How Seattle Got a Team Without Building a Soccer Stadium

By: Laurie | February 17th, 2008

The accepted wisdom in MLS these days is that you can’t get a team without a commitment to a soccer-specific stadium.

No more quarter-filled 70,000-seat stadia for us! No more playing on pointy-ball striped fields! The stadiums our MLS guys play on will have been created solely for the purpose of watching MLS soccer games. The fields will be better (in theory), and the teams will get a higher percentage of things like concession and parking revenues. And when things are done right from an MLS point of view, taxpayers will foot some of the bill. That’s the model MLS is following for the good of the sport.

Unless you’re Seattle.

If you’ve followed the stadium debate and the competition for MLS expansion teams, you may have been a little surprised to see that Seattle had been awarded an MLS franchise with plans to play at the Seattle Seahawks’ Qwest Field. (Formerly Seahawks’ Stadium.)

I have to admit, being from Seattle, that I was not unhappy about this turn of events. There was absolutely no way the taxpayers would have voted for yet another stadium after being strong-armed into Qwest and Safeco Field (Mariners baseball.) Ask the Sonics.

But why was MLS willing to bend the rules for us?

Two words: Paul. Allen.

You know. The former Microsoft billionaire? Devotes his life to having the largest yacht in the universe? Owns the Seahawks? Put $160 million of his own money into building Qwest? (That’s on top of $300 million tax dollars.) Yeah, that Paul Allen.

“The stadium was always intended to be the home of soccer in this part of the world,” said Tod Leiweke, CEO of Vulcan Sports and Entertainment, which looks after part-owner Paul Allen’s sports properties. “Some of the elements of the stadium were borrowed from some of the great soccer stadiums worldwide. I’m one who believes one of the reasons (we have surpassed) 11,000 season-ticket deposits is the good feeling that the public has about Qwest Field.”

MLS agrees. In awarding its 15th franchise to Seattle, the league went against its own policy that there be plans for a soccer-specific stadium at least on the horizon.

“Seattle was to be able to create in Qwest Field a number of the advantages that we were able to achieve in soccer-specific stadiums,” MLS president Mark Abbott said. “Specifically, … when the public voted to help fund the stadium, soccer was very much included in the planning. Secondly, the team has a plan for downsizing the venue so that we can try to create an intimate atmosphere in that lower bowl. … I think we had a unique opportunity in Seattle that doesn’t present itself in other markets that we’re in.”

That’s our story and we’re sticking to it.

I have to admit that I love the location of Qwest Field. It’s just south of downtown Seattle in a good, central spot. Any soccer-specific stadium would probably have been built either far north or far south of town in one of the suburbs.

And Qwest was a fantastic location for soccer. When DC United played Real Madrid and sold out all 67,000 seats. When there are just a few thousand Sounders USL fans, though? Not so much.

In the end I guess I’m pragmatic. When you come down to it, the options were Qwest field or no MLS at all. And there’s a fair chance that Paul Allen’s men may be right — that utilizing the lower bowl only will make the games seem just (or at least almost) as cozy as we’d get at an SSS.

In the end, I’ll be happy to take MLS. Even in a football stadium.