The 800-pound bull in the living room

In March of 2006 the entire landscape was again turned on its head when it was announced that Austrian energy drink manufacturer Red Bull had bought the team, changed its name, switched its colors and -- as part of the $100 million dollar purchase -- bought 50% of the stadium along with its naming rights.

Within due course the team's new General Manager resigned, and the fan's confused shock at the sale gave way to anger and resentment. Just as the team appeared to be reaching the finish line in Harrison, a company had come in nicked the glory of the achievement while ruining the team's history and lampooning its future in the process.

It took until today, though, for it to fully sink in to some fans that the Red Bull purchase actually closed the deal once and for all. In a statement that will likely go down in his personal history with considerable distinction for being both highly accurate and yet completely uncontroversial, then-GM Alexi Lalas disclosed earlier this year that it was because of the Red Bull cash infusion that the Harrison stadium deal was finally put to bed. In essence, the six year saga of this development still required a cash miracle to put shovels in the ground, and it was somehow found in an Austrian businessman and his company's desire to transform -- for better or worse -- the way sports and business came together. It was mentioned today that Red Bull will become the standard by which the success of all other MLS teams are judged. Can other teams, then, truly be called successful if their soccer team doesn't have, say... its own air force?

With new owners on board and money waiting to be spent, the stadium was re-designed. Moving away from the soccer specific "Pitch-and-a-stage" photocopy that became the Chicago and Dallas stadiums, a reconfiguring of seats and adding of a full roof created a truly European replica of a proper place to host a soccer game. To be sure, there will be plenty of alternative uses to reclaim as much revenue as possible, but this is to be the most soccer specific of the soccer specific stadiums MLS is touting in its bid to join "The Big Four" American professional team sports.

For those six years, the delays and broken promises of this stadium created clear visions in the mind of fans of what was wrong and who was to blame for the failings in Harrison. Yet, while watching the stage today as politicians and executives took turns dispensing and accepting credit for the project, as organizations and agencies and local governments jockeyed for accolades, it was the name on the stadium that came away from the press conference looking the most 'clean' in the process. Not only did Red Bull New York's Marc de Grandpre skip the chance others took to interject some boorish insults at the project's opponents, by coming so late to the process he was able to avoid being a part of the history of mud-slinging that has defined this project from its earliest days. Through speeches that ranged from banal to surreal, the one body that didn't have a hand in the delays was the last to join the process.

The company is surely there to build a stadium and make money doing it, perhaps even crassly so considering the team's new name. And, just as surely, it was the years of progress made by those on stage to get the project so close to completion. Yet the most singular fact to take away from the groundbreaking was that it took Red Bull six months to go from checkbook to shovels. It was impossible to sit there and not wonder had they not come into this project, would we still be watching those on the stage discuss funding delays and bond issuances? Property appraisal reviews. Confidential auditing reports. Parking deck usage projections and environmental studies. How much longer would we have spent being this close?