Sweetheart deal for NYCFC at Yankee Stadium site?

[OCST]

This could go in any one of several MLS threads but fuck it, I'm starting a new one.
 
NYCFC, which just hired Jason Kreis away from RSL, is making serious noise about building a soccer-only stadium close by Yankee Stadium in a sweetheart deal with the city.
 
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/bronx/bronx-soccer-stadium-deal-offers-free-rent-arab-firm-article-1.1544173
 

 
Will it be a last-minute gooooal in the Bronx for the Yankees and their Middle East sheik soccer partner?
 
City officials are scampering to sign a deal by the end of this month for $300 million in tax-free bonds that would allow the Yankees and a royal from the United Arab Emirates to tear down one of the bankrupt Yankee Stadium garages and build a Major League Soccer stadium, two sources close to the talks have told the Daily News.
 
A draft of the agreement circulating among Economic Development Corp. staff would require Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio to decide within 30 days of his inauguration whether to approve the deal for the new soccer franchise, the New York City Football Club, the sources said.
 
Under the complex proposal, the new soccer team — a joint venture of the Yankees and Manchester City Football Club, a British team owned by Sheik Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan — would pay virtually no rent for 38 years for the largely city-owned land on which the proposed 28,000-seat soccer venue would sit.
 
The new franchise would also be permitted to divert the property taxes it would normally owe the city to pay off its bonds, the sources said — a deal similar to the one the Yankees and the Mets got for their new stadiums in 2005. The soccer club would be exempt from sales taxes or mortgage taxes.
 
The soccer venture would pay an estimated $25 million to bondholders of the bankrupt Bronx Parking Development firm for its E. 153rd St. garage, which sits on city-owned land. In addition, Yankees President Randy Levine is trying to buy out and relocate a nearby elevator equipment company, GAL Manufacturing Corp., which employs more than 350 workers.
 
The soccer club needs the manufacturing site, the parking garage and an agreement by the city to permanently close E. 153rd St. for the new stadium.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/bronx/bronx-soccer-stadium-deal-offers-free-rent-arab-firm-article-1.1544173#ixzz2nCjO5aMD
 

 
 
 

 
The team would actually play in Yankee Stadium until the new stadium was ready.
 
This is a pretty big deal, and it's problematic for several reasons.
 
First, I think the public's appetite for this kind of largesse for stadiums is pretty much zero at this point.  I don't think shoveling oodles of cash at NYCFC in the form of tax breaks and other shenanigans is going to go over too well.
 
Second, the public opposition in the neighborhood is likely to be intense.  The Yankee Stadium reconstruction was not popular in the immediate area.  I don't know if the Yankee pixie dust is as strong as it used to be.  My entirely subjective man-on-the-street-in-NYC opinion is that the Yankees are at a low in my lifetime re: public perception - not just of the on-the-field product but of the enterprise generally.  Uday and Qusay have no public profile.  The new Yankee Stadium is hated by many and beloved by few.  There is a widespread perception that they got an unfair sweetheart deal to build the thing and that the average fan has been priced out of the new ballpark. 
 
The article says that the proposal for a soccer-only stadium in Flushing Meadows, Queens was killed by public opposition.  I hadn't heard that, but I'm not surprised.  Large-scale construction in NYC is a blood sport and community groups are well-versed in blocking or altering such projects (see the Barclays Center, which had to reduce its footprint so much that it is only marginally suitable as an NHL venue).  So there will be a fight from the locals, which may end up killing or neutering the plan.
 
Third, as per this Daily News piece, which borders on yellow journalism, there is going to be a not-too-subtle subtext of "ARAB!!!!!!" in the opposition to this thing.  Joe Lunchbucket in Bensonhurst doesn't know much about soccer, except that it's for foreigners, and has never heard of Manchester City, but he knows about ARAB!!!!!, and the idea that NYC might be shelling out bucks to an ARAB!!!! to build this thing is going to bring opponents out of the woodwork who otherwise wouldn't give a shit.  This is going to be the Ground Zero Mosque all over again.  (I heard none of this in the stories about the Queens site). 
 
What to think?  This is what I posted when the partnership between the Yankees and City was announced earlier this year:
 

• I am a newbie soccer fan, whose interest stems from the 2006 and 2010 World Cups, and from watching lots of EPL on Fox Soccer when caring for my baby daughter in 2010.
• In the EPL, I support Everton.  I don't hate City.
• I live in NYC, have been out to Harrison to see the Red Bulls, and keep an eye on them.  I would call myself a fan, but I don't live and die with them.
• I would much, much rather support a team in the five boroughs than in Jersey, from both emotional and travel reasons.
• As a Sox fan, I detest the Yankees, although I mostly now regard them with contempt and pity.  '04 started that, and their move to their dead and soulless new ballpark finished it. 

Where does that leave me?  I'm not sure.  I really would prefer MLS teams to develop their own identities, and not leech off established teams in other countries.  I don't think billions of petrodollars are good for MLS.  And the Yankee thing - meh.  Like I said, the Yankees have devolved into something barely worth my attention. 
 
As long as the co-branding with City isn't too obnoxious, I guess I'll hold my nose and check this team out.

 
I'm not crazy about this.  I dislike cities spending money on stadiums anyway, and I was ready to root for NYCFC over the Red Bulls (who are kind of soulless, and in New Jersey), but this just stinks too much of "Yankee" for me.
 
What have others heard?

 

[Billy R Ford]

The part of the Daily News article that stood out to me was that (if I read it correctly) Bill de Blasio has to sign off on the deal.
 
Not to go all V&N here, but de Blasio is very far to the left - if people think Obama is a socialist, I'd be amused to hear what they think of de Blasio.
 
This seems like the kind of thing a newly elected mayor would reject in order to make a statement about his policies. The article states this decision would have to happen in his first 30 days in office. It would be a pretty big slap in the face to his most ardent supporters if he were to cut a bunch of billionaires a deal in his first month. De Blasio supports charging rent to charter schools - but he's not going to charge rent to the Steinbrenners?
 
But then again, de Blasio's a politician, Steinbrenners are powerful, we've seen this movie before, etc.

 

[brienc]

 

Bronx residents split over soccer stadium coming to borough

A community forum got heated as protestors scoffed at funding a stadium for New York City Football Club, an expansion MLS franchise owned by the Yankees and Manchester City Football Club
Comments (1)

By Joey Scarborough / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Tensions hit a fever pitch.
 
Residents traded barbs Wednesday over the possibility that the Yankees and their wealthy Middle Eastern partner will build a soccer stadium to house a new Major League Soccer franchise in the Bronx.
 
The New York City Football Club is looking for a home, and scores of Bronx residents, community leaders and officials piled into a community meeting organized by the 161st Business Improvement District to debate whether the project was in-bounds.
 

Outraged protestors balked at giving tax dollars to wealthy organizations while their neighborhood still copes with scarce funding.
 
“This discussion is not about soccer,” said Mychal Johnson, a co-founder of South Bronx Unite, a coalition of community residents and organizations that has vigorously opposed a plan to award more than $100 million in city and state subsidies to Fresh Direct, to lure the online grocer to Port Morris.
 
“So much has gone by the wayside because of a lack of money,” Johnson added. “I am against giving one dollar toward a soccer stadium.”

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/bronx/bronx-residents-split-soccer-stadium-coming-borough-article-1.1582398#ixzz2qcCjBppd