All right, Mark. So, I just teased this to the crowd, but you were part of the group that was advocating to bring the World Cup here. Why do you think we didn't get it?
Well, yeah, first of all, great to see everyone. This is an amazing venue. Thank you, Axios. Um and uh I heard a rousing round of applause led by my two children over there, 7 and 10. So, thank you guys for leading that. Um
Well, I know why we didn't get it. As you said, I was co-chair of the effort to bring a World Cup game to DC after it had been awarded North America, and we didn't get it cuz we didn't have a stadium. Our current stadium in PG County was at the end of its life. It wasn't FIFA compliant. No one was going to invest in it. This was before we took over the Commanders.
Um and so, FIFA made us bid with Baltimore. But, the shame of it, Sarah, is that um the plan was to have the national fan festival in Washington, D.C. The main fan festival for the World Cup next year is going to be here. Three teams were going to be based here, play practice games here, and all of that was lost cuz we didn't have a stadium. And it's very unusual for the capital of a nation not to get a game. And uh we got to make sure that doesn't happen again.
Totally. Would you say that's why we didn't get the Olympics in '24?
I think that was part of it. I mean, again, we were one of the four finalists. It was Boston, San Francisco, LA, and us. It originally went to Boston, and it went to LA. It was a bit about facilities. I think there were other issues there, too, but certainly having a world-class stadium would be really helpful.
So, clearly you're an advocate for bringing the Commanders here into Washington, D.C. Uh the city council is supposed to be voting about that on July 15th. Um if they don't vote, if they push the vote, or they vote against it, like what would you say is the plan B?
We're not talking about politics here. We're talking about F1 and other things. So, I honestly can't, I'm not going to comment on that. Look, I think we have made a really compelling case for this. And what's interesting is again, obviously having an NFL team in your city matters a lot. It drives a lot of economic activity. Uniquely, Washington, like we were talking about the World Cup and the Olympics, is one of the great cities in the world to host events, but you need to have a venue. Like, you need to have a venue for it. And so, when they had the press conference, Roger Goodell, there's no promises, but he talked about you certainly will be under consideration for Super Bowls. We're bringing the draft here. That will be a million people will come for that. When we took over the team, we tried really hard. I was like, short of winning a Super Bowl, the biggest thing we could do is get Taylor Swift to come to Washington, D.C. And she wouldn't play our current stadium for a variety of reasons. Um, but certainly when that happens the next time, you're going to be in line for that. And then talking about the World Cup in 2031, the Women's World Cup is in America again. And again, no one's making any promises. I would think if we have a world-class facility, we're going to be in line to not just host games, but maybe host important games for that.
For a stadium like the Commanders, for something that size, it's not just about building the stadium, but I imagine it would be very similar experience to what Snyder went through with D.C. United in building out the infrastructure, the restaurants, housing. Do you expect this neighborhood to completely flip, or do you think it will be sort of like what RFK was, which is just a stadium and then the outlying neighborhood remains sort of uninvested?
It definitely will not be the latter. The plan is completely for it to be the former. And I think what's in, first of all, the master plan anticipates all of that. It also incorporates 30% open space and park space and space by the river, but then there's a whole master plan that includes housing of all levels, entertainment, all of that. And the world's changed a lot in the 30 years since RFK was there. This is the modern stadium experience. But the other thing about Washington, D.C. that we uniquely have is we have three examples of three stadiums that were built that transformed three communities. When I moved back to Washington in '92, I lived at Market Square at 7th and Pennsylvania. There was no Capital One Arena. There was the red light district. I mean, people who were here, I see Larry Irving nodding his head. We remember what it was like down there. Capital One came in and literally completely opened the East End of Washington. Then the Nationals come. I remember what that was like. That was an industrial area. And now when you go down the freeway and you look to the right, it's the most extraordinary amount of new building. And then I'm very intimately familiar with D.C. United cuz I actually owned the land under where the D.C. United stadium was. It was a junkyard and a warehouse that hosted City Bikes. And I owned it. And I thought, this is going to take, this is incredible real estate. But my kids, who weren't even born at the time, someday they're going to get the benefit of the decision that I made. And all of a sudden they said, "No, let's build a soccer stadium here." There was an old Pepco plant, coal-fired power plant that literally sounded like you were on the runway at Reagan when it was used seven times a year. And a really unused piece of real estate. The soccer stadium was built and you can see how that's been transformed. We have three examples of that. For sure that's what will happen if RFK goes through.
So, let's pivot now to something that is a passion of yours, which is tennis. You have a big sort of invested interest in the Rock Creek Park Tennis Center getting renovated. Um I think that a lot of people agree with you. But the question becomes, and by the way, you own a tennis tournament that plays there. Um the question becomes who does that burden fall on? Does that, you know, the National Park Service? Is it you? Is it the D.C. government? Like who should be responsible for planning and paying for that renovation?
Yeah, honestly, we're so far from that conversation. We have no idea. The basic thing is this tournament is next month and it's the Mubadala City DC Open. It's been part of our community since 1969.
And what's interesting, the tournament was founded by a couple gentlemen in Washington including Donald Dell, a sort of iconic guy, and Arthur Ashe was one of his clients. And he said, "Arthur, I want to bring pro tennis to Washington. Will you be part of it?" And Arthur said, "I will be part of the tournament if you put it in a public facility in a public park." Because in 1969, every tennis tournament including the US Open was at private clubs. And Arthur, that was not his vision. And so the reason that tournament is where it is in Rock Creek Park is cuz Arthur Ashe made it a condition of being involved in the tournament. And so the tournament was put there in 1969.
When I was a little boy, I was a ball kid at that tournament. And it was on clay and there were bleachers. And it was the highlight of my youth going there, being close to the players. Obviously, I thought everyone in the stands was watching me, not the players playing tennis. But of course, and it's been part of my whole life just like it has been for hundreds of thousands of Washingtonians. And if you go there today, in 1989,
WTTF, Washington Tennis & Education Foundation, privately raised the money to build a stadium, gave it to the National Park Service on the condition they would maintain it. If you go there today, you will see the maintaining part hasn't worked out so well. They don't have a lot of money. This isn't a priority. And so if you go to the facility, forget about the tournament, which is one week here. The other 51 weeks of the year, this is a jewel of a facility in the middle of our nation's capital. People use it, but you can just go see it and you'll see there is a need at some point to figure out how we get that in shape. Not just that it's nice, but it should be a jewel for our community 52 weeks of the year.
