Location, Location Location

You know what? There’s really a lot going on in the Philly sports scene, just now. The Eagles are about to square off against those smelly, ugly, awful G-Men right up I-95, in a titanic clash to determine whether or not they are still a relevant team, a team that should not be dismantled. There’s a lot at stake here. If the birds can pull out a win there, is it not plausible that the Eagles get on a horse and win a playoff spot, that they ride that momentum as they did under Jeff Garcia two years ago, that the city becomes once more enamored of the Reid and McNabb marriage, and that in spite of, or perhaps to make light of, Prop 8, Lurie allows them one more shot to patch things up and take another shot at the title next year? This is compelling, I think.
I am similarly compelled by what can only be described as the oddity of the Sixers’ attempt to rein themselves in, become a half-court team and make their ballgames feel less like orchestrated oeuvres to Elton Brand’s personal bailout plan and more like an efficient and methodical attempt to share the ball and have constructive possessions that result in open shots that find the basket. Watching Igloo-dollar’s jump shot is, at this stage, akin to watching the door and waiting for someone to move their bowels in a public restroom. It’s agonizing, it stinks, you can’t believe they’re taking so long to get going, but you don’t dare say anything, and the overriding truth of the thing is that you’d much rather be almost any place else. This is compelling, too. In a sick, depressing, Hindenburgian, oh my god I hope Elton Brand won’t kill the franchise sort of a way, but compelling nonetheless.
The Phillies, too, are surprisingly exciting for having made no major acquisitions since hoisting the long-awaited championship trophy. As with high school, summer camp and anything having to do with Al Davis, most of the real action during a typical Phillies offseason consists of rumor. This time around, things are no different, with speculation rampant about the left field situation, the rotation, whether or not to retain Moyer, what to do about Utley’s absence at the start of the year. The Phillies’ decision not to offer Moyer or Burrell arbitration merely adds to the rumor mill, a cautious move that does little to clear the smoke on the water. But you know what? That smoke is from fireworks, they just won, baby, and the Philadelphia Phillies are, as the man said, “World fuckin’ champions.”
And so it is, my friends and loyal readers, that I sit down with you all to talk about… soccer! And the charming borough of Chester, PA! Yay! Balloons! This is exactly what is on the forefront of your minds, I think, right? We all pine for Chester on a night-and-daily basis, hoping against hope that there will emerge some excellent reason to take a drive past the airport but not quite to Delaware and its evil tollbooths. (Are those tax-free as well?) Well, perhaps not. But, as you may or may not have known, the as-yet-unnamed Chesterdelphian MLS franchise just broke ground on a $115 million, state-of-the art, soccer specific stadium that officialdom has proclaimed to be the glowing centerpiece of an as yet to be funded, designed and committed to riverside development project to bring investment, jobs, hope, glory and other much-needed buzzwords to what is perhaps Pennsylvania’s most-beleaguered town.
Surely, there are reasons for optimism here. The MLS, after enduring some early struggles during which only ESPN TV contracts saved the league from going under, has become an expanding league, with gradually increasing attendance and revenues, and an announced goal of profitability by 2010. This is impressive, as the sports market in the US is already saturated, and there is no other major sports league in the US that cannot be honestly said to embody the pinnacle of its sport. I grew up playing soccer in Philadelphia, and I know from firsthand experience that Philadelphia needs no introduction to playing soccer. Soccer has long been a thriving youth sport throughout the region, and the new franchise will find it unnecessary to explain the difference between a striker and a midfielder to quite a lot of people.
I believe that there is a genuine appetite for quality soccer in the Delaware Valley as a whole. As the last thing I did in Philly before going to college, I went to the exhibition game between Manchester United and Barcelona that served as the Linc’s introduction to the world. The house was packed with local fans who were knowledgeable about the game, applauded the young Ronaldinho’s creative and artful passes, jeered at Ruud van Nistelrooy’s awkward effort, and generally oohed and aahed at the spectacle of the thing. This was back before Ronaldinho was a big name, a run-up to his first season at Barcalona, having just transferred over the summer from Paris Saint-Germain. My point is that a Philadelphian audience, having been presented with a quality game of soccer in a properly-hyped context, were entirely capable of enjoying the game, even though it was a sloppily-played exhibition match.
Signs abound that this was not an anomaly. There has, for years, been a grassroots group called the Sons of Ben who have been very active in trying to get a team for the area. Already, 6,000 people have put down ticket deposits, before the team has a name, more than a year away from the first game. I think that this is more than a little bit encouraging.
