2 sites in play for new venue
Stadium would host minor league club
If Baltimore ever does add an outdoor pro soccer team, the club might make their home a couple of miles south of downtown.
The state’s Department of Commerce recently requested the Maryland Stadium Authority study two city-owned sites — Carroll Park and Swann Park — for a potential stadium that would hold between 7,500 and 10,000 spectators and host an MLS Next Pro team, a men’s minor league club that would feed to MLS side D.C. United.
There is no guarantee that this study will result in a soccer stadium or a pro team but it demonstrates interest, in the form of dollars, from relevant parties. The study, which will take about a year, costs $450,000, with D.C. United paying half, the Department of Commerce paying $100,000, the City of Baltimore paying $100,000 and the stadium authority chipping in $25,000. The result will be a report that stakeholders, such as the soccer club and government authorities, can use to decide if they’ll invest in a stadium.
The venue might also host a top-flight women’s pro club.
Florida-based Crossroads Consulting filed a December report to the stadium authority analyzing potential stadium sites, stating that a “women’s professional soccer league represents another potential tenant for the proposed multiuse soccer stadium.” D.C. United, who the stadium authority has said would be the “primary operator” of the proposed venue, recently partnered with the USL Super League, a new women’s soccer league set to launch later this year.
A news release last month from the Super League noted that a Washington club is among the eight teams set to begin play in August and that it will “add another exciting chapter to the region.” The league has not yet said where that team will play.
The Super League, whose season spans from fall to summer, recently received Division One sanctioning from the U.S. Soccer Federation, meaning it will join the decade-old National Women’s Soccer League atop the country’s pro soccer ladder.
Danita Johnson, D.C. United’s President of Business Operations, said in a statement to The Baltimore Sun that the club wants to be a part of “Baltimore’s renaissance” and that D.C. United is “confident that professional soccer will flourish in Baltimore and positively impact the community.”
“Baltimore has established a nationally recognized tradition and passion for soccer,” she stated. “We believe that we can enhance Baltimore’s soccer reputation and expose the world’s sport to more Baltimore youth by providing them with new opportunities. We
Madubuike has improved each of his first four years and has an affinity for Baltimore, but whether he remains there beyond next season or prefers to seek a more lucrative deal elsewhere remains to be seen.
“In terms of Baltimore, man, that’s home,” he said at the Pro Bowl last month. “But, you know, business is business, and that side is going to take care of itself.”
Madubuike is coming off a breakout season in which he led all NFL interior linemen with a career-high 13 sacks, part of the Ravens’ leaguebest 60 for the season.
His 13 sacks also tied a franchise single-season record for a defensive tackle, and he became the first Raven to record double-digit sacks in a season since Terrell Suggs in 2017. Madubuike’s streak of 11 straight games with at least half a sack tied the NFL’s single-season record, and Baltimore became the first team in the modern era to lead the league in sacks, takeaways and points allowed per game.
It’s just the second time the Ravens have used the franchise tag on a defensive tackle — the last was in 2011 on Haloti Ngata, who later agreed to a five-year extension — and it’s the 11th time in team history they have used the tag. Six of the previous eight players eventually
reached long-term deals with the team.
Baltimore also used the nonexclusive tag on quarterback Lamar Jackson last March before signing him to a five-year, $260 million deal in April. Madubuike’s next contract is projected to be $92 million over four years, according to Pro Football Focus.
Using the tag on Madubuike this season does limit the Ravens’ salary cap flexibility this offseason, particularly with more than 20 of their players due to hit the open market when free agency begins
next week. But securing Madubuike was the organization’s biggest priority after he was a consistently disruptive force who helped the Ravens to an NFL-best 13-4 record last season and an appearance in the AFC championship game.
In addition to his sack total, Madubuike had 64 quarterback pressures last season, according to Next Gen Stats, which tied for the second most of any Ravens player since 2016 and were behind only outside linebacker and pending free agent Jadeveon Clowney last season. Madubuike was
selected to his first Pro Bowl and named second-team All-Pro after finishing with 56 tackles, including 12 for loss, and 33 quarterback hits.
Bringing back the 2020 third-round draft pick out of Texas A&M also gives the Ravens an All-Pro caliber player at every level of their defense, along with inside linebacker Roquan Smith and safety Kyle Hamilton, and a $30 million increase in the NFL’s salary cap to $255.4 million in 2024 should help when it comes to bringing back at least some of their other pending free agents.
But it also means the Ravens will have to undergo cost-cutting elsewhere on their roster.
Before issuing the franchise tag, the Ravens had only about $12 million in salary cap space, according to Over The Cap, and they’ll need to be cap compliant by the time the new league year begins March 13. There are several ways they can get under the salary cap, including restructuring the contracts of Jackson, Smith and others.
That’s just the start of it. Baltimore can create even more cap space — something it’ll need to do with a draft class that’ll require about $15 million, plus several other holes, including at running back, that will need to be accounted for in free agency — by getting left tackle Ronnie Stanley to agree to a pay cut. His $26.2 million cap hit is second to only Jackson’s, a prohibitively big number for a player who struggled with injury for a second straight year and was not close to one of the best tackles in the game as his contract would suggest.
Among other possibilities to free up more money could include releasing fullback Patrick Ricard, which would create $4 million in cap space, and outside linebacker Tyus Bowser ($5.5 million), who played just nine games in 2022 and missed all of 2023 with a knee injury.
And even if an extension with a cap-friendly number does come to fruition for Madubuike by the mid-July deadline, the Ravens will still have a difficult time keeping at least some of the players they’d like to, most notably inside linebacker Patrick Queen, who was second on the team with a career-high 133 tackles and was selected to his first Pro Bowl. Tough choices will need to be made across the roster.
But all of those are decisions that will come over the next week and beyond. Tagging Madubuike was just the first step.