FC Dallas Owner Wants Rangers Popularity for Team

FC Dallas owner Clark Hunt said today that he hoped the MLS second-placers would gain the same kind of popularity in the area that the Texas Rangers, Dallas Mavericks and Dallas Stars enjoy (noticeably absent from the discussion was the Dallas Cowboys).

Watching the game last night, I couldn’t help but notice the sparse crowd watching the Cup final – held in neutral ground in Toronto.  And I wondered aloud if perhaps the MLS (and, by extension, FC Dallas) wouldn’t be more popular if the final game was held in at least a reasonable proximity to the teams playing. If, for instance, home-field advantage was awarded to the favored team, would more people attend? In this case, it would mean the game would’ve been played in Frisco. Would FC Dallas fans and bandwagoners have filled the stands? Would Colorado fans have traveled?

Leading Off (11/22/10)

1. Today is November 22, 2010, and 47 years after the Kennedy Assassination, the Atlantic wonders, “what do we really know?” We know a little more than we used to since the secret service officers on the Kennedy detail have broken their silence, including Clint Hill, who was on the running board of the presidential limousine on that fateful day. But this Longview man’s perspective, born just 22 days after the assassination, is more like our own. And so, nearly fifty years on, the Sixth Floor Museum finds itself “changing from memory to history.” Not that there aren’t new controversies in Dealey Plaza, namely the status of the guides who retell that history. Dealey Plaza, it turns out, is “too small” to contain a history so large. (in Dallas?) Part of the largeness of the day was the mini-visual revolution sparked by Zapruder’s immortal 8mm YouTube video. We’ve all seen the film, but there are also, of course, many, many books on the Kennedy assassination – here are eleven. And here are the top ten conspiracy theories. And here are the stories of the other ten presidents who were targeted by assassins. And finally, don’t forget, tonight The Texas Theatre is screening Virtual JFK and a short print of War is Hell, the film that was playing in the Texas Theatre when Oswald was arrested there 47 years ago.

2. Should religiously-affiliated charter schools receive state funds?

3. Dallas has its second championship runner-up of 2010: FC Dallas lost the MLS Cup last night in overtime, and heartbreakingly, the loss came on an own goal.