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Adrian Hanauer discusses Sounders’ off-field struggles and his budgetary philosophy
133 Plays1 year ago
Adrian Hanauer first became formally involved in the Seattle Sounders when he became the managing partner of the USL team in 2002. One of the first big hires he made was appointing Brian Schmetzer to be the head coach. While steering the ship on the business side, he also served as the team’s general manager, a role he maintained for the first five years of the Sounders’ MLS existence.
I first met Hanauer in 2010, shortly after I started writing for Sounder at Heart. At the time, I was struck by how eager he was to share his thoughts on both the business and sporting aspects of the team.
He stepped down as the GM following the 2014 season and has been the majority owner since 2015. As the Sounders and his role within the team have evolved, I’ve also had fewer interactions with him.
Behind the scenes, though, he remains as active as ever. Hanauer is a near daily fixture at the team’s new Longacres training facility, where his office overlooks the pitch.
That’s where Hanauer and I met about 10 days ago to broadly discuss the state of the franchise. My intention was to get a sense of where he sees the Sounders within the broader MLS landscape; what kind of preparations are in order for the 2025 Club World Cup; how he perceives the Sounders’ handling of various off-field issues; and his vision for Longacres that goes beyond the training facility.
You can listen to the entire interview here:
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Transcript
Introduction and Sponsorship
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey, this is Christian Roldan. And Jordan Morris from the Seattle Sounders Football Club. And you're listening to NOS Arietes. This episode of NOS Arietes is sponsored by Full Pull Wines, a Seattle-based wine retailer and proud sponsor of NOS Arietes since 2011. Full Pull was founded in 2009, is based in Seattle, and is owned and operated by longtime Sounders supporters. They offer the best boutique wines of the world to members of their mailing list, with special focus on their home, the Pacific Northwest.
00:00:28
Speaker
A.O. Shen! Let's go! What a save by Fry! The Seattle Sounders have done it! MLS Cup win! Here come three years through the middle to crown it the vehicle! And now they truly can't stop the celebrations. It's the Sounders' MLS Cup! Niko Liddo leaves out!
00:01:12
Speaker
Is that what you young people call twerking?
Interview with Adrian Hanauer
00:01:28
Speaker
Welcome back to NOS Adietes. I'm Jeremiah O'Shan, joined today by a very special guest, Adrian Hanauer, majority owner of the Seattle Sounders. We're sitting here in quite an impressive space, the Long Acres Training Facility.
00:01:44
Speaker
in a really nice room that has a view of the of the actual like you you can watch training from here. I can I you know I was telling you Jeremiah on the on the way up here I you know I grew up working in very uncomfortable and kind of
00:02:02
Speaker
maybe for lack of a better phrase, kind of a shithole building. You know, grew up in manufacturing and did all the worst jobs because my dad maybe do all the worst jobs. And honestly, like, there were some moments here where this made me a little uncomfortable because it's really nice.
00:02:22
Speaker
This area that I hang out in is, yeah, is amazing. But it's awesome. Get to watch the guys train from up here every day. And yeah, there's nothing better than watching soccer as your job.
00:02:40
Speaker
Yeah, so I don't know how many people really realize this, but you are here virtually every day, right? And you are, you're watching training, you're going to gain, I mean, you were at Starfire last night, you were just telling me.
00:02:54
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. Dude, like I own a soccer team. Like what it's it's I do sometimes joke. I'm not sure if I've told you this, but I I love watching training. I love watching the academy games. I love the the data and the analytics and the sports science and the strategy and the roster building and the business. All of it and
00:03:24
Speaker
Honestly, I kind of hate the games. I, the first team games at Lumen are just painful for me, excruciating. And, and again, in the early years, my, you know, my girlfriend, like, used to joke. If we lost, I didn't want to go out for the weekend, didn't want to go to dinner, didn't want to do anything.
00:03:48
Speaker
kind of gotten over that. But, you know, I look, I'm a fan. So and I feel super helpless during the games. So anyway, well, I mean, I think that that informs a lot, right? I think it's I don't know how many people it's now been 10 years since you were the GM of sounders, but you were the GM of the sounders from what, 2000?
Reflections on GM Tenure
00:04:15
Speaker
No, I mean of the U.S. you were essentially, right? Yeah, 2002. 2002? Yeah. All the way to 2014, right? Yeah. Yeah, I guess you're right. Yeah. I mean, that was a lot. I mean, you're making signings. You're negotiating trades. How much are you still involved in that way?