Having said all that, there are, as ever, things that give me pause. The grit of my objections hang around the site of and funding of the stadium. There is no polite way of saying this, but it must be said. Chester is a shithole. I mean this as no offense to the battered residents of the town, but the place is a dump. As I said earlier, a quarter of the residents are impoverished. In an uncharacteristically scathing article, Karen Heller, who is in my opinion just the sort of professional, suburban (soccer) mother the league is going after for its ticket sales, decries this attempt to revive the failing town, suggests that the city could use a supermarket much more than a soccer stadium, and generally wails in horror at the $77 million worth of tax dollars that are being thrown at the stadium. This coming from a woman who says that she “like[s] soccer.” Her concerns merit serious consideration.
To an extent, I agree with her further point that stadiums are rarely as helpful as they are made out to be in the effort to get them built with taxpayer money. My father, who taught in the Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning department at Penn, who loved baseball, and who instilled in me an abiding love for all things urbane, was always in continuous ecstasy over Camden Yards, for several different reasons, the most salient of which had little to do with the fantastic architectural qualities of the place. Camden Yards’ construction was, beyond all possible doubt, controversy or prevarication, the seminal event in the revival of Baltimore’s inner harbor area. Denver’s downtown, in the wake of the construction of Coors Field, has undergone and extensive redevelopment, and property values have risen dramatically.
But these success stories have other characteristics that are absent from Chester’s bid for revivification. (My girlfriend swears that’s a word synonymous with “revival.” She’s prolly right.) These stadiums were baseball stadiums, with capacities in the 40,000 range, with 81 home games a year, that were built in conjunction with extensive private development coinciding with the public financing of the stadiums. These ingredients are absent from Chester’s 10,000-seat stadium, which will host 15 home games a year, with playoffs and cup matches, so call it 20. The development next door is “proposed,” (read: hoped for) and will in all likelihood remain that way for the foreseeable future.
Add to this problem the character of Philadelphia as a sports town. I said before that Philadelphia will be receptive to soccer, which I think is true, but this team is destined to be a niche team for one simple reason. Call it the Billy Elliot problem. Philadelphia is a hard-nosed, gritty place. We love effort, hustle, grime and those Broad Street Bullies. We LOVE this stuff. Remember that time your girlfriend made you watch “Billy Elliot,” which you had to pretend not to enjoy? Well, I know you really did enjoy it (or you are an uncultured twat) and I KNOW that you remember the scene where his father catches him dancing. Billy’s father takes him by the scruff of the neck, drags him home, and sits him down to have a little talk about the facts of life. “Lads,” he says with an incredible look of alarmed dismay “do boxing, football… not ballet!” Indeed, most boys do not do ballet, and in this country soccer has gained an unfortunate reputation that unfairly equates the manhood of its practitioners with those who dance for a living.
That this state of affairs is so is distinctly odd. Though the game can move slowly, it produces moments of incredible excitement. Throughout the rest of the world, soccer is the sport of the working class, and has become so deservedly, with its mix of coarse, rough play between tough, hard men and startling displays of dazzling skill. Think hockey, only hockey players need pansy little touches like frequent substitutions and skates.
For this reason, I think that the sport has a chance to take off in Philadelphia. We cannot get enough of men behaving badly. This chance to capture our attention would only be enhanced by the opportunity to play in a state-of-the art facility that has 60,000 or so seats, and is only in use somewhere between 15 and 30 days of the year, the preponderance of which are an the wintertime in the first place. Where am I talking about? All expense paid trip to Chester for those of you who guessed Lincoln Financial Field. Think about it. This behemoth of a stadium just cost over $500 million to build, a large proportion of which was public money. Temple plays their football games there already, paying the Eagles a million bucks a year in rent. Could the $115 million in construction costs not be spent on a very long lease to play games there around the Eagles schedule? Wouldn’t you rather see a game in Philly than in Chester? (Note: if you answered “no” to this last question, you are clearly mistaken.)
Chester does not need this stadium. Delaware County either is or will soon be broke; if it has $30 million to spend, it ought to be spent on something that will benefit its citizens with more than the 100 or so seasonal, part-time jobs that the stadium will provide. You cannot raise a family on an usher’s salary.
Despite all of these concerns of mine, I remain hopeful about the prospect of watching a soccer time in my home, um, region. It’s about time Philly was on par with the likes of Kansas City, Columbus, and San Jose is it not? I think so.