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Sacramento, Las Vegas and Minneapolis Fight for an MLS Team expansion

Started by bing101, December 03, 2014, 10:58:59 AM

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bing101

http://www.capradio.org/articles/2014/12/02/sac-republic-fc-push-for-bonney-field-expansion/

http://www.si.com/soccer/planet-futbol/2014/11/26/mls-expansion-minneapolis-las-vegas-sacramento-don-garber

Sacramento is an interesting choice for an MLS team. Well also according to the article by Sports illustrated The San Jose Earthquakes will oppose the move for ticket sales reasons at Levi's stadium.


DandyDan

I didn't know they had any more expansion teams to offer, because I thought when they killed off Chivas USA, they just decided to add another team to LA.  As if they deserve another team. 

If Minneapolis gets a team, I would hope they name it the Minnesota Kicks (or the Strikers), in honor of the NASL teams that played there.
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Henry

Quote from: DandyDan on December 03, 2014, 07:33:56 PM
If Minneapolis gets a team, I would hope they name it the Minnesota Kicks (or the Strikers), in honor of the NASL teams that played there.
I like the sound of that!
Go Cubs Go! Go Cubs Go! Hey Chicago, what do you say? The Cubs are gonna win today!

OCGuy81

It'd be interesting to see if Vegas can support a professional franchise.  There has been talk of it numerous times from the NBA to the NFL, but I don't see it happening.  More of a place to go and play, not catch a sporting event.

c172

Quote from: DandyDan on December 03, 2014, 07:33:56 PM
I didn't know they had any more expansion teams to offer, because I thought when they killed off Chivas USA, they just decided to add another team to LA.  As if they deserve another team. 

If Minneapolis gets a team, I would hope they name it the Minnesota Kicks (or the Strikers), in honor of the NASL teams that played there.

The L.A. team, at least provisionally called "LAFC", will start in 2017. As far as the Minnesota situation, there were apparently two groups in the running for that: the current Minnesota United FC of the second-tier NASL, and a group led by some Vikings owners or some such. Not sure if they'd have resurrected one of the old NASL I monikers like you had suggested.

As a former Sac State student, I'm very happy Sacramento Republic FC has gotten off the ground in the USL. I was a bit surprised they were chasing an MLS berth so hard, but I imagine they can do it.

texaskdog

Quote from: DandyDan on December 03, 2014, 07:33:56 PM
I didn't know they had any more expansion teams to offer, because I thought when they killed off Chivas USA, they just decided to add another team to LA.  As if they deserve another team. 

If Minneapolis gets a team, I would hope they name it the Minnesota Kicks (or the Strikers), in honor of the NASL teams that played there.

and not FC FC FC

c172

Agreed! lol

I've been following the Sounders since about 1995; I think they were A-League back then. They went all those years without an "FC", and then Drew Carey and his ownership group comes in, and boom, "Seattle Sounders FC", or "Sounders FC" for short (personally, I hate how "FC" is left on for the short form of Sounders, as well as the Timbers and Whitecaps, and now countless lower league teams, including the aforementioned Minnesota United FC).

ET21

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MN: I-90

c172


Desert Man

Update: Minneapolis-St. Paul was granted a MLS team, but no word on Sacramento or Las Vegas. They had semi-pro teams: the Sacramento Republic FC; and in the 1990s, the Las Vegas Dustdevils in an indoor soccer league. Surprisingly, Tulsa OK was a candidate for a MLS team, but they weren't granted the franchise. The MLS expands to 28 teams with a new one in L.A. to replace the folded Chivas USA and new ones in New York (not the Red Bulls), Orlando, and soon in Atlanta.   
Get your kicks...on Route 99! Like to turn 66 upside down. The other historic Main street of America.