00:04:38
Speaker
probably more than Craig and the rest of the team would like me to be. I love that part. And I don't think I'll ever be able to give it up. I have a lot of relationships globally. So I will
00:04:56
Speaker
watch players all call agents. I do still watch a lot of video. You know, at a certain point, I hand it to the professionals. But look, I
00:05:13
Speaker
I do think there is a benefit when I like when I call a an agent say, hey, you know, this is who I am. I own the sound like, you know, I get I usually get a call back. And, you know, to me, it shows a little bit of respect. It shows a little bit of the passion that I have for the game. And so that can often unlock a conversation that that would be harder to unlock.
00:05:40
Speaker
or calling the owner or president of a club that maybe has a player or there's something we want to understand about the way they do business. I am super involved. I'm still on that product strategy committee at the league level.
00:06:01
Speaker
have been doing that a long time so I understand our rules pretty well and our rules are as you know pretty complicated at times and I believe that some of what I know and some of my experience you know continues to
00:06:22
Speaker
probably it's fleeting, the competitive advantage that maybe that gives us, but I do still know a thing or two about how to put the roster together. And I think I can just be, I think I can ask good questions of the people that work with me on that, because again, to your point, I've done it for a long time.
00:06:48
Speaker
So among the other owners who are on the product strategy committee, I'm guessing, I know none of them have been a GM of, uh, at least not of an MLS team or, you know, maybe that's probably true. But does it, do you think that that does sort of give you some advantage in terms of trying to steer the league in a way that you feel like maintain some advantage for a market like Seattle?
MLS Product Strategy Committee Role
00:07:17
Speaker
Well, no, because my job on the Product Strategy Committee is to do what's best for the league overall, not Seattle. Sometimes decisions that we make I might support may disadvantage Seattle and sometimes it may advantage Seattle. But I do think that having
00:07:47
Speaker
having run a team at the level of detail that I have. And again, people that work with me know that
00:07:58
Speaker
maybe to a fault, I'm willing to get stuck into the details. I think that's helpful. I think it's been helpful to the league and that committee and making our league better, I guess, not necessarily for me to say, but I'd like to think I've added a little bit of value.
00:08:23
Speaker
Well, and I suppose you can chart the way that the league has gone recently and spending is undeniably going up, right? You can, and that's true with the league. That's true with the Sounders. It's true at the highest level teams.
00:08:38
Speaker
And I think it's, you know, we just did an analysis on center heart that looked at sort of took this doubt the, the money that centers are spending at least publicly on salaries. We combine that with information from transfer market that looks at it makes an estimation, admittedly over
Sounders' Spending Philosophy
00:08:55
Speaker
how much is being spent on transfers.
00:08:57
Speaker
And it wasn't so long ago that the Sounders were a top quarter type spending team. And you look at it now and it's a little closer to the league average. Is that a trajectory that you expect to continue? And do you think that that's a trajectory that's sustainable in terms of also maintaining the competitiveness of the Sounders?
00:09:19
Speaker
Yeah, look, you and I have talked about this a bunch. I don't pay very much attention to where we're spending relative to other teams. We've always said we're not going to spend the most, we're not going to spend the least. What I'm super focused on is spending the right amount of money to always
00:09:46
Speaker
be competing for championships. I took one quick look at some of your analysis and of course it's awesome as always. You can make data look however you want it to look. I took a quick look at transfer marked
00:10:09
Speaker
And our team is ranked third in terms of asset value in the league. Is it true? Is it not? I mean, apples to apples, transfer marked is okay. You know, they do a pretty good job. So, you know, again, I'll give you a very specific example. Well, no, I'll give you a general thought.
00:10:39
Speaker
I would rather sign a player that has a $5 million asset value on a free than pay $5 million to his team and then have them on my team. And there are teams out there that focus heavily on free transfers and or
00:11:02
Speaker
undervalued assets, right? And, and so, you know, that is a piece of what what will continue to make us good and punch above our weight.
00:11:17
Speaker
buying, paying at the right times for the right roles that we feel like we need. It's for sure going to happen, has to happen. Certain positions are harder to fill than others. But again, there is so much more
00:11:39
Speaker
that goes into winning championships then how much you spend on the roster and i think you pointed it out that there is like it's pretty hard to find any correlation in our league over the last bunch of years from how much you spend winning championships
00:11:56
Speaker
Absolutely, I mean that I think that's an undeniable truth right now that if you look at if you just do a runner-up basic correlation between spend and Points every year you end up with almost none. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well in all all, you know again all and I I believe because that that is true because I mean look obviously
00:12:24
Speaker
You can waste money, no doubt. But I would say generally you get what you pay for. The market is pretty pure and accurate. But are you putting the right group of individuals together on the field?
