On Wednesday morning, FC Dallas formally announced the $39m development at Toyota Stadium. The National Soccer Hall of Fame was naturally the centerpiece, however there will also be new locker rooms, offices, event spaces and a deck overlooking the south end of the stadium. There has been a mixed reaction across the nation to the announcement. Here in the Metroplex, there are fans that are impressed with a renovated stadium, and others that may feel the rise in ticket prices was to pay for VIP seats and a bar. Elsewhere, there are soccer fans that resent Frisco being the new home for American soccer’s past, and many that are just happy that the collection will no longer reside in a locked storage unit somewhere in North Carolina.
The building, and city, are irrelevant. In England, the National Football Museum was established in Preston in 2001. For a decade, people debated whether the museum should move to London’s Wembley Stadium or another large city. Eventually the museum, and our own hall of fame, moved to Manchester. The argument for Preston was based on history. Preston North End being the first double-winners in England, with legends like Sir Tom Finney and Bill Shankly. That history is admirable but didn’t translate into commercial success for the museum. The same is true of the National Soccer Hall of Fame, but the key to these museums is people. The people they celebrate, the people that devote their time to sourcing and presenting memorabilia, and the people that come through the doors to immerse themselves in history. Frisco’s bid was based around people. The evolution of ‘Lamar’s Vision’ centers around the Hunt family honoring their father, and 1982 HoF inductee. If you’ve had the opportunity to speak to Dan or Clark, they have a wealth of knowledge for where the sport has come from, as much as where it is going. Talking to some of the dignitaries at the announcement, this was particularly a personal mission for Dan Hunt. Not only to further honor Lamar and American soccer as a whole, but also to bring the stadium his father built into the new MLS era.
Hank Steinbrecher, chairman of the Hall of Fame and an inductee from his time as a coach, Olympic venue director and USSF Secretary General, thanked the Hunt family for giving the hall of famers a new home. This wasn’t just bringing Lamar Hunt’s legacy home, this was for the proud history of American soccer long before MLS. The new hall will honor inductees like Pele, Mia Hamm, and our very own Fernando Clavijo, who was present in the resplendent red hall of fame blazer.
“It means a lot,” Clavijo remarked. “It means a lot because you achieve goals throughout your career and it’s a very unique place, a hall of fame, for a retired player. Really, we were all disappointed with the last hall of fame in Oneonta. It’s a special place here, and Oneonta was far away. How many times can you say it’s happened to people, working in a place where the hall of fame is outside your window? I’m glad for Lamar Hunt’s vision, and that vision has resulted in bringing it back to his home. It’s a great thing for Clark and Dan to do. To go to the hall of fame and see something I was a part of is going to be very unique. Maybe in 30 or 40 years time, my grandchildren will come and see it in the place where I worked.”
It was ultimately the Hunts’ enthusiasm and passion that brought the hall to Frisco. US Soccer CEO, Dan Flynn, explains the reasons behind the winning bid.
“The Hunt family, and the legacy, should not be taken lightly. Beyond that, they were willing to move faster, and the breadth and scope of the project, the amount of space. One thing we learned in Oneonta was that it was isolated,” Flynn explained. “We felt combining it in a stadium gave it greater value frankly, and nobody else had that same concept.”
I asked Flynn’s take on the critics who point out the relative lack of history in the Metroplex.
“I can answer that on a professional level, and a personal level growing up in St. Louis. There’s a long history of soccer in St. Louis. I played for St. Louis U, who won ten championships, and on and on and on. I played for the last championship team, I’m always reminded it was 45 years ago! In this kind of example, you can draw the line and look back, or you can look forward. We thought the greatest value was in moving forward and embracing our past. You can embrace the past no matter what location you’re at.”
Speaking to Dan Flynn, it could not be more obvious the rapport that Dan Hunt had built with he, Sunil Gulati and US Soccer as a whole. The younger Hunt is sometimes criticized as not being a powerful speaker in press conferences, but his words and passion clearly resonate within US Soccer’s Chicago headquarters. Flynn repeatedly referred to Hunt as Danny, and fondly spoke of Hunt’s enthusiasm from numerous meetings they had attended. If you saw the stream from The River Club, you saw professional Dan and Clark, I was lucky enough to speak to Dan Hunt one-on-one and see the passionate soccer fan rather than the FC Dallas President. This is the passion that grew watching the United States play in World Cups with his father and brother, and what will have bowled over the decision-makers for the hall of fame.
