Stadium vital to survival, secret Real papers detail

Real soccer needs a home stadium to stay afloat financially, according to team documents obtained Friday by the Deseret Morning News.

Whether a stadium should be publicly financed or not is still up for debate. Utah's Major League Soccer team has been losing millions since the team started in 2005, the documents show. Real Salt Lake lost roughly $3.4 million in 2005 and is estimated to lose $2.3 million this year and $1.9 million in 2007.

However, the estimates say the team will start turning a profit in 2008 if a proposed 22-acre stadium in Sandy is completed by then.

The nine-page document that Real gave the county details the team's actual and projected financial information from 2005 to 2015, as well as the estimated costs for the Sandy stadium. Real is threatening legal action against whoever leaked the document.

"We will not comment on a document obtained illegally, and we will pursue with full vigor every legal recourse against the person or persons who provided this proprietary information," said Real spokesman Tom Love.

Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon said he believes in keeping government's work transparent to the public, but he is disappointed the documents were leaked. County officials said they do not know the source of the leak.

Real is asking for roughly $45 million in public money to go toward land and infrastructure costs for building on the Sandy site. Under the team's plan, the county would chip in roughly $35 million from hotel room taxes and Sandy would contribute $10 million. The rest of the money for the $145 million project would come from private donors.

Officials in Sandy say the financial plans are fairly new to them as well. In addition to the stadium, an adjoining hotel and broadcast studio would be located at 9400 S. State.

Nick Duerksen, Sandy Community Development assistant director, said he could not address the negative financial returns that the documents show.

"They'd have to speak to that better than we could," he said. "We're operating from a standpoint that overall, it will be successful based on attendance records, based on what the president of MLS is telling us."

Team and Major League Soccer officials have said the team is not making a profit at its current playing grounds at the University of Utah's Rice-Eccles Stadium, where the team rents a home. The university keeps a large chunk of the revenues from concessions and merchandise sales.