Goodbye Real Salt Lake. Hello Real Utah?

Developers of the former Geneva Steel site want to buy the imperiled Major League Soccer team, rename it and move it to Utah County. The team's current owner has threatened to sell Real Salt Lake and move it out of state by Aug. 12 if a soccer-specific stadium-funding plan isn't hammered out by then.

Real owner Dave Checketts is scheduled to meet with the developers later this week about the possibility of selling the team, said Michael Hutchings, co-owner of Anderson Geneva, a development company that purchased the Geneva Steel site for $46.8 million last November. Anderson Geneva is an affiliate of Sandy-based Anderson Development LLC.

"We're serious about buying the team," Hutchings said Monday. "If he's going to take it some place, we're saying, 'Wait a minute. Wait — don't do that. Let's sit down and talk about a purchase of the team.'"

Real CEO Dean Howes declined to comment on the possible sale, saying he hadn't heard of Anderson Geneva's intention to buy the team.

The team is in a time crunch because Checketts imposed an Aug. 12 deadline to hammer out details on an in-state stadium or sell the team to the highest bidder.

Last week, the Salt Lake County Council rejected a plan to give the team $30 million in hotel-tax money to help build a stadium. Since then, offers have come from Rochester, N.Y., and St. Louis to purchase the team, and at least three other Utah locations have pitched plans to keep the team in Utah.

"We have always focused on the 12th being the day we were supposed to do our groundbreaking," Howes told the Deseret Morning News on Friday. "We've got that day in our mind. If we don't have some kind of direction then, we need to take a harder look at alternatives."

Anderson Geneva made its pitch to buy the team and offer a stadium site after reading news reports that Checketts might sell the team to an out-of-state investor if a stadium deal isn't arranged by his deadline.

Even if Checketts keeps the team, Utah County could be the new home of Real Salt Lake — or possibly Real Utah. Anderson Geneva has offered up to 30 acres of free land to build a stadium on the grounds of the old Geneva Steel plant.

"I think we're making an offer to Dave Checketts that he's going to have a hard time refusing," Hutchings said.

The land is in Vineyard, a 150-resident town west of Orem.

It's the kind of place where alfalfa fields and wood pole fences are more common than buildings and old rusting plows and tractors serve as lawn art in front of the few houses dotting the otherwise open land.

Folks in Vineyard have mixed emotions when it comes to the possibility of building a major sports arena in their town.