00:12:46
Speaker
As you know, I'm a massive believer in culture. Is the locker room tight? Are guys willing to work hard for each other and for the club? Are guys mentally strong to get through the rough patches?
00:13:05
Speaker
And then all of the supporting staff, right? I mean, getting the medical right and getting the sports science right and the equipment and the diet and the training facility, all of those other things.
00:13:24
Speaker
each, you know, look, again, I'm making this up on the fly. But if you say the specific players on the field are 60% of the equation, there's a whole bunch of other stuff that is 40% of the equation. So you better be paying attention to all that stuff, or it doesn't really matter what players you bring in.
00:13:50
Speaker
Again, there is some level of disparity in spending that kind of flips that model. Throughout Europe, where money does equate to performance. Yes.
00:14:07
Speaker
although you could point to England and say there are some outliers that have spent an extraordinary amount of money that are not yet winning. Right. That's absolutely true that spending that you can still spend dumb money is essentially what you're saying is that you can you can just because you're spending money doesn't guarantee success that spending smartly is better than spending a lot but
00:14:34
Speaker
I would assume you'd also agree that spending a lot of money smartly is hard to beat. Exactly. Always better. Yeah. Always better other than for running a sustainable business. Other than running a sustainable business.
00:14:52
Speaker
Is there more room to spend? Is there like, okay, we're coming up into a pretty big off season this
Club World Cup Preparations
00:15:00
Speaker
next year. You have two designated players who are going to be out of contract. You have a club world cup coming up in 20, 26, five. Thank you. Next year.
00:15:12
Speaker
It's going to be played in the United States. It's an opportunity that will probably never come, at least soon, probably is not going to come where the Sounders are both in the tournament and potentially hosting part of it, or at least playing in the host country. Do you feel well positioned to take advantage of that opportunity, I guess? And is there a monetary component to that?
00:15:46
Speaker
complicated question and probably plays into a little bit of what's happened this year. I was really excited going into this year because I believe we've got a great group of guys and quality across the board and depth.
00:16:07
Speaker
When you say, is there a monetary component to that?
00:16:14
Speaker
Obviously, the first 14 games have been frustrating for all of us. Well, I think for all of us. I know for me. For me, yeah. I'll just put it out there. I have not been thrilled with the first 14 games. Yeah, yeah.
00:16:32
Speaker
And and you know, part of the frustration, obviously, is that we don't yet know what our full team's potential is. Absolutely. And you know, it's it's a.
00:16:48
Speaker
It's an excuse and a problem because, you know, it's a it's an easy way out of saying, well, you know, we're only on 14 points from 14 games because we, you know, because we haven't had our whole, you know. But the reality is we haven't been able to keep all of our players on the field and healthy. And so, you know, when you and I were just talking about spending
00:17:17
Speaker
I doesn't do much good spending a bunch of money on players if they're not going to actually be on the field. So that is something that we are working on aggressively to try to see if there is something different in our preparation, in our scheduling, in the workloads, in the
00:17:43
Speaker
you know, in how we're recovering from injury, you know, we need to, you know, no stone can go unturned at this point to, you know, get the right group on the field. And so that said, I mean, we want to go into the Club World Cup with a squad that we feel can compete. You know,
00:18:09
Speaker
Again, being somewhat realistic, back to your, like, there is some disparity in spending. You know, we are not going to be able to put a team on paper that can, should compete with Manchester City. Right. There is still a slight delta between your payroll and Man City. Yeah.
00:18:37
Speaker
But we can have 11 players on the field that will work harder than them, be committed to each other more than the more than they're committed to each other, be motivated by this tournament more than, you know.
00:18:55
Speaker
You know, the there still is not any determination in in ink as to where these games will all be. So maybe with a little bit of luck and persuasion, maybe we're playing in front of our home fans. So still a possibility is what you're saying. That is still a possibility. Yes.
00:19:22
Speaker
Um, uh, uh, so, um, you know, look, the answer is, um, we will, we'll do what we need to do to have as competitive a squat as we can for, for, for club world cup. We also then have to balance. I mean, we, we, that's.
00:19:42
Speaker
I guess three games minimum, but, um, uh, but potentially just three, but it's potentially just three games. Um, we need to, you know, we need to focus on that as well as, uh, MLS as well as leads cup, as well as, I guess we'll see whether we play open cup in 20, 20, 25. And yeah, so.
00:20:06
Speaker
Has there been any, this is not what I want to get into necessarily, but I am curious. Has there been any discussion about how MLS teams will fit in how that, how a club world cup can even fit into the count? I know that there's like talk in Europe about how, like, I mean, like the European players are talking about refusing to play. Uh, if certain accommodations aren't made, I mean, what is the, like, how is MLS going to balance that? I mean, presumably it would happen almost concurrently with league's cup.
