Initially, downtown Salt Lake City and Murray were the strongest contenders for the stadium. Then, Sandy offered $20 million for the stadium, money that had been set aside for a parking structure at its Expo Center that drastically strengthens Sandy's late-to-the-game bid for the stadium. That move angered Salt Lake City, which had contributed $8 million to the same fund from which Sandy drew its $20 million for the Salt Palace expansion and Expo Center parking structure.

Now, Salt Lake City is trying to revive its bid for the stadium, which it first wanted at 600 South and Main Street, with the possibility of putting the stadium at the Utah State Fairpark.

The team wants a smaller, soccer-specific stadium, but that could cost up to $60 million. The team wants free land and $30 million in public funding, which it had hoped to get through an as-yet unscheduled bond election.

"We know that wherever we go that's where we'll be for the next 35 years or so," Fitz-Gerald said. "A suburban stadium site means that we could build 20 training fields around it, which is something that we couldn't do in downtown Salt Lake City because of land costs and available space."

A Deseret Morning News poll in November — before Sandy expressed its interest in the stadium — showed 22 percent of respondents favored Murray for the stadium site, 15 percent preferred downtown Salt Lake City and 37 percent didn't know where they wanted the stadium. Eight percent wanted the stadium in West Valley City or Magna, and 4 percent wanted the stadium in the southern part of the Salt Lake Valley. Dan Jones and Associates polled 313 people from Nov. 29-30.

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E-mail: kswinyard@desnews.com