David Beckham is expressing great hopes for his MLS soccer franchise in Miami, but some commentators in the States are expressing doubts, particularly when Beckham starts making comparisons with the success of the Seattle Sounders.
I have lived and worked in Seattle. When I was there the Sounders were a minor league side playing in an inaccessible spot way out on the south side. Living to the north, I gave up and started to watch baseball with the Mariners instead.
David Beckham is expressing great hopes for his MLS soccer franchise in Miami, but some commentators in the States are expressing doubts, particularly when Beckham starts making comparisons with the success of the Seattle Sounders.
I have lived and worked in Seattle. When I was there the Sounders were a minor league side playing in an inaccessible spot way out on the south side. Living to the north, I gave up and started to watch baseball with the Mariners instead.
Commentators in the States are expressing, a lack of confidence that Beckham and his investors are anywhere close to having a sound financial plan in place, and — most worryingly of all — are arguing that Beckham does not understand the Miami market. In Wednesday’s press conference, Beckham held up Seattle as an example of what he wants to see in Miami, with fans walking en-masse to the stadium. A MLS franchise is conditional on the ownership group buying or building a stadium.
Beckham’s vision sounds like some sepia tinged version of English football when fifteen minutes before the match fans would emerge from nearby houses wearing flat caps and walk to the ground. It was probably never like that and certainly not when Beckham was at Old Trafford.
Beckham argued, ‘Soccer fans love to commute. They love to walk. I’m hoping that’s the same in Miami. I’ve seen what it’s like in Seattle. I’ve seen the fans, the way the passion is there. I know we’re going to have that here.’
Miami is not Seattle. There are huge differences between both cities. Residents of South Florida love to drive. It’s rare that you see people walking down the streets, partly because of the heat and humidity, but South Florida and Miami is definitely not a walking community. When I was in Seattle people did walk around my community and I travelled to work, downtown or across town to watch Premier League games at an Irish pub on the extensive trolley bus network (a trackless bus deriving power from overhead wires). I enjoyed the trolley buses as they reminded me of my childhood in London.
Downtown Seattle is not downtown Miami. Downtown Seattle is a thriving area where people live, work and play. While downtown Miami is growing and under renovation, there isn’t that same buzz downtown. You don’t get a sense that you’re in a community. Once the five o’clock is reached, there’s typically a mass exodus of people as they head north, west or south.
Beckham and wants to build a stadium in downtown Miami. Both men envision soccer fans parking their cars in downtown Miami and then walking across the Port Boulevard bridge which, at its shortest distance, is 0.5 miles uphill. That might be conceivable in Seattle which has a generally temperate if somewhat damp climate, but I suppose that replicates the English experience.
It doesn’t sound too bad in Miami, but that’s the best case scenario. With 20,000 fans in the downtown area, it’s possible that fans will have to park farther away in downtown so the walk would be greater. Even at 0.5-1.0 miles, you have to consider the scorching heat and humidity.
The last football team in Miami, the Miami Fusion, wound up in 2002 after incurring big losses. Poor attendances at the publicly funded Miami Marlins’ $639m baseball stadium, opened in 2012, have left Florida taxpayers with a big bill. However, at least Beckham and his associates do not require public funding.