00:20:34
Speaker
or at least right before League's Cup. There are there are conversations. Nothing. Nothing has been locked in. I mean, you know, the reality is we'll either have one MLS team or two MLS teams in Club World Cup. So it it it's easier to manage, I think, as opposed to having 15 of our teams in the in the in the in the competition. Right. But in so in terms of looking at the
00:21:02
Speaker
at this upcoming year, or I guess in terms of the Club World Cup, there's been a rumor flying around that every team's gonna get $50 million to plan this thing. Is there any, like, have you gotten any word from FIFA as to like what the minimum payout is gonna be? And I guess is that big into the budgetary conversation?
00:21:22
Speaker
Well, no, I haven't heard, I haven't even seen that rumor. I mean, I know there will be an appearance fee. Yeah. The humility orders seemed outrageous to me, but. Yeah. Would that amount of money play into the budget? Yes, for sure. I, you know, I'm hopeful but skeptical. Yeah, so.
00:21:47
Speaker
So in any case that you aren't able, you're not at a point where you're able to say, well, we're getting X from the club world
Financial Expectations and Budgeting
00:21:54
Speaker
cup. We can just pump that right back into the transfer budget or the wage budget and, or the operational budget. Nope. And will you even get a sense of if that, if you'll have that knowledge before you are in the.
00:22:10
Speaker
don't know. Okay, so as of right now, it's effectively a non factor. I mean, maybe not a non factor, but it's it's you cannot build a plan. No, no. But I guess more broadly, though, do you feel comfortable, you know, just, you know, you look at the teams that are spending money, and Austin FC is a what has historically not been a high spending team.
00:22:35
Speaker
Just the other day, they bought out Emiliano Rigoni. They supposedly are buying a $7 million player. I mean, this is one of the players teams that's sort of like on the bottom scale. But do you feel like the Sounders are at least in a position where the league is like, I guess, are you at all concerned about being passed by or do you feel confident in the Sounders ability to remain competitive?
00:22:59
Speaker
regardless of the budgets. Yes, yes, I feel confident. So, you know, it wasn't long ago that we deployed a pretty decent chunk of cash for a player as well. And, you know, unfortunately, for Pedro is, you know, hasn't been able to play a lot of minutes, but so no, I'm not, I'm not
00:23:25
Speaker
worried about being passed by that you know that that could change and you know things evolve and but for right now I'm confident in our in our group I'm confident I'm confident in the current group.
00:23:41
Speaker
Again, I still think if we can get ourselves healthy, this group can challenge for a championship. We do have some, you know, we've got a little bit of room to maneuver in the summer and things change in terms of how much
00:23:57
Speaker
maneuverability we could have beyond existing maneuverability. I am super pumped about about some of the young players who come through our Academy. As we've seen a team like Philadelphia has done amazing work with with their Academy. So if you blend
00:24:25
Speaker
you know, an amazing group spending wisely here and there, great young players coming through the system, an occasional good free agent find. You know, I'm still excited to see Nathan out there getting more minutes. Obviously Albert came in as a free agent. So, you know, being able to
00:24:55
Speaker
being able to identify those opportunities. This facility plays into that. Guys, I've talked to Steph about it. Gets up early, wants to be here. It's a nice place to come to work. And look, a lot of teams have nice places to go to work now. So it's not completely unique.
00:25:25
Speaker
you know excited about this place and I think we've just sort of scratched the surface on how we can leverage this facility to continue to recruit. And I guess sort of along those lines this the opening of this facility was sort of the centerpiece I think of the 50th anniversary season that we're in right now and I don't know I think it's probably fair to say the
00:25:50
Speaker
The vibe around all this has not been quite as positive as you probably envisioned. And I think it's probably mainly because the performance hasn't been what you had hoped or that any of us had hoped.
00:26:03
Speaker
But generally speaking, I mean, how do you feel about the 50th anniversary and sort of the way that it's rolled out and sort of the general vibes around the team right now?
50th Anniversary and Future Vision
00:26:17
Speaker
Well, so I don't know.
00:26:23
Speaker
Whose vibes you're feeling around this building? The fans. OK, OK. Well, so I guess how do I feel about 50th anniversary? I mean.
00:26:42
Speaker
I guess I would start by saying, you know, this is it's kind of a year long thing. It's also sort of the foundation of the next 50 years. So, you know, the intent was never like a one day all day block party kind of thing.