“This was an emotional thing,” Dan Hunt said. “We started working on this 14 months ago. Before this, I would talk to Dan Flynn and Sunil Gulati at US Soccer about the need to get the Hall of Fame going. Obviously you don’t want a place that has honored your father to be closed, so I kind of pestered them, if you will. When I got enough momentum on this, it was about 14 months ago and US Soccer was there to support us. We started visiting with the city manager [George Purefoy] and mayor [Maher Maso] to make this happen. Emotionally this has a very special place in my heart and I’m glad we’re going to do this, but it’s not just about my Dad. Hank Steinbrecher is here. We have Fernando Clavijo on staff. These guys need to have a place where they’re honored, when they’ve given everything they can to the game of soccer. I think it’s terrific that we’re bringing it back to life, and I think we’re bringing it back in a way I don’t think any other major sport has done. None of the other halls of fame are built into an active stadium and I think it’s going to be really successful. I get asked about it a lot, and see a lot of comments, but it will be a hall of fame on off days. On game days, it’ll be an area for people that have seating in the south end, club seats, or have suites, to enjoy, but it will be open after games. I think it’s going to create an unbelievable place for fans to congregate after matches. I’m excited about what this is going to do for FC Dallas.”
Again, Dan Hunt spoke of VIP seats and suites in the press conference, but he was more focused on providing the fans, as a whole, something that will make Toyota Stadium even more special.
“The south end has been a bit of a challenge for us, for several different reasons. This is going to fix that challenge. It’s going to have a brand new roofing structure over it, which is going to be incredible, and I promise you that the deck on the south end of the stadium is going to be one of the coolest spots to hang out in any stadium. We designed an incredible bar and multiple concession stands. It’s going to be a rocking place to hang out. Once we have that, the big hope is that the north and south ends can play off each other.” Said Hunt before further elaborating on the south side. “The club space, which is 24,000 sq ft, the deck of 7,000 sq ft, these are two of the largest luxury cool features, not just of any soccer stadium but of any sports stadium in North America. Not many have a bigger club or party deck, maybe one or two baseball stadiums from our research. These are going to be incredible features that our fans are going to be really proud of.”
A further added benefit is what this can bring to Toyota Stadium. The 2018 MLS All-Star Game would not be unthinkable, as it would be the first year without a new stadium to host. I asked Dan Flynn about the possibility of the NSCAA conference and accompanying MLS SuperDraft, to which he said he’d recently discussed the possibilities with the NSCAA Executive Director. Lastly, big games. The current locker rooms involve a walk up two flights of stairs, and aren’t enormous compared to newer facilities. I asked Flynn directly if that means a better chance of Toyota Stadium securing national team games.
“Yeah it does. I wouldn’t say it [the stairs] is a key reason, we’ve played a lot of games here. It really helps if we want to do double-headers. It was a little bit restricted before, now it just opens up opportunities. There are also two tunnels, which is very different than what they’ve had here before. In fact, Danny [Hunt], we were at a meeting last week, and he talked about the number of steps to get from the locker room to the field versus the new locker room to the field, and it’s one-third as many. That does play with players’ minds a little. In the design, not only in the hall of fame, they did a lot of good things for players, fans, everybody. The roof, the whole bit, so we’re able to do a lot of things and wrap it into one big project.”
Flynn mentioned the Poconos in Pennsylvania as another bid that was presented. This would face the same challenges as Oneonta, given that it would have been 100 miles from a major city in a location that would be at the mercy of the weather for a portion of the year. An owner of a west coast team came in with a bid after Frisco was given exclusivity, but that didn’t sound like a worthwhile proposal either. Frisco offers the fourth largest metropolitan area in the United States, just 20 minutes drive from Dallas, and a 25 minute drive to the world’s third busiest airport. As far as soccer history, DFW is a regular host for the CONCACAF Gold Cup, and has hosted a FIFA World Cup. Has any other city in the world had a team conduct a world tour as the Dallas Tornado did? There is a history to embrace, but with the success of the FC Dallas academy system, the Dallas Cup, and the growth of the non-MLS leagues, the future of the game is set to prosper in this area. As Flynn said, moving forward whilst embracing the past offers greater value, and that is what North Texas can offer.
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