A Twitter debate du jour: What’s so great about the Houston Dynamo finally getting a deal for a new stadium if they’re just going to share it with a college football team?
Answers here via spokesman’s e-mail from Oliver Luck, Dynamo president/GM:
- we control the scheduling, not UH. [Univ. of Houston, which hosts the Dynamo today at Robertson Stadium]
- we control the maintenance, not UH.
- we control the entire fan experience (including hygiene, concessions, etc…), not UH.
- yes, we’ll have football lines but we will schedule as best we can around them and we can minimize the football markings, which won’t include logos, lettering, end zone painting, etc…
- we will generate revenue from TSU football games, unlike the situation at UH. We will also host high school football playoffs in the stadium, as many MLS venues do.
- most importantly, we maintain the revenue that we generate as opposed to sharing it with UH.
- of course, it will be a new building, not one built in the 1940’s.
So yes, revenue will be an important part, and that can help the team on the field. Designated Players aren’t cheap. Neither is scouting.
In terms of aesthetics, it’s impossible to judge until we see for ourselves. Seattle’s FieldTurf draws criticism, but despite sharing the field with the NFL’s Seahawks, the Qwest Field pitch generally looks better than, say, the Home Depot Center’s grass. Maybe sharing with the X Games is worse than sharing with a football team?
Also worth noting — the team is getting new practice facilities and can move away from the fields at the University of Houston, which deteriorated to a point that Dominic Kinnear and crew picked up and started practicing at Rice. Read about that situation and see an artist’s rendering of the new stadium here: Houston Chronicle.
It’s true that the term “soccer-specific stadium” shouldn’t really apply any more. More and more MLS teams have their own facilities, but they rent them out for football games, concerts, etc.
From a fan perspective, the best thing about a stadium is the peace of mind that your local team has set down roots. Ask D.C. United fans currently checking traffic between their D.C.-area homes and Baltimore.
Duresport.com 
Annoyed at the ‘we will have football lines’ concession.
This is the US. And, more especially, this is Texas. It comes with citizenship. In Texas, I mean.;)
In other words, soccer is so much better than it has been, occasional pointyball lines can be put up with.
At least it will have grass.
“Annoyed at the ‘we will have football lines’ concession.”
How annoyed are you that they will have a stadium?
Jesus, soccer fans, so g-d entitled.
Texas Southern has played exactly 18 home games in the last five seasons.
Huge difference sharing with UofH and TSU. TSU has been playing home games at a high school stadium. This is about as small time a football program as you can have before going to Flag football or one of the small sided type games.
As someone pointed out above they play on average 3 or 4 home games a year. That may increase to 5 with the new facilities but still this isn’t like sharing with an NFL team from Mid August through the end of the MLS season.
Besides as Seattle has taught us if you truely care about soccer the lines can almost be completely erased from site during matches. Unlike old RBNY and NER the Sounders have done great eliminating the distraction.