[NYguy]

http://www.observer.com/2010/real-es...-no-not-knicks

Will a New Stadium Boost New York's Worst Sports Team? (And, No, Not the Knicks)



By W.M. Akers
April 1, 2010

In 2009, despite their best efforts at dysfunction, the Knicks were not the worst sports team in New York. Nor were the brittle Giants or the injury plagued Mets. Not even the Islanders, dead last in the NHL, were as bad as the New York Red Bulls, Major League Soccer's punching bag of 2009. Last season, they went 5-19-6, basically winning only 17 percent of their contests.

The name may be unfamiliar, but the team has been around since the league's formation in 1995. Originally burdened with the awkward title of the New York/New Jersey MetroStars, they were rebranded by the energy drink company in 2006, a humiliating loss of identity which has actually proved a boon. For Red Bull brought money and Red Bull has given them a stadium. On Saturday night, when they played the first competitive game in their new 25,000-seat home, it looked like the worst team in an overlooked league may finally have a future.

Like most MLS clubs, they began life playing on a football field—in this case, the cavernous Giants Stadium—with as many as 60,000 empty seats there to remind the fans that America doesn't care about soccer.

...And so the "soccer specific stadium," with the right-size field and a modest number of seats, is meant to save the MLS. Nine of the 16 teams now play in one, and with its $200 million price tag, New York's is by far the most expensive. Named, of course, Red Bull Arena, it sits near Newark in the middle of a construction site in Harrison, N.J., the future "Riverbend" commercial district. Harrison and Hudson County pitched in $100 million for the stadium's construction and maintenance, including land and parking, in the hopes that it may soon anchor the commercial district.