Will the Spurs Bring MLS to Austin, Texas?

Stadiums, Surveys, and Speculation

This “What if” piece starts with a credible premise:

The Austin USL team front office had no involvement or prior knowledge of the survey MLS sent out regarding expansion to Austin in December.

We’re writing about it because we believe it to be not only plausible, but likely. Getting Austin back in on the USL banner has to be front and center; it’s challenging to believe there’s also been bandwidth to work with MLS right now.

Here is an additional qualitative observation:

The survey asked a lot of details regarding a successful stadium configuration and packaging. It didn’t feel designed for a simple qualification or disqualification of the market. This might indicate that stadium plans are circulating in small circles with pretty advanced design features and configuration ideas behind them, making it seem more about “stadium feasibility” than “market fit.”

This leads us to our central hypothesis:

Spurs Sports & Entertainment LLC is considering bringing MLS to Austin instead.

The Many Suitors Scenario

Any of these scenarios would be positive for Austin:

• MLS is interested with or without the Austin USL ownership group
• There’s potentially and likely another ownership group for Austin also circling the market or MLS is willing to get the right group in place to make Austin happen. There’s precedent here, ask Philadelphia.
• One of these ownership groups were possibly involved in the survey with MLS and therefore have some substantial plans or ideas around a stadium solution
• If the current ownership was involved with the survey, this still clearly indicates some real traction with the MLS expansion committee as well as a vision for a facility

For today, we’ll stick with the Spurs Sports & Entertainment LLC (SSE for short) as that alternative ownership group.

Who is SSE?

They own the San Antonio Spurs of the NBA, the San Antonio Stars of the WNBA, and the San Antonio Rampage AHL team – which all play at the AT&T Center in San Antonio. They of course also own San Antonio FC, which plays in USL. Here in Austin, they own the Austin Spurs, a NBA Development League team that plays in Cedar Park — so they are not afraid to have a franchise in Austin, outside of San Antonio.

SSE even promotes their venue in the footer on the pages of the Spurs site.

The Many Stadiums Observation

San Antonio FC fans looking for their team to move up to MLS make the assumption that they would get the MLS team and Austin would be a great place for their USL team. We would argue that it makes much more sense for SSE to do just the opposite: Put an MLS team in Austin, and leave their USL team where it is, in their existing, and right-sized stadium.

Why two 19k venues only 9 miles away from each other in a market like SA?

Some Stadium Stats to Consider

• The AT&T Center holds up to 19,000 for concerts. They also just spent 100 million dollars renovating it.
• San Antonio FC plays at Toyota Field, which is a mere 9 miles away and a 15 minute drive northeast of the AT&T Center. It was built with future expansion in mind.
• Austin’s Frank Erwin Center holds about 18,000 for a concert. It’s also going to be demolished in the next 3–12 years to make room for the Medical School which UT is building. This would leave Austin with no 20k-ish capacity stadium venue.
• UT is investigating a replacement, but it’s got a potential $500 million dollar price tag, a questionable location for parking, and could be a decade away. So there’s still a large opportunity for an alternative venue to step-in with something more attractive and possibly cheaper that the City of Austin would support.
• The ideal MLS stadium has a primary soccer-specific configuration and holds 18,500 or more attendees.
• There’s only around 20–30 pro-soccer events at an MLS stadium a year (season matches, friendlies, Open Cup, playoffs, etc.).

Yes, we understand the difference between an indoor arena and an outdoor stadium. If you look at the MLS survey however, there are indicators of some type of indoor-outdoor configuration concept for Austin. When your only viable option for a professional team is also the fastest growing outdoor sport in the country — and you’re building a 21st centrury structure – you rethink how to build a mixed-use facility with your anchor tenant in mind.

Summary of Speculation

SSE really wants to be in MLS. In Austin, they would be in another high-growth market, controlling the only professional sports franchise in town. There’s also value, prestige, and quite a bit of money in operating a ~20k capacity, state-of-the-art, mixed-use venue in Austin. This would seem to make more sense than making a similar investment only miles up the road from their current marquee facility in San Antonio.

If Austin is indeed the long-term preferred market by MLS (which we believe it is), the Spurs can all but lock-up the Austin and San Antonio soccer markets by being the suitor of an Austin MLS team. It doesn’t work the other way around and carries exponentially more business risk: Austin gets MLS and a new venue; SSE isn’t involved, has limited expansion options in a nearby market, and will have no viable path to get into MLS.

In Austin, there are plenty of events to keep the venue effeciently booked. You potentially have many of the events that would have been booked at the gone (or at that point: almost gone) Erwin Center. It can also serve as a supporting outdoor venue for all of the events that are already straining resources in their other Austin locations – like SXSW, F1, ACL, and other festivals held at Zilker and the other local parks.

We Could Be Wrong

Let’s assume SSE has no interest in bringing MLS to Austin and is dedicated to the San Antonio market. If you’re an ownership group that isn’t SSE, much of the above value proposition is still why we’ll ultimately persevere. It’s more fuel supporting the business case for the team, stadium, and Austin as a market. This should worry the Spurs organization.

UT is also a wild card and holds a lot of influence on anything of that scale being built in town.

Or maybe MLS just wanted to take a survey.

Still, when you compare the MLS stadium value propositions in both markets… where would you place an almost half-billion-plus dollar bet?

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