The Miami City Commission’s decision this week to defer a final call on Miami Freedom Park is the latest in a series of setbacks for Jorge Mas and David Beckham’s MLS group.
Kartik Krishnaiyer
The ongoing saga that is MLS’s Beckham Miami situation took another somewhat unexpected turn on Thursday when the Miami City Commission punted for six days on whether to put the Jorge Mas-led investment group’s proposal for Miami Freedom Park, which is being proposed on the site of the municipal Melreese Golf Course near Miami International Airport on the November election ballot. The proposed park would include a soccer-specific stadium, a retail complex, an office park and over 100 acres of green space.
On the surface this appears a good deal for a city that is rapidly growing into a global commercial, media and cultural center. But not enough transparency has been provided on this project- and any number of the proposed sites that preceded it- and that, coupled with continued resentment among city residents about the way they were swindled in their last stadium deal, Marlins Park, have placed the Freedom Park deal at jeopardy. Those issues are all compounded by another reality: Jorge Mas has less influence as a political power-broker than he once did in the city and Miami-Dade County.
Therefore, we’re at a logjam.
Why Miami is being treated differently?
Soccer fans across the nation are complaining Miami (and New York) have been treated differently than Orlando, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Nashville, Minnesota and potentially Sacramento or Phoenix in being awarded an MLS team without a stadium plan in concrete. Here, I would note that this isn’t altogether correct.
Orlando’s stadium situation changed somewhat significantly after they were admitted to MLS in 2013 on a promise of public money and a certain of land – details changed with regularity and the team ultimately played its first two MLS seasons (2015 and 2016) in a temporary venue, albeit to enormous crowds and general acclaim.
But back to the Magic City.
Southeast Florida is an area soccer fans around the nation love to thumb its nose at for whatever reason. In the end, however, the bottom line is Miami is a must for MLS. It’s not only the seventh largest metropolitan area in the nation, but boasts more commercial, media and cultural ties to both Europe and Latin America than any US cities outside Los Angeles and New York. Miami becoming more of a European destination for business and culture has coincided with MLS’ insistence on returning to the market, come hell or high-water, with David Beckham, a global icon to be the face of club.
No offense to Orlando, Cincinnati, Minnesota and the locales that have embraced local soccer and seen lower division teams elevated to MLS, but Miami matters more to the league. Major League Soccer is in a decades-long evolution from survival stage to global player stage. Very few places in the United States have the international cache or relevance of Miami. While “Soccer Twitter” and US Soccer fans consistently ask why Beckham doesn’t pick up and go to Tampa or Phoenix or Detroit, the simple truth is those don’t matter the way Miami does, however you rationalize it.
Fan support and local interest in American pro soccer is not the driver of why MLS wants to be in Miami. Otherwise, they’d have elevated the Fort Lauderdale Strikers or Miami FC, two recent second division club that saw great success on the field, much in the same fashion as the league did with Orlando, Minnesota and Cincinnati. Or perhaps, after repeated false starts, they’d have punted on the idea entirely.
Miami isn’t an attractive venue because of huge crowds, which were hardly the problem for the Fusion at Lockhart Stadium.
I’d even argue fan support doesn’t matter much at all.
The opportunities at sponsorships nationally and globally, coupled with having a prominent Miami presence attached to David Beckham, trumps all other considerations. Quite frankly, if virtually no one shows up at the matches it might be a bad look for MLS among the small niche audience for professional men’s club soccer in this country but probably won’t matter very much to sponsors, potential media partners and top European-based players who might want to live in Miami, or already own property in the area. The league has plenty of clubs- even in ones in global markets, such as Atlanta- that wow casual viewers with enormous crowds and on-field panache. Miami doesn’t need that to be valuable to the league.
It’s not a shot at other places that have embraced local soccer to say Miami matters more. It just provides the most realistic, economic lens by which MLS is viewing this situation. Places like Orlando and Cincinnati HAVE to fill stadiums to justify being in MLS. Miami does not.
Mas is key to Miami MLS because he’s a well-respected businessman from a family with great political and corporate influence. But it isn’t what it used to be, either.
Understanding Mas and Miami
The family of Jorge Mas has long influenced politics in Miami-Dade County and brilliantly did so in other states for many years. The Cuban-American National Foundation was co-founded by Mas’ father, Jorge Mas Canosa. The group became incredibly influential, dominated local politics in Miami-Dade County within both political parties and eventually played a major role in state and national politics. Jorge Mas himself has long had an important role in dealing with local elected officials both as an activist and as President of the company his dad founded, MasTech, which is one of the most prominent companies in the area which also deals with a host of other government entities in the area.
