The Austin City Council approved a deal for a $200 million Major League Soccer stadium to be built in North Austin. However, the owner of the Columbus Crew, Anthony Precourt, is only negotiating the Austin deal as part of an effort to relocate the Crew franchise from Columbus. Columbus fans have filed a lawsuit to block the potential move, citing an Ohio law designed to keep teams from relocating without voter approval. While Austin would gain economic benefits from the stadium, some council members expressed concerns that the city is giving up control and future tax revenue from the land.

1. 8/24/2018 Austin Gets A Major League Soccer Deal While Columbus Gets Stiffed
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonnotte/2018/08/22/austin-texas-gets-a-major-league-soccer-deal-while-columbus-ohio-gets-stiffed/#54afd8ae780c 1/3
11,656 views | Aug 22, 2018, 07:00am
Austin Gets A Major League Soccer
Deal While Columbus Gets Sti ed
SportsMoney
I am a stadium finance and sports business writer
Jason No e Contributor i
Austin may get Major League Soccer, but not until the Columbus Crew and their
fans get the last word.
The Austin City Council recently approved a deal for a Major League Soccer
stadium in North Austin near The Domain, a shopping center. The stadium is
slated to be built on 24 acres of city-owned land that is close enough to both
highways and rail service to be considered desirable to the site's developer,
Precourt Sports Ventures (PSV), despite having a sordid history of industrial
contamination.
(AP Photo/Jay LaPrete)

2. 8/24/2018 Austin Gets A Major League Soccer Deal While Columbus Gets Stiffed
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonnotte/2018/08/22/austin-texas-gets-a-major-league-soccer-deal-while-columbus-ohio-gets-stiffed/#54afd8ae780c 2/3
The Council voted 7-4 in favor of the deal, but the stadium area's council member
– Leslie Pool – voted against it. Pool believes the city is giving away too much by
allowing PSV to rent stadium land for $550,000 a year after five years and
holding penalties at just $6 million if PSV reneges on its deal to pay for all of the
stadium's estimated $200 million in costs. The current deal also gives PSV and
the city mutual authority over additional development at the site, which is a check
on the city's right to develop its own land and was a make-or-break point in
negotiations.
The local Austin press considers the deal a win compared with other recent Major
League Soccer stadium deals. However, there was never a public vote on the
facility, and more than a third of the $95.9 million in “public benefits” is tied up
in a soccer academy that PSV plans to build.
This also doesn't take into account that Anthony Precourt, the man behind PSV,
is also the owner of the Columbus Crew and has engaged in these negotiations
solely to move the team out of Ohio. The Columbus Crew were one of Major
League Soccer's first franchises when they were founded in 1994 and first played
in 1996. However, despite moving into the league's first soccer-specific facility –
Mapfre Stadium, also known as Fortress Columbus – in 1999 and winning the
MLS Cup in 2008, the Crew haven't been enough for Precourt.
No, Precourt wanted a stadium in Downtown Columbus, and he wanted public
money for it. He first made noise about a new stadium in fall of 2017 but made
clear in the months that followed that he was actively interested in moving the
Crew to Austin, even without a downtown stadium.
MORE FROM FORBES
In Columbus, this move has long been viewed as a facade. In Austin, Precourt has
committed to a $200 million stadium build, $550,000 in annual rent, 130
affordable housing units, and $3 million for a rail station. That offer wasn't on the
table in Columbus, and even Austin stadium-district representative Pool made a
trip to Columbus to look into the exit clause that Precourt had built into his
agreement to purchase the Crew back in 2013.

3. 8/24/2018 Austin Gets A Major League Soccer Deal While Columbus Gets Stiffed
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonnotte/2018/08/22/austin-texas-gets-a-major-league-soccer-deal-while-columbus-ohio-gets-stiffed/#54afd8ae780c 3/3
I have been in journalism since serving as an intern with the Newark Star-
Ledger in Newark, N.J., in 1995. I served as a copy editor, page editor and news
editor at The Jersey Journal in Jersey City, N.J., and the Herald-News in West
Paterson, N.J., before moving to writing ... MORE
Pool voted against giving Precourt and PSV their Austin stadium, only to be
outvoted by fellow council members. However, Columbus fans and taxpayers
have been so enraged by Precourt's actions that they've filed a lawsuit under a
state law adopted in 1996 – just after the National Football League's Cleveland
Browns left for Baltimore. That law – known colloquially as the Art Modell rule,
after the Browns' former owner – states that any team that plays in a publicly
funded building (like Mapfre Stadium) has to provide six months' notice before
relocation and give local investors a chance to buy the team.
It's a long shot, but the attorneys behind the lawsuit are hosting tailgate parties
with Crew fans to drum up support. Meanwhile, Mark Wahlberg is among the
names circulating as potential buyers for the Crew. With Crew season tickets for
2019 still on sale, despite the fact that there may not be a Columbus Crew by that
time, the #savethecrew movement still has strong support.
Even in Austin, where it's estimated that the Crew would have to play for 45 years
for the city to make back the cost of its $24 million public land commitment in
rent, there''s sympathy. The Austin Monitor notes that the stadium site will bring
in $54.2 million in construction activity, $25.6 million in “recurring impacts,”
$11.4 million in tax revenue over a twenty-year lease, and $5.4 million in tax
revenue for the local transit authority – on top of 130 units of affordable housing.
However, the city will also lose any tax revenue it hoped to gain from that land
while giving a team owner dissatisfied with a stadium 5 to 6 minutes from
Downtown Columbus a stadium that is 20 minutes from Downtown Austin.
“We are giving up so much,” City Council member Ellen Troxclair told The Austin
Statesman. “We are getting a lot — no question — but we are giving up so much
compared to the other things we could do on that property. It gives me pause.”
Jason Notte is a business journalist and freelance writer. Follow him at
@Notteham