00:27:06
Speaker
I would also suggest that it kind of, you know, for me, it kind of started with rolling out our new marks that I think are beautiful and amazing and a great foundation for building, you know, I mean, it lasts 50 years, but hopefully 10 or 20. Building this
00:27:32
Speaker
facility is a massive stake in the ground, a physical structure. Again, we've scratched the surface of this facility. How do we honor those that have come before at this facility? How do we continue to improve and create more access
00:27:59
Speaker
for our fans at this facility are members, primarily our season ticket members, but in an amazing, bespoke, experiential way that is a memorable touch point. Again, I'm jumping around Jeremiah, but we're going to this,
00:28:24
Speaker
This July, we're going to have our giant rave foundation gala. We call it a gala. It's a party to raise money and way more money now in this facility, in this, you know, in this iteration.
00:28:45
Speaker
to do all the important work in the community, build more fields, more programming, which is sort of, again, putting a stake in the ground, building physical structures for generations of kids to come. As tactically as two weeks ago when Pepe Fernandez and his family were there,
00:29:11
Speaker
at our at the game. I can't remember who we were playing, but might have been the galaxy. But I got goosebumps. I, you know, Pepe was my hero in 1974. And, you know, to see him out there and the reception from fans,
00:29:32
Speaker
Some of those fans had never seen him or had ever heard of him. Continuing throughout this year, June 15th will be a big day, probably the largest group of alumni that we've ever assembled for an event or a game. And we'll do more and more throughout the year.
00:30:00
Speaker
I that said, do I wish we had 28 points instead of 14 points and would it all feel a little better? Probably. You know, maybe I'd sleep till five in the morning instead of four in the morning and and, you know, be just a little less stressed out. But again, this is a you know, this is a
00:30:28
Speaker
a club again, 50 years in, want to set it up for the next 50. It's a marathon, not a sprint. And so again, I feel good about a whole bunch of stuff we've done. We can always do more. So I don't know if that answers it.
00:30:57
Speaker
I mean I think it gives a broad overview. But I would say one of the things I hear from a lot of fans this year is that they I think there was this general sense of.
00:31:08
Speaker
maybe that they felt like they might feel this year. And you can go all the way back to the annual business meeting last year wasn't really available to the fans to watch or attend. And then when the season ticket package came out this year, it shows up in a nondescript bag and there was some complaints about how that was delivered. And then we had this League's Cup thing where they're like,
00:31:35
Speaker
They a bunch of people got their their credit cards charged for a full amount when it should have been just for one game, two games, something like that. And I keep hearing from fans that there seems to be a if not a lack of attention to detail, but just maybe a lack of complete follow through in terms of like what we've come to expect from its owners, which is a really high level of.
00:31:57
Speaker
you know, a delivery on promises and sort of feeling like this is a special thing. And I'm wondering if from here you get that feedback and sort of like how you grapple with that.
Fan Feedback and Execution Issues
00:32:11
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. So a separate issue, right? So we've sort of covered off the 50. And like it's all part of the 50th anniversary. Like they I think there was this expecting expectation that the 50th anniversary would come out of being like, there's a lot going on here. And it just feels like the delivery. It hasn't landed quite like a variety of reasons. And I think these are maybe some of the reasons why. Yeah. Well, I guess I'll start by saying
00:32:41
Speaker
When we disappoint fans, it's excruciating for me and the hundred people behind me here that work their butts off every day to try to do right by the sounders.
00:32:59
Speaker
The fact that we have sort of this democracy in sport sort of DNA is helpful because we do get feedback.
00:33:18
Speaker
You know, again, I would, I would categorize, you know, I don't, I don't want to, I don't want to be defensive, because, you know, the reality is when we disappoint people, we need to, we need to be better. And at the same time, you know,
00:33:35
Speaker
We're big kids here and we need to own our mistakes. So again, I don't want to go one by one necessarily, but the season ticket, the gift beginning of the year,
00:33:54
Speaker
We actually still believe that it is a good idea. We heard from our fans, hey, I've got like 37 scarves, it'd be awesome if I could do something. We engaged a local partner to help us find a better way.
00:34:13
Speaker
We didn't execute well. The combination did not execute well, but we learned from it. And I actually think, I don't know this, but I suspect we'll do it again, but we'll do it way better the next time. So, so. Well, let me, I mean, while we're there, what did you learn from?
00:34:36
Speaker
Like, what do you like, how do you like? Oh, no, I heard the same thing, you know, nondescript bag shows up and and and it's interesting because I had seen actually when I first heard that two days earlier, I had seen a different bag that a different department in our organization was using. And I grabbed him like.
