This is a nice comment: "But that's the thing: MLS isn't a top-tier league, and the owners know it."

LLP/Sam/Randy/Dan are a perfect quorum that resonate with the entire perception versus reality argument: if one or more of the power players perceives something it makes it so, irrespective of reality.

Nietzsche would chuckle.

Or we could examine this perspective from L. Jon Wertheim:

"If you're looking for a growth stock, consider soccer. Yes, it's already the world's most popular sport. And yes, we've heard about the coming 'soccer boom,' the same way we heard about the Y2K Armageddon and the Segway Revolution. But it's hard to dismiss the numbers. Across the globe more fans will watch the World Cup this summer than the Vancouver Olympics, Super Bowl XLIV and the 2010 World Series combined. Think soccer won't play in the U.S.? Last month's MLS Cup drew 46,000 fans for a clash pitting Real Salt Lake against the L.A. Galaxy. And the game was played in Seattle."

Source is the Dec. 28 issue of Sports Illustrated. But what would they know?

It's funny how everyone across the world loves soccer... except the U.S. Instead, it's fun to rag on the game and instead cheer on dudes that like to tackle one another.

The players do need to get paid better. This, in turn, can help lure better players to the MLS, which will only increase the level of play.

Roger,
The problem a lot of us have with the PGE Park deal is not with soccer but with the Paulson family.
As CEO of Goldman Sachs, Henry Paulson lobbied the SEC to let Wall Street regulate itself. Then he lobbied for a change in the Net Capital Rule, a change that was enacted that led directly to the collapse of the investment banks.
Now we spend endless months helping make Henry Paulson richer by throwing money at the Timbers. He is a minority owenr and the money behind his son.
I would prefer if the PGE Park deal were done with Dick Cheney. Yes, the Iraq War will cost America in the neighborhood of 3 trillion dollars, but that is a fraction of what this recession will cost.
Are you letting your love for the Timbers Army cloud your business sense here? What about the track record of Goldman Sachs and Wall Street gives you the confidence that our team from city hall is up to this?
Do you think Randy Leonard has the negotiating skills for this? How many other projects start tearing things up before a deal is signed? Why hasn't that deal been signed? Sometimes it seems that the entire mission of the city is to figure out a way to set the Paulsons up in business here.
I occasionally get visions of my own and when I heard about the ancient sewer, I sensed right away that this will be the little detail that leads to the courtroom when the Paulson family sues us for contract violations here. Just a hunch but that's the X factor that I believe will turn these minor snags into a full-blown South Waterfront-style financial cluster-f***.
Let's put that ancient sewer under the field to good use and flush this deal down the drain.
I would prefer helping some of the poor people the Paulsons helped put out on the street than to help the family expand on their giant fortune.

When you're done reading Sports Illustrated check out the October 4, 2008 article, "Agency's '04 Rule Let Banks Pile Up New Debt" in the New York Times. Here's a little bit of it. See if the minority owner of the Timbers gets a mention:

"They wanted an exemption for their brokerage units from an old regulation that limited the amount of debt they could take on. The exemption would unshackle billions of dollars held in reserve as a cushion against losses on their investments. Those funds could then flow up to the parent company, enabling it to invest in the fast-growing but opaque world of mortgage-backed securities; credit derivatives, a form of insurance for bond holders; and other exotic instruments.

The five investment banks led the charge, including Goldman Sachs, which was headed by Henry M. Paulson Jr. Two years later, he left to become Treasury secretary."

Yes!

I'm with Bill.

This whole 'soccer deal' is just another pillage in process.

"Source is the Dec. 28 issue of Sports Illustrated."

What exactly does this have to do with a labor issue?

The problem Bill is that people against the PGE and Timbers deal trash the sport to support their position and they become a brok..they become a brok...they become a brok..the become a brok...they become a broken record.

Here we go again, thinking US soccer is actually worth a crap. In six months when we lose to England, Algeria, and Slovania think of dumping more money into a "has been" league. Remember, we couldn't even beat Ghana last time around. You could take the money to renovate PGE Park and buy every fan a 3D TV and let them stay home and watch the real thing on cable.

Roger: Did you ever hear of the NASL? And by the way, Sports Illustrated is going down the same proverbial financial drain as Time and Newsweek.

Soccer, uh, er, zzzzzz, zzzzzz, zzzzzz, zzzzz.

Hey, if you like it great. If the blokes in europe like it, great. I bores the tar out of me. I put it right up there with watching paint dry and watching grass grow; but ya know, some folks like doing those activities too.

Bill McD,
You've left out the part about Henry Merritt Paulson, Jr's earlier assault upon this region: the theft of WaMu. Go here for Kirsten Grind's investigative contributions to public understanding of the machinations of the Bushleague Treas Sec:
http://www.portfolio.com/industry-news/banking-finance/2009/12/28/what-a-deal-jp-morgan-got-for-wamu/index.html

(Much is being revealed in the Delaware bankruptcy proceedings. Too bad our local news outlets are not paying attention.)

Paulson, Jr, has already plundered the NW for Wall St Nation. His spawn, HMP III, is just trying to make poppa proud by picking us bumpkins clean.