A Few Random Notes and Updates

As the club enters the home stretch towards the MLS Cup Playoffs, the "project" end is put on the backburner a bit. All the focus is on the sucess of the team.

But the ironic thing is that the sucess of the team is one of the most important parts of the project.

Here's a few updates since I last left...

- Red Bull Park's Website is innactive. This is probably due to Red Bull's buyout of AEG, as the site looked to be primarily run by AEG itself. The webcam no longer updates, and I emailed the contact on the website for questions awhile ago and never got a response. In the future at a high publicity time like the playoffs or MLS Cup for Marc De Grandpre and the rest to release a new timeline of sorts and maybe throw up a new, Red Bull only, website.

- Before the site went practically dead, the stadium finally started to be making some good solid progress everyday with a noticable increase in workrate.

- Although the club has yet to win any silverwear in it's history, one way to continue to add to the prestige as they get closer and closer to bringing home the MLS Cup is to take home some individual awards for the Red Bull trophy cabinate. As they head down the stretch, Juan Pablo Angel is considered one of the favorites for the MVP, Golden Boot, and Newcomer of the Year award. Not to mention he already took home All-Star Game MVP. Dane Richards is also in the race for Rookie of the Year.

- The news of the week was that Amado Guevara wants back in to the club that he once called home, but not until the 2008 season. With the increased cap space and Red Bull's desire to make some big moves with the space, look for Guevara to be a "Plan D". With a whole offseasn and boatload of cash, Red Bull should be able to come up with some better punch than an aging Amado Guevara.

Red Bull Bought Out AEG, A While Ago

The Red Bull buyout of AEG's stake in Red Bull Park is a done deal according to Ives.

"Red Bull buyout of AEG update?
The mayor of Harrison said it was in the works, how close is it?
IVES- It already happened. For some reason Red Bull is keeping mum about it but it's happened a while ago."

"With the Red Bulls buying out AEG, anything is possible as far as the stadium is concerned."

So apparently Red Bull didn't find it necessary to spread the word. Interesting to see the effects that come from this. One thing I am looking forward to is the effect this will probably have on Red Bull's bottom line, as they will now reap total benefits from all games and other events held at the Park I would imagine.

The AEG Red Bull Park website is still up, and there is no new, Red Bull's only site. I would imagine the brass will release a new timeline soon, as De Grandpre said he hoped would happen after he announced the delay to 2009.

The Whirlwind of Becks and Possible Effects

This Saturday night at Giants Stadium, the Red Bulls will play the Galaxy in front of the largest crowd ever to witness a regular season New York game.

This will provide a unique oportunity for the club to leave an impression on the masses Beckham will draw to the swamp.

Obviously the ticket revenue from this game will go a long way towards pleasing the Red Bull overlords, but there are many other things that make this weekend important and interesting.

For starters, the Becks hype machine seems to be at the highest it has been since his debut against Chelsea, thanks in large part to a trmendous preformance in last night's SuperLiga semifinal against DC including a signature bending free kick goal as well as an assist to catapult LA into the final.

That preformance as well as his improving health will likely help drive ticket sales in the last couple days leading up to the fixture.

But this goes deeper than one night of ticket sales. Red Bull New York's visability will take a huge jump, especially in the local papers and news. In fact, Jozy Altidore, Juan Pablo Angel, and David Beckham will be hosting an invitation only soccer clinic in Harlem tommorow. This is a great opportunity to get the club out there linked with a name like David Beckham as well as help grow soccer in the community.

The overall hope for the game itself is that the enormous crowd is won over by the Red Bulls play and the electric soccer atmosphere created by the thousands and that they all become Red Bulls supporters themselves and come back to other regular season games. Now, that is sort of a pie in the sky type scenario, but part of it can come true. I have no doubt that at least a few of those just there to see Beckham will be won over and return for future games not including Becks, but as past history shows when a big crowd comes to GS the after effect will not be something spectacular. Check out a great piece on that at Metrofanatic.

As the article states, the team has not usually done its job in these situations, so I guess it cannot be that accuratley guaged.

The attendance woes of the club have been well documented in recent years. We all know there are thousands upon thousands of soccer fans in the area, but thr trouble has been for the club to get them out to games consistantly to form a larger, stronger fan base.

They came to see Ronaldinho and Barcelona last year, and they are comming to see David Beckham this year. Consistant sucess will help with attendance, but it is clear that what this area needs to get amped on MLS is a superstar. They need their in that they just can't refuse. They need that one thing that will undoubtedly take them all the way out to the swamp, and eventually to the much more conveniant Red Bull Park.