00:35:01
Speaker
this is like, this is a really nice back, this would have been amazing to get a you know, and you know, maybe the right product, a message from, you know, a message from me or leadership or so. It just, you know, it just, it wasn't executed to the level that we would have expected of ourselves. And again,
00:35:27
Speaker
It's our issue. We had a partner in it, you know, that will make sure collectively that it's better. You know, charging people for credit card, you know, human error.
00:35:43
Speaker
People make mistakes. We started to correct it within two hours. In the 23 years that I've been involved in the sounders, we've probably made a thousand big mistakes, maybe 10,000. I don't know. We will make a bunch of mistakes going forward.
00:36:08
Speaker
We have to learn from them. We have to, you know, maybe our processes need to be, you know, a double check, you know, something where we can eliminate mistakes. So, but I think the, you know, look, the main thing that I would leave you with is
00:36:32
Speaker
I agonize over this stuff. It kills me when we screw stuff up or we disappoint fans. I mean, there are
00:36:50
Speaker
there are certain decisions we're going to make that are maybe that are going to be purposeful. We know we're going to disappoint some fans like you're you know, you're never going to make everybody happy. But you know, screw ups or things that we could just execute better that that you know, that's really disappointing.
00:37:14
Speaker
The annual business meeting, you know, alliance, you know, we need to, you know,
00:37:22
Speaker
collectively, again, we need to we need to do better and figure out what people would be excited about in terms of that event. So and I'm sure you probably have a list of 20 more and I could probably come up with 20. But you know, I think the again, the
00:37:45
Speaker
but we don't try to screw up and disappoint people. We are human, but we have to own it when we do. So I guess if I'm, and the reason I bring it up is just kind of the broad idea that the, it feels sometimes like on the outside that attention to detail has been lost. And it sounds like that's not the,
00:38:14
Speaker
I mean, it's certainly not the intention, but you're confident that these are issues that are more isolated. I shouldn't be summing up your own. No, no, no. Look, I hope that is the case. And look, I'll actually add one that
00:38:35
Speaker
has come to our attention over the last, I would say, 30 days doing focus groups, listening to our fans. Concurrent to that, I actually heard from a couple of alumni that
00:38:53
Speaker
We used to do felt like pre covid that the sounders like players were out in the community more pro shop. Yeah, you know, whether at a retail partner, bagging groceries. Yes, all that stuff. And and.
00:39:12
Speaker
I think that legit, that's a bit of a miss. COVID created certain habits that are sometimes harder to break.
00:39:29
Speaker
you know, when Hugh brought that to my attention, you know, I wandered straight down into Brian Schmetzer's office and said, hey, like this, you know, this is something we need to start to rectify and his
00:39:47
Speaker
attitude was, what can I do? What can I do to help? Like, we're on it. And by the way, I also talked to Christian Roldan, who had the same attitude. And so, you know, that is call it an attention to detail, call it
00:40:06
Speaker
a bad habit we got it I don't know but but it's something that we heard from our fans and we're gonna we're gonna fix the the again for me the really cool part is that we can do some amazing work
00:40:22
Speaker
here at this facility in that regard. We can still go out off campus as well. But I've sat here and watched 100 or 150 people on the deck here, under the deck.
00:40:41
Speaker
Interacting with players watching training. I think you and I talked about this you know we could add a couple three we got some good feedback from some of those fans that came out some of those season ticket members that came out.
00:40:59
Speaker
Hey, could you have like a portable merch thing here, which makes some sense? What's that? A coffee stand. Or could you jam a breakfast burrito in people's hands with a cup of coffee? One of the ones I want to do is have one of our coaches come address our fans and say, this is what you're going to see today.
00:41:27
Speaker
having some players come up after training and sign up, you know, like it's, it's such a great opportunity to create a really amazing experience for 100 or 150 members at a time, two, three, four, five, six times a month. That adds up and and, you know, is the kind of stuff that that our club has done in the past and needs to continue to focus on.
00:41:56
Speaker
Well, this might be a good transition into talking about this facility and sort of what it can be.
Sounders-specific Stadium Discussion
00:42:01
Speaker
You know, six months, eight months ago, something like that, I talked to Hugh and he mentioned, he confirmed that you guys are exploring potentially even building a proper stadium out here on the Long Acres footprint. And I'm just curious what you can say about where those conversations are and what goes into the thinking? Like, is it that, you know, I think we've all seen
00:42:25
Speaker
the experience at Lumen Field is not quite as, it sometimes, it becomes more obvious over the years that you guys are a tenant and not operating Lumen Field on your own. And if you could just speak to the general
00:42:40
Speaker
future and sort of what you're looking for out here and what kind of, what is going into whether or not it's a good idea or it's not, because it sounds like it's, that's an unclear, you are not at a point where you've decided one way or the other. No, no. Well, as you know, or maybe I'll just sort of back up, this campus is about 160 acres.
