Soccer in the D?

For those that still live around our beloved Detroit area, you may find yourself driving down I-75 and spotting the once formidable sporting venue known as the Pontiac Silverdome. Seen here in happier days, this is the dome now.

If an 80,311-seat capacity football stadium has no football team, does it actually exist? The answer is "yes." And it's as much a sign of Detroit's (or Pontiac's) decay as the legendary train station. At best, the Silverdome is a cheap plot of land awaiting a savvy investor. At worst, it's a rat-infested eyesore on 127 acres of concrete.

But hope springs eternal, even in the D. According to reports in the freep and MLive, a Toronto-based investor group bid half a million bucks for the Silverdome, with the hope of transforming it into a soccer-specific stadium. For those that follow the MLS, the key component in acquiring a franchise is a stadium. The MLS learned early on that it should not be sharing stadiums with football teams. The team could draw 23,000 per game, but they'd be mere specks in the mammoth stadiums built for the Chiefs and Giants. Columbus set the new standard for soccer-specific stadiums when they unveiled the Crew Stadium in 1999. The team can sell out it's 22,000 seats, and the intimate confines create a more enjoyable atmosphere.

So, if a city wants an MLS team, they must come to the table with plans for a stadium, and it wouldn't hurt if they pre-sold 10,000+ season tickets.

The potential purchase of the Silverdome is the first tangible step toward bringing MLS to Detroit. If Detroit is anything, it's a voracious sports town, and it possesses a healthy fan base for soccer. They supported the NASL and would likely support the MLS too. Now, the Silverdome originally cost $53million to build, and that's in 1973-dollars. It's a massive blow to the ego to receive a purchase bid of a mere $500,000. Yet, converting the outdated behemoth to a 20,000-seat soccer stadium will cost a pretty penny. The mayor of Pontiac should be happy he's got a buyer who wants to bring people back to the city.

I would personally love to see an MLS team in Detroit, but I'd be even happier to see actual development in the City of Pontiac. This tells me that investors are ready, but is the city?

UPDATE:
I was under the impression that the Toronto-based company merely placed a bid. Evidently, they won the auction, but the sale won't be finalized for 45 days.