September 11, 2004
Earthquake tremors
The San Jose Earthquakes are quickly becoming the Expos of soccer, inspiring stadium talks in no less than four different prospective host cities. The latest rundown:
- The Mexican TV network Televiso, which owns the popular Mexican soccer team Club America, has expressed an interest in buying the Earthquakes and moving them to Houston. Though there's been speculation that a new soccer-only stadium would be required in Houston - MLS has been adamant that it wants all of its teams in new stadiums of their own - the University of Houston's Robertson Stadium would be at least a short-term solution.
- A second option would be for current owner Philip Anschutz to keep the team, and move it to San Antonio, where Mayor Ed Garza has talked of building a new soccer-only stadium. MLS commish Don Garber recently declared that "it's not a question of if, it's a question of when" San Antonio gets a team, "due to the strong support of the mayor and his vision for a soccer-specific stadium."
- Back in San Jose, meanwhile, a group of investors led by banker Tony Amanpour has said it's ready to submit a bid to buy the Earthquakes and keep them in the Bay Area, but only if a municipality shows "sincere interest" in building a soccer-only stadium. The cities of San Jose and Santa Clara have reportedly talked about chipping in on a stadium.
- Amanpour says his ownership group has also been "contacted" by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, and will discuss the possibility of building a soccer stadium there, possibly near the Giants' SBC Park.
All this presumably needs to be settled by September 17, the deadline by which Anschutz has said he wants to have the team either sold or moved. Though as we've seen, deadlines are made to be broken.
Posted by Neil deMause
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