00:43:09
Speaker
currently Alaska Airlines is a tenant in one of the buildings here. But we are, I think, basically the the other tenant on the campus. So it is a
00:43:24
Speaker
giant blank canvas for what we want to build here. There is master planning going on. And when I say what we want to build here, the sounders are part of a real estate group that owns this campus and is managing it.
00:43:48
Speaker
Certainly there could be some housing on this campus. You know, things have been kicked around. You could do amazing, you know, festivals on this campus. There could be hotel hotels. There could be music. There could be more.
00:44:11
Speaker
office, medical, so they're, you know, they're there. I'm dancing around this, not giving super specifics, but there's a lot of a lot of potential. But there's also a couple of different 10 acre parcels that would fit a stadium. So so we, you know, we start there in that, you know, in the
00:44:41
Speaker
whatever, the 23 years I've been associated with the team, we've never, I don't want to say controlled a piece of land because the sounders don't control it, but have sort of been in the midst of a real estate partnership that has the potential for the size of land necessary to build a stadium. Then,
00:45:08
Speaker
you know i think i think i've mentioned before you know after this year we have eight years left on our lease at lumen field um 2032 is the expiration yep um and i think that's a public public record and seahawks kind of the same um
00:45:29
Speaker
So there is an element of, look, I'm assuming that that stadium is going to still stand and that there are going to be sports teams playing there, but it would be irresponsible of us not to have a plan B.
00:45:49
Speaker
Then, you know, then then the the more you know, the longer term, more strategic analysis is can we put the the the funding together to get a stadium built and would it be a net positive for our fans? Basically, it's I think it's as as as simple as that.
00:46:19
Speaker
Again in the in the realm of not being not pleasing everyone. I am certain that there are if we if we ended up building a stadium down here someday that there there would be some fans who would not like it and you know it's more inconvenient and.
00:46:38
Speaker
But to your point, it would be ours. It would be soccer focused. It would be intimate. It would allow the club to generate more revenue, which plays into your line of questioning around spending money on players.
00:47:04
Speaker
You know we can create it becomes a home for our, for our fan base. You know it's, it's connected to this facility there a lot of logistical benefits.
00:47:20
Speaker
There's a train station 100 yards away. The ingress egress is actually quite good. So there are a lot of positives, but ultimately we will do a bunch of research and talking to our fans to understand, you know, what
00:47:47
Speaker
the reaction would be to that. So it, you know, but it's gonna be a process of, you know, research and feasibility and conversations with our partners at Lumen Field and, you know, the trust, the estate of Paul Allen does still own part of the team and we want it to be collaborative. And I'm assuming that the
00:48:15
Speaker
that the state, the county, city of Seattle, city of rent will have opinions as well. Just out of curiosity, how big can a facility be here be? Do you have a sense of what even the limitations are? Oh, I think we have the capacity to build just about anything we wanted.
00:48:41
Speaker
I don't know that it would make a lot of sense to move out of a 69,000-seat stadium and build a 59,000-seat stadium. I don't think that is the direction we're headed. Right. But I guess the flip side to that is you're not limited to, say, a 20,000-seat stadium. Not necessarily. No. No.
00:49:05
Speaker
And so, and I guess in the meantime, you still have eight years left at Loom and Field. What ability do the sounders have to affect, to improve that their situation at
Challenges at Lumen Field
00:49:17
Speaker
Loom? And, you know, you're renting, obviously you are paying, but you are, you do have some partnership, some level of partnership there.
00:49:25
Speaker
Like, are there things, you know, we've talked about in the past of, you know, digital ad boards, a permanent home locker room, you know, I don't know if this is even on the, there's all kinds of, like, there's a laundry list of things that you would like to have at Bloomfield. And I'm just curious, how much ability do you even have to get those things?
00:49:44
Speaker
Look, our partners at First of Gold, Seahawks, Loom & Field have been awesome. Have we gotten everything we've wanted? No, for sure not. Are they fair? Yeah. I mean, sometimes I don't feel like they're being fair to us. Sometimes they are. For sure, again, look, Jeremiah, as you started
00:50:15
Speaker
asking that question. You know, my mind went to owning your own building, controlling your own building, whichever again, let's, let's be super honest, every sports team on the planet wants to control their own building. So that
00:50:33
Speaker
those questions you're asking are a non-issue. Look, there is a bunch of money being put into the stadium. There is investment going in, improvements, some in the premium spaces, some up higher in the building.
