Pro soccer in the East Valley? Kick it to the curb

Readers who picked up Tuesday’s Tribune Sports section saw a story package about the first night of the Copa Panamericana soccer tournament, being played at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale.

Reporter Matt Simpson and photographer Ralph Freso captured the main point of this event, which was not the outcome of the matches but the dearth of spectators who turned out.

The quotation from Scottsdale resident Steve Kenyon was particularly telling: “When I drove up, I thought I was here on the wrong night.”

Fast forward to Thursday, and the front-page report by Misty Williams that a local company is considering building a soccer-only stadium that would serve as the home for a Major League Soccer expansion team. Dana Gagnon, president of PHX Soccer Development, said his group is looking for investors and a participating municipality to make their dream a reality.

You want reality? Here is a sportsloving East Valley resident’s take on why this is a failure waiting to happen:

• One of the arguments propped up for bringing an MLS franchise to the Valley is the booming Hispanic population. Soccer is the most popular sport in Latin America, so the theory goes that plopping a team down in the middle of that demographic is like getting a license to print money. But if that is the case, where were all those soccer fans for the Copa tournament? On the same day that the news report about the possible soccer stadium appeared on the front page, there was a report in the Sports section on the Mexican team Club America’s match in Glendale. Earlier reports had organizers assuring us that Mexican-American fans would turn out in droves to see “their” team. But just like Monday, only a few hundred people showed up two nights later. Why should we expect anything different with a new team with no built-in allegiances?

• The Valley is an oversaturated sports market. There are not enough sporting dollars to go around for the Diamondbacks, Suns, Cardinals, Coyotes, Mercury, Rattlers, Roadrunners and Sting — and that doesn’t include ASU and high school athletics, nor the annual NASCAR events and FBR Open golf event. An MLS team wouldn’t be playing second fiddle, it would be about eighth fiddle.

• Kids play soccer in droves across the Valley. But we are not exclusive of the national trend that sees young players grow out of soccer and gravitate to traditional American sports (baseball, football, basketball). Counting on those kids to create a fan base is risky business.

• It seems highly unlikely that an East Valley municipality would be a willing partner in building a socceronly stadium. A decade ago, Chandler officials balked at paying for renovations at Compadre Stadium that would have kept the Milwaukee Brewers in town for spring training. Mesa? We know that boat won’t float. And why would Tempeans open their wallets to create competition for ASU teams?

• Build it without taxpayer money? Go for it. But here’s a suggestion: Play two years at an existing facility to see if there is interest in what you’re offering. If so, hire a construction crew. If not, well, that’s one less empty building.