College Cup in Portland

With PGE Park being updated as a MLS soccer stadium, I'd really like to see UP bid to host both the men & women's championships on back to back weekends at PGE Park in the future, creating a College Baseball World Series flavor to the event. With the idea of Portland becoming the permanent home for these championship games if everything worked out.

PGE Park will be a great venue with plenty of capacity. Strong UP fan base plus spillover from the Timbers and youth programs should result in good attendance.

I think bidding for both the men & women's championships is the way to go to make this an event that matters to people in Portland, gives Portland some good PR, and provides some great atmosphere for college soccer (players feel special, good location for coaches meetings & youth exhibitions, ESPN coverage increase, etc) as Omaha does for college baseball at the CWS.

A bid from UP/Timbers/Portland would seem to be a very strong proposal. Thoughts? Ideas on how to engage the UP leadership on this idea?

The big issue is that PGE isn't a grass field. The selection process is supposed to show preferences for grass, so if someone else has a comparable bid and a grass field, they win.

That may change with better turf being manufactured, but just as with the World cup and Uefa cups, it would be ground breaking.

I just don't see it happening right now.

I can't imagine another bid that would be anywhere near as good as this one... but if grass was really an issue, the new stadium is suppose to be able to put sod down (so Portland can host FIFA events). It would cost more money, but is suppose to be very doable.

Also, there is the rule that a majority of the host institution's (in this case PSU or UP) home matches must have been held at the venue. As far as a grass pitch, hosting an EPL club and selling 20,000 tickets at $50 each would pay for the sod, install, and teardown. I'd wager that the College Cups wouldn't come close. Then there's the weather. I admit in early December there's a good chance of no rain and decent (in the 40s) temps, but it isn't exactly Florida, California, or Texas. And there's also stadium size, and . . .

College Cup in Portland is a great dream. Rules change. Stadiums change. Global warming might raise the average December temperature.