00:50:58
Speaker
I think that's fantastic. The building is 20 plus years old and it's shocking that 20 years buildings become dated. But it does need some improvements. Again, to your point, it would be amazing to have our own locker room.
00:51:27
Speaker
But I know the rain feel the same way. They'd like to have their own locker room and in in in Lumen field as well. And so I guess the best I can say is we we we try to work together. We try to collaborate. You know, they're not purposefully trying to make it, you know, feel like.
00:51:49
Speaker
the sounders are a secondary tenant there, but there are some realities to running a built, it's a state owned building that has a lot of different events there.
00:52:05
Speaker
music and monster trucks and football and football and car shows and music. It's a complicated puzzle. It is. Well, that was a good transition and this is maybe a good place to end it.
Seattle Rain Collaboration
00:52:23
Speaker
We've been hearing a lot about Seattle rain coming under the Sounders umbrella. It's still not official as of
00:52:31
Speaker
What is today? May 23rd. What is the status of that? And, you know, what? Yeah. Well, I guess what can you say about the rain sale?
00:52:47
Speaker
So, uh, uh, uh, as we announced, uh, we, we, we did sign the PSA that was quite some weeks ago. Um, months, months, probably. I guess I was adding lots of weeks up, hoping you wouldn't, hoping you wouldn't notice months.
00:53:07
Speaker
Um, uh, you know, we are, we're still in the closing period. We, we, you know, when we have something meaningful to announce, we will announce it. Um, I can say independent of that, um, I, some of the team here have been spending a lot of time, um, uh, with the rain, um, uh,
00:53:32
Speaker
Just getting to know that organization a little bit better. Trying to provide, again, independent of a transaction that is in process. Figuring out ways that we can collaborate. Can the Sounders help here? The Rain have some amazing people and ideas and methodologies.
00:53:59
Speaker
As a matter of fact, I think I can say this, you know, some of the there were a few rain players that did not travel on their recent road trip. They were out training with some of our Academy kids, like just making sure they got an extra, you know, session in. And so there there are some super cool opportunities to work together.
00:54:25
Speaker
We hope to have something more meaningful to announce in the coming weeks, not months.
00:54:34
Speaker
Okay. Cause he said weeks before and he met, we met. It was weeks before, but yes, you're right. It did translate into months. So anyway, now we're, we're, uh, um, I'm super excited about the rain. I, you know, again, another team. I mean, I've, I've either been to or watched all our games. Um.
00:54:57
Speaker
close, I mean, frustrating as well, you know, a ball bouncing one way or another, a penalty call here and there. And, and, you know, look back to the sounders and the, you know, again, frustration, but some hope. I mean, it's it is pretty easy for me to see. Given the season, another four to seven points that
00:55:27
Speaker
that were legit dropped or maybe a call didn't go our way. And I feel like I'm pretty balanced. I don't I don't look at any of our game. I don't see points that we gained unfairly or like, you know, so that's sometimes you're like, oh, well, we should have six points more. And you're like, yeah, I understand. We should have lost those six points because we didn't get a penalty. So and, you know, four or five points
00:55:55
Speaker
today for sitting on 1918, 1920, you know, it's a very different vibe. And so look, at some point in the season, all of this is going to be moot. Right. I mean, if we can't start collecting points, eventually you run out of time. I don't think we're there yet. We also.
00:56:21
Speaker
you know, we definitely have more home games sort of in this next, you know, at a certain point of stretch. Those will be really, really, really important games. So I imagine after that home stretch, we'll have a have a have a much better idea of
00:56:43
Speaker
You know where this end ends up. Maybe. Well, I mean yeah, as we're recording this all note that if you beat St. Louis on the weekend you would be in a playoff spot. So that's where we are in the season, the, you know, regardless of when this comes out that kind of colors.
00:57:01
Speaker
That's kind of a positive note to leave it on, Jeremiah. That's my intention. Wow. Amazing. And last night, we had an amazing fun win at Starfire. We'll do a whole episode next time on The Open Cup and Starfire. OK, fair enough.
00:57:18
Speaker
But Adrian, thank you so much for doing this. Again, this is an amazing facility. I think it's comforting, or I think it's worth reminding everyone that this is a passion for you, that this is something that you're deeply invested in, and that I really appreciate you sharing your thoughts, and hopefully the next time we talk, it's about drawing up parade routes or whatever.
00:57:45
Speaker
Sounds good. All right. Well, I'm Jeremiah Chan. This is Nos Arreitas, and we'll get you next time.
00:58:50
Speaker
We love you. Let's win another one!