The Crew's potential new ownership group would have myriad details to work on ahead of '19CREW
Columbus Partnership CEO Alex Fischer is "hesitant to name any deadlines" for his group to purchase the Crew along with Browns co-Owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam and Columbus' Edwards family, according to Andrew Erickson of the COLUMBUS DISPATCH. MLS announced earlier this month that the prospective ownership group had made "significant progress" toward securing the Crew's future in Columbus. As the group "works through the final steps to push a deal across the finish line," it knows the '19 MLS season is "looming." However, the group also "can't rush toward arbitrary deadlines, especially with an ownership group that formed only recently." Fischer said, "It has only been a week that we've known definitively that we've got an ownership group that came together that has been approved by the league to do this transaction. It's now all hands on deck with MLS and the ownership group to think through a myriad of details." Erickson noted one such detail "pertains to the Crew's long-term home," as Mapfre Stadium "continues to age" and the team's lease at the venue expires in '23. Fischer said that no final decisions "have been made" this early in the prospective ownership group's existence. Fisher added that others were "interested in the possibility of joining" the prospective ownership group (COLUMBUS DISPATCH, 10/24).