The ticket sales and attendance for this match has and will leave a big mark on the NYRB front office. If their original thought was that the masses would only come out for a friendly with a star studded Barcelona team, that has been proven totally wrong with an almost as large crowd comming simply to see another MLS team with that one superstar, David Beckham.

Rumors have been floating around in MLS and fan circles for months about the possible addition of a second dp slot for each team (thus giving NYRB a third). These rumors were put in the message board spotlight as the mlsrumors blog revealed that sources have indicated the possility of that. Now, no one knows the credibility of the source or anything, but this rumor has been out there for a bit and could happen. But also it could not, that's what a rumor is.

The question is, will this crowd leave such an effect on the club's brass that they make their push for an international superstar of their own that will drive the crowds to the stadium, or will they continue their holding pattern until Red Bull Park?

Now the third dp thing is just talk as of now, but the reality is that Reyna's contract will be over at the end of next year, earlier than Red Bull Park is set to open with the current delay. In the next few years Red Bull will have to decide if it wants to finally break the bank like everyone has heard they can and get that player that will give the soccer fans in the metro area their official "in".

The crowd will say "do it", and there is no doubt Red Bull will be listening.

Red Bull Park - Plans

In recent days, some plans for Red Bull Park have been leaked from a meeting that leaders of the Empire Supporters Club held with the members of the front office that represent the supporters club.

Thanks to Metrofanatic poster Onionbag for providing this info from the meeting with the FO.

Interesting tidbits:

- There is a plan for an "Empire End". This would be a compilation of all the supporters groups in one end of the stadium. A great idea if you ask me, just have to get everyone on the same page as there would be allot to iron out. If everyone is cooperative though it would be an amazing supporters section as well as create a tremendous atmosphere for the rest of the stadium to play off of.

- Flags will be allowed for supporters at RBP.

- "Red Bull Park in Harrison is not going to be a build it and come thing like AEG would have done. The FO is planning on marketing blitzing the Ironbound, and surrounding areas prior to opening." Great news as the Ironbound and other areas around RBP are full of soccer passion and are perfect areas to draw potential fans from.

- "They want to make RBP a true source of local pride". This is truly great to hear as the location of the stadium is one if its biggest pluses because of the soccer tradition and ethnic backgrounds in and around the site.

The quote about the "build it and come thing like AEG" can mean one of two things. Either the Red Bull buyout of AEG is imminent, or the FO just made a comparison to if AEG still owned the team. I am leaning towards the buyout is imminent, as plans for a stadium were never finalized without Red Bull.

Red Bull Park - Buyout

The opening of Red Bull Park was officially delayed last week, due to as many as six feet of concrete foundations under the site where the new home of RBNY is to be built. This caused the Park's open to be delayed to April or May 2009. If you have followed the construction cam at all for the new park, you could see this coming.

From the ashes of the delay announcement came some very interesting tidbits you may not know.

Let's start with Red Bull's possible purchase of AEG's remaining stake in Red Bull Park.

- In a midweek Michael Lewis article about the delay of Red Bull Park, the mayor of Harrison Ray McDonough revealed that Red Bull have been in talks with Anschutz Entertainment Group to buyout the remaining part of Red Bull Park.

""Red Bull wants to control their own destiny," he said."I'm very optimistic. Red Bull wants to have it."McDonough, however, said he was "not at liberty" to divulge the details of the negotiations."

the article goes on...

"The stadium's design and its capacity (25,000) will not change and the Red Bulls will allow concerts to be held at the stadium, according to one source familiar with the Red Bulls' plans.

That was one reason why the town and Hudson County supported the stadium in the first place was so they could hold other events at the stadium -- such as high school soccer and football games and concerts besides 16-20 dates for pro soccer to bring in revenue, sources said."

These quotes from the mayor proved to me that what I was hearing about the buyout was correct and that it would eventually go through if Red Bull had its way.

But then came these quotes from Red Bull Managing Director Mark de Grandpre in the press release about the new training facility...

""De Grandpre said the delay has nothing to do with the rumors that Red Bull is negotiating with Anschutz Entertainment Group, which was the former owner of the MetroStars, to be the sole owner of the stadium, which reportedly will cost $100 million. "

"The Austrian energy drink company bought the MetroStars from AEG for $100 million in March 2006 and renamed the team."We're moving on as planned with AEG," de Grandpre said. "Just like we've done since Day One."

At first read this seems like it dispels the rumor of the buyout, but read it again and consider the situation.

De Grandpre, at no point in this statement, denies the rumor that Red Bull is working on a buyout of AEG's stake. He simply says that the delays in RBP are not due to a possible buyout. The, "We are moving on as planned with AEG" part, simply says that construction is continuing with AEG on board. Well, of course they are not going to suspend all construction activity on the site until the buyout is complete, that would be stupid.

De Grandpre simply makes it known that the delays are due to the foundations on the construction site itself and not some financial buyout situation.

This is true.

It is also true that a buyout is in the works.

I'll side with the mayor of Harrison, even though that would not be siding against De Grandpre as he said nothing to dispel the rumor.

These things take time. They are dealing with millions and millions of dollars. Red Bull knows what it wants and I deffinatley expect them to get it.

Buyout or not, we can count on concerts and other events being held at Red Bull Park, as well as a possible expansion in the future. But they want to settle the stadium first, and if it is really a hit and they sign a huge DP, the stadium has the ability to be expanded.

I'll have a second Red Bull Park post with more interesting details from a fan and marketing perspective being leaked from a meeting with leaders of the ESC and the front office.

RBNY Training Facility in Hannover

RBNY announced this past week that their permanent training facility was too be built in Hanover New Jersey, 17 miles from the construction site of Red Bull Park.

The renderings of the facility reveal a tremendous state of the art soccer facility that will finally give the nomadic club a home.

Read about and take the video tour of the Red Bull's new home here.

I cannot stress enough how important it is to have the club have a permanent training facility, as well as a general home for all operations.

A few interesting quotes and elements from the official site...

"We looked at facilities throughout Europe to get the best model possible, including the one at Austria," de Grandpre said, referring to the Red Bulls' sister club in Salzburg. "In terms of MLS, we think this will be a unique training facility and the best in North America."

And de Grandpre said the New Jersey training facility will be even better than the one in Salzburg because it will be home to all of the New York Red Bulls operations.

"It's much bigger, but all the inside amenities will be similar," he said. "In Salzburg, we don't have the front office, first team and the academy under one roof. Hopefully it gives the academy players an incentive to make a right [into the first team locker room] instead of a left [into the academy teams locker rooms]."

Hearing that this site is going to be better than that of our sister Champions League squad is tremendous. I also agree with the proximity point that de Grandpre makes about the youth academy and the first team. Great stuff.

The location is also what makes this facility perfect for Red Bull New York.

MLS Youth Academy regulations state that an academy's players must be from RBNY's "Home Territory" which would be within 75 miles of the teams training facility.

This from de Grandpre:

"At the end of the day we felt Hanover was the right place to be," he said. "It's easily accessible to highways, there's 74 soccer clubs in Morris County and Harrison is just a 20-minute drive away."

That puts RBNY right in the hotbed of metro area soccer with an abundance of talented youth players to choose from to continue the progress of what is already the best youth academy in MLS.

Check back later for an update on whats going on with Red Bull Park.

Project RBNY

The New York/New Jersey MetroStars were created in the inauguration of Major League Soccer in 1996.

Over the course of the first decade of the franchise's existence, the at-first large fan base began to decline as the club was unable to produce successful soccer, never making it farther than the MLS Cup semifinals in the year 2000.

On March 9, 2006, the MetroStars were bought by Austrian energy drink company Red Bull and their billionaire founder Dietrich Mateschitz for a sum of 100 million dollars.

The clubs strongest supporter's group, the Empire Supporters Club, along with much of the teams fan base, was outraged at the fact that their club was to now be a promotion vehicle for an energy drink.

The club was re-branded to be called Red Bull New York, featuring the company’s logos prominently on everything in relation to the club.

Although the disgust at the ownership change, Red Bull used their renowned promotion skills for the clubs first home match as the Red Bulls in the 2006 season.

The attendance at Giants Stadium that day was 35,793. The game featured a pre-game ceremony featuring the Cosmo's legends Pele and Franz Beckenbaur, as well as a half time concert by Shakira and Wyclef Jean.

Marketing of the sort, or close to it, has not been seen to this day. The home opener was a blip on the radar; attendance has continued to be the most disappointing for the region in the league.

The Red Bull ownership group played a large part in securing the soccer specific stadium deal for Harrison New Jersey, said to be the savior of the club's recent attendance woes. The Red Bull Park's scheduled opening was recently officially delayed to 2009 due to foundation issues.

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When you put a billionaire owner with a promotional drive for his company with the local pride of a club in the soccer rich metro area in a league with only a reported 2.5 million dollar salary cap that is known for not being relevant in the American sports landscape, you create a perfect storm of money, questioned incentives, instability, pride, failure, success, and soccer.

We are in the midst of a project in the metropolitan area to make soccer matter, to make Red Bull New York matter. This is: Project RBNY.