MLS To Detroit? Roger Faulkner’s Retro Plans
Take the first stadium to host a FIFA World Cup game indoors (on natural grass), remove the roof, and raise the field level to the bottom of the upper deck…and we have MLS in Detroit.
That is the plan of the owners of the Pontiac Silverdome in Detroit, purchased by a Canadian investment group with Greek roots last November for $583,000, with the stadium in the spotlight this week as host to AC Milan vs. Panathanaikos this Friday.
It’s certainly, as the ownership group’s Senior Soccer Advisor puts it to Josh Hakala, thinking outside the box:
To achieve a reasonable stadium size, the Apostolopoulos family plans to remove the dome and divide the stadium into three sections. At the stadium’s ground level, will be a concert hall and a multi-purpose arena, capable of hosting hockey, basketball, and other indoor sports.
Resting on top of those two indoor facilities, will be a roughly 30,000-seat soccer stadium with natural grass. The current upper deck will essentially act as a lower bowl for the outdoor stadium.
It’s difficult to imagine, but maybe this will help.
If you have a ticket in the front row of the upper deck, with this proposed layout, you could lean over the railing and get an autograph, or catch a player doing a “Lambeau Leap.”
“It’s thinking outside the box,” said Roger Faulkner, Triple Sports and Entertainment’s Senior Soccer Advisor. “When the Apostolopoulos family bought the Silverdome, they bought it because they are soccer people, passionate soccer people. They want to make the Silverdome a major player on the world stage.”
This would be a first in MLS’ relatively short history (the league played its inaugural season in 1996), where the owner is retrofitting a stadium to attract an expansion team.
So, on the one hand, Triple Sports and Entertainment got the Silverdome for a ridiculous knock-down price, meaning they have their own stadium, checking off a key box for MLS ownership. On the other hand, retrofitting it for MLS and the other events mentioned will surely run into tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions, in costs.
Roger Faulkner is an interesting character here, and a smart hire by the Apostolopoulos family as their key advisor — British-born, he has been promoting soccer in the United States and Detroit area since the 1960s, and was the general manager of the NASL’s Detroit Express from 1978 to 1980, the team playing at the 80,500 capacity Silverdome and featuring Trevor Francis and (on an overseas tour) George Best, though crowds never came close to filling the cavernous venue. Faulkner later was a key member of the Detroit World Cup Host Committee in 1994.
Faulkner most recently popped up here in 2008, as a part of the Michigan-based General Sports and Entertainment group who purchased Derby County in England, a club Faulkner had supported as a boy. Derby County are now partnered with a leading Michigan-based youth soccer club renamed the Derby County Wolves, who play in the elite US Soccer Development Academy. Derby County, meanwhile, seem to have been managed prudently by GSE, not achieving great success, but not flushing down the future for the present with the kind of fiscal indiscipline that has brought numerous English clubs to their knees in recent years.
In any case, it appears Faulkner’s main goal now will be to bring MLS to the Motor City: an ambitious plan, but one that will at least get some support from these guys.
My opinion of the TSE guys improved considerably when I saw they got Roger Faulkner on board, he’s got a lot of credibility in Detroit. Thanks for the MCS shoutout!
Though I’d love to see something this bizarre come into being, I’ve always felt that the MLS should avoid suburban stadiums for downtown ones.
I certainly admire the ambition and creative use of an existing (and apparently still very serviceable) facility.
My problem is the location, as far as I know, and admittedly I could be extremely wrong so take no offense if I am, Pontiac is a pretty depressed area. Not saying Detroit isn’t, but Pontiac is also hindered by the fact that it’s a suburb (well, an exurb, I guess).
I hope they manage to pull it off, they seem very serious about it and it would be nice to see a venue saved for soccer use, hopefully the first of many.
The Silverdome is in the middle of suburbia, completely unwalkable, and far from downtown Pontiac or any other urban area.
Also, I’d love to see this happen. We’ll see how the AC Milan game does attendance-wise. However, the pre-WC tourney this spring that was supposed to happen there was a complete clusterfuck. I hope that was a one-time thing.
If there is any city in the states that has ample real estate in it’s downtown, it’s Detroit.
Stick it where Tiger Stadium used to be.
There are two attractive locations downtown: in by the Comerica Park/Ford Field cluster just north of downtown, or on the riverfront where the mothballed Ford Auditorium sits. However, since there is no practical mass transportation system linked to these locations, there is no inherent benefit from having the stadium one of these places. Mike Illitch owns a number of sizable parcels downtown, for potential sites of a new hockey arena. Despite a number of overtures made by various people, the Illitch organization has shown no interest in getting in on MLS.
It may take several years for MLS to sort out how big it is willing to get, or even if it wants to expand beyond 20. Many have said that in the interim, Detroit should get a Division 2 team to build a base of support. We know that that a very different proposition, and many people willing to come out for MLS won’t touch Div 2. It will take a long term plan to build toward MLS in Detroit and we’ll just have to see how that plan comes together.
The more I think about this, the more I laugh. Remove the dome? So the inside of the place instantly becomes weather-proof? Rain/snowmelt runs where? There are no drains anywhere.
I think this whole thing is a marketing tactic, not a real plan.
Those upper deck seats are STEEP. There’s no way this happens.
Someone brought up the prospect of the pitch acting as a “green roof” (http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/green-rooftop.htm) for the lower level.
Obviously TSE are being extremely ambitious here, and honestly I don’t see it as likely to come off. But they seem extremely serious about giving it an honest shot. You have to remember too, TSE got this place for peanuts. They could dump $50m into it and still come out paying less than one fourth of what Red Bull did for RBA.
http://www.mlive.com/soccer/index.ssf/2010/08/pontiac_silverdome_re-opening_draws_30000_as_ac_milan_defeat_pananthiakos_in_pk_shootout.html
Josh Halaka reported 30k showed. Good turnout, I’ll be honest in saying I expected a disaster, but I’m pleased for them. Their heart is really in this.
It’s too bad they got a relatively bland game. The most exciting part was watching yet another referee completely botch a goal call. The only unconverted penalty was on a bad miss, not a save.
I think soccer has a good chance of finally taking hold in this country. PPL Park has been very successful, and that’s about 20 min from downtown Philadelphia. Granted it’s still fresh to the fans, and who knows if a couple of seasons of disappointment will take its toll.
My belief is that MLS would have a better chances of survival if promotion and relegation were existent.
Rather have it there than Dallas at the moment.
The Silverdome is still available and fairly close to the Pistons facility…
for a marketing blog that is close to hilarious, check out
http://marketmpb.blogspot.com
thanks, matt
Very interesting story. I was wondering what they were going to do with the purchase of the Silverdome! The MLS is big here is Toronto, and I have no doubt it will sell-out in Detroit too!