Mas’ dad long feuded with The Miami Herald, a newspaper in that era that had a reputation of being to the left politically. But until this past week, the paper’s editorial staff and sports writers were largely supportive of anything Beckham or Mas pushed related to MLS expansion. This week, that changed as The Herald pushed for a no vote on the project. The opposition of The Herald influenced the discussions on Thursday dramatically. In an era where newspapers are losing its influence on local matters, it was heartening to see that reversed if even temporarily on this matter. Couple the opposition of The Herald with the tempered criticisms of local but nationally prominent sports and soccer writers, and the Commission had the political capita and coverl it needed to hold off on a decision, at least for now.
MasTech continues to give Mas political influence, but Miami and the entire region have changed politically since the days when Mas’s father influenced any decision, business or political, he wanted to locally. Demographic shifts and a more transparent local culture than the 1980’s and 1990’s have made projects like Miami Freedom Park much more controversial and the reality is Mas has less influence in today’s Miami than his family did a decade or two decades ago.
In addition, it can- and should-be strongly argued Mas didn’t do his homework with the city commission. This week he needs to correct that, and given his excellent track record, he likely will.
Miami taxpayers are still salty over the large bill they’ve footed for Jeff Loria’s Marlins Park, which helped him make billions of dollars, no matter how many good seats are always available.
Public lands needed in south Florida
Miami is now a global city, one with a burgeoning financial district, more cultural and entertainment opportunities than ever before, a vibrant, diverse, multicultural population and the benefit of living life and doing business in a cosmopolitan semi tropical oasis. But like all major coastal cities it has urban problems and environmental concerns. One thing severely lacking is green space in Miami-Dade or Broward counties, and as the population continues to explode, this isn’t a problem that is temporary.
As someone who has lived almost my entire life in south Florida (I left for college and have spent substantial time in Washington DC, Tallahassee and Orlando but never really “left”) I’ve gradually seen the destruction of the area turning it from a beautiful semi-tropical medium-sized town to concrete megalopolis. This change has been fueled by developers (like Mas) and politicians of both political parties who have spent very little time thinking of green space and functionality of urban areas. But in recent years things have changed dramatically. In Miami, many residents want to limit the number of roads and developments that will bring more car traffic to neighborhood streets. They want more public transit, and at least within the city itself, have been getting it. They want more bicycle friendly accessible areas.
Miami, a centrally-planned city that developed inorganically and at the behest of developers who wanted to build high-rise buildings and an excessive amount of retail shops, is now somewhat of a mismatch for the attitudes of newer residents. Unless State Road 836, which provides expressway access to the area from downtown, is expanded and local neighborhood roads such as 37th Avenue and LeJeune Road were renovated to accommodate the increased traffic flows, Miami Freedom Park is likely to be problematic. Jorge Mas’s failure to present a traffic study he had promised, only compounded community fears about this problem this week. The closest Metrorail and TriRail Station to the proposed site is not terribly far, but south Floridians cannot be trusted to simply use mass transit to get to a sporting event.
Additionally, very few public lands with green space remain in the region. Miami taxpayers are already bitter, having been burned by art collector and former Marlins owner Jeff Loria, who the County is suing for profit-sharing after he took taxpayer money and turned a 1.2 billion dollar deal on Marlins Park.
The very public, empty seat trauma of the Marlins Park sale hangs over Miami Freedom Park like an ominous specter, fair or not.
And while Miami Freedom Park is an interesting concept for Melreese Golf Club, it is possible better concepts that would yield greater public benefits exists. That’s why from my vantage point, if the commission approves putting the project on the November ballot, a full and open airing of these ideas and considerations should trump any sentiment for MLS.
Major League Soccer will come to Miami in 2020 irrespective of what happens with Miami Freedom Park. Much like New York City, it’s far too important to the global and media footprint of the league to have a club in this area. For the league Miami matters too much, but for locals that land has to be used properly.
This saga will continue through the next several years no doubt.
Kartik Krishnaiyer is a veteran American soccer journalist and the author of multiple books about the beautiful game. The former Communications Director for the North American Soccer League, he hosts the TYAC Podcast, among other projects. Follow him on Twitter @kkfla737.