Red Bull Arena is a big hit, and finally gives the New York MLS franchise a proper home. PPL Park opens in June, starting the Union off right in their first MLS season. Kansas City has broken ground on a park set to open in 2011. Houston is closing in a on a deal that would get them out of the college football stadium they call home now, and San Jose is still working towards sponsors to get the ball rolling on a new facility in Northern California.


Things are looking pretty darn good on the MLS stadium front, DC and New England aside.


Despite all the good feelings from grand openings and positive local negotiations, though, a sobering reality has been voiced by MLS commissioner Don Garber; stadiums don't necessarily mean immediate profitability.


It seems like common sense, but the Don was forced to remind everyone that clubs must market themselves well, integrate into their communities, and have solid broadcast deals. Control of facility revenue is nice, but it's doesn't immediately guarantee anything in terms of the bottom line.


Even with the additional inroads to be made, a dedicated soccer-specific or designed-for-soccer and team-controlled venue is a crucial element to eventually becoming profitable. But it's also more than that, because it sinks the roots of the game into the community in which it resides. The stadium is an insurance policy against the sport simply disappearing on a high professional level, the way it did from so many cities in the mid-80's when the North American Soccer League flamed out so spectacularly.


Would the NASL have survived if it had stadiums of its own? Maybe, because the financial mindset of the league and its owners was so flawed; but it's very possible that the sport would have weathered the storm, or the gap between the death of NASL and the launch of MLS would have been much shorter (or non-existent).


Stadiums are an insurance policy, keeping a club tied to their market. There simply aren't enough locales willing to put up the money for soccer stadiums to make relocation worthwhile if the club is already occupying an SSS in their current home. It's why FC Dallas isn't going anywhere despite their attendance concerns.


The more clubs playing in stadiums built purposefully for them (even if there's a stage or a deal with a college/high school American football program), the more entrenched MLS becomes in the American sporting culture. The more entrenched the league is, the less chance there will be that clubs will fold completely, the league itself will face failure, or professional soccer will fade away again.


Profits would be nice, and let's hope a few of these teams can figure out how to squeeze money out of their venues, bring more capital into the league, and help increase the quality of the sport in American over time.


But soccer stadiums secure Major League Soccer's roots in the landscape, regardless of whether the fruits of profit appear or the tree to provide them sprouts immediately. That, by itself, makes them crucial.
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