club has a SSS, plays at Gillette, or sets up some cones in the Patriot Place parking lot.
Kind regards,
WeeFuse
