In a professional sports league where teams and cities change as often as the players, the Baltimore Blast has been a constant.
So what happens if the four-time champion Blast cease operations, as suggested by team investor/operator Ed Hale at the prospect that the city may be without an arena for three to five years?
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“It would be a serious blow to the Major Indoor Soccer League,” MISL commissioner Steve Ryan told The Examiner Wednesday. “They’re a premium franchise. It’s like asking the New York Yankees to sit out for four years while they’re building their stadium.”
The Blast led the league in attendance last season despite a .500 record and missing out on the playoffs. Prior to last season, the Blast had won three of the last four MISL championships.
“I think it’s logical to build it on another site, and I think that’s what will happen,” Blast president/general manager Kevin Healey said.
Ryan admits that Baltimore needs a new arena and seems to agree with Hale’s assessment that the public might be best served by building the arena elsewhere, and not in the footprint of the current arena. Hale is proposing a 12,000- to 15,000-seat arena in Canton, just east of the Inner Harbor, on a 28-acre site between his 1st Mariner Bank headquarters and Interstate 95.
“[The current arena] footprint is not going to be able to hold the arena Baltimore deserves,” Ryan said, adding that the proposed razing and rebuilding at the current site “may disappoint everybody.”
Ryan gave his support for Hale?s proposed site and even added that the naming rights of the arena would gain significant value by simply moving it closer to I-95. And Ryan, who was previously an executive in the National Hockey League, suggested that Baltimore be more open-minded about the NHL and NBA.
Ryan applauded Hale?s efforts to bring premier events to Baltimore, including the Miss USA pageant and numerous concerts.
“Ed is our standing owner,” Ryan said. “He’s been in the game a long time, and he has the respect and the ear of the entire league and all the owners. He’s a very savvy businessman who has built multiple businesses successfully.”
