Betting on soccer's future
From Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com
It’s important to remember that Fortuitous Partners’ plan to build a soccer stadium as a key part of a $400 million mixed-use project is not necessarily based on the current audience for soccer in southeastern New England as much as where it might be in five or ten years. While Major League Baseball’s audience has been slipping, professional soccer is clearly growing, and various factors, including the love of soccer in various national and ethnic groups, make this growth likely to continue or even accelerate. It is, after all, the leading world sport.
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The Worcester Business Journal reports that more that over half of that city’s renters want to move to another city. Quoting Renter Migration Report, it cited Boston, at 43 percent, as the top destination for Worcester refugees. Providence – embarrassingly? -- came in a very distant second, at 4.3 percent, and the old mill town of Norwich, Conn., at 4.2 percent. Ah, the magnetism of New England’s only world city! But maybe the WooSox will hold back a few of these dissatisfied residents.
The PawSox mystery persists
Downtown Worcester, with City Hall on the right.
From Robert Whitcomb's "Digital Diary,'' in GoLocal24.com
It remains surprising how little information has come out about Worcester’s pitch to lure the Pawtucket Red Sox to Massachusetts’s second-largest city, especially since Rhode Island Governor Raimondo signed a bill last month aimed at helping to finance a new stadium for the team at Pawtucket’s Apex site.
No one hereabouts seems to know what Worcester and the commonwealth have in mind, and how much information has been transmitted to the team owners.
At the same time, news reports point to the Kraft/Patriot family’s intensifying interest in building a major stadium for professional soccer (called variations of “football’’ in most of the world) in Boston for their New England Revolution team. Makes sense. Soccer has become ever more popular in America in the past few years. I was struck by how many bars and restaurants had World Cup games on their TVs in the recent competition, won by France. Within a couple of decades soccer stadiums may become more important sports venues here than stadiums for baseball and American football (concussions, anyone?)