Desert Man

My Major League Soccer alignment...24 teams (4 expansion), but expected to grow further in the decade.
EASTERN (no divisions for some reason)
Atlanta, Chicago, Columbus, DC (Washington), Miami (debut 2018), Montreal, New England, New York, New York Red Bulls, Orlando, Philadelphia, Toronto.
WESTERN (same as above)
Colorado, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, LA Galaxy, Los Angeles, Minnesota, Portland, Salt Lake, San Jose, Seattle, Vancouver.
Possible expansion sites (they have pro soccer teams not in MLS): Charleston SC (known for their Battery team), Metro Detroit (they had the Neon and Safari teams) and Tampa-St. Petersburg (known for their Rowdies team and the MLS Mutiny) in Eastern, and Las Vegas, Sacramento and Tulsa in Western.
Get your kicks...on Route 99! Like to turn 66 upside down. The other historic Main street of America.

dvferyance

Please not Sacramento. There is way too much sports in California and the bay area already has a team. The few MLS fans that live there can just drive in hour west and see professional soccer in San Jose.

Bruce

Sacramento is quite far from San Jose, and an hour is not feasible in most traffic conditions. Sacramento is also a pretty large media market on its own and has an existing and successful lower-league team.

I say give them a team. They're leagues ahead of Miami and Las Vegas in having existing support.

coatimundi

Sacramento can barely support the Kings, I don't see why there's a perception that MLS would help 180 sports in that city. I mean, I like Sac, but it is not a sports town. Sports just provide a venue for local corporate employee appreciation events. As soon as the Kings have a decent season, they're probably gone.

DTComposer

Quote from: dvferyance on December 15, 2016, 01:53:03 PM
Please not Sacramento. There is way too much sports in California and the bay area already has a team. The few MLS fans that live there can just drive in hour west and see professional soccer in San Jose.

First, San Jose and Sacramento are 120 miles apart. Factor in traffic and it's a two-hour-plus drive.

Second, since you made a similar comment in another thread, what's your basis for saying California has too many teams? The data doesn't back you up: California has four of the 25 largest markets - so based on numbers alone, if a league has 30-32 teams, California should have four of them - and indeed, between the big four leagues, California has 16 teams.

Quote from: coatimundi on December 17, 2016, 02:12:45 AM
As soon as the Kings have a decent season, they're probably gone.

Were you around in the early 2000s when the Kings were one of the best (no rings notwithstanding) and most exciting teams in the league? Sacramento was a great basketball city then, but over a decade of mediocrity (at best) has soured the mood - if they had been even mildly competitive during the last ten years, you'd still see tremendous fan support. For comparison, it's easy to say a new (but much smaller) market like Oklahoma City is a "better" sports town, but they had the novelty of their first team, and then a very competitive product on the floor (with a couple of superstars) for several years. Put the Thunder through ten years like the Kings have had and see what the atmosphere is like.

Alps

Quote from: DTComposer on December 17, 2016, 03:13:17 AM
Quote from: dvferyance on December 15, 2016, 01:53:03 PM
Please not Sacramento. There is way too much sports in California and the bay area already has a team. The few MLS fans that live there can just drive in hour west and see professional soccer in San Jose.

First, San Jose and Sacramento are 120 miles apart. Factor in traffic and it's a two-hour-plus drive.

Second, since you made a similar comment in another thread, what's your basis for saying California has too many teams? The data doesn't back you up: California has four of the 25 largest markets - so based on numbers alone, if a league has 30-32 teams, California should have four of them - and indeed, between the big four leagues, California has 16 teams.

Quote from: coatimundi on December 17, 2016, 02:12:45 AM
As soon as the Kings have a decent season, they're probably gone.

Were you around in the early 2000s when the Kings were one of the best (no rings notwithstanding) and most exciting teams in the league? Sacramento was a great basketball city then, but over a decade of mediocrity (at best) has soured the mood - if they had been even mildly competitive during the last ten years, you'd still see tremendous fan support. For comparison, it's easy to say a new (but much smaller) market like Oklahoma City is a "better" sports town, but they had the novelty of their first team, and then a very competitive product on the floor (with a couple of superstars) for several years. Put the Thunder through ten years like the Kings have had and see what the atmosphere is like.
Website I visited put San Diego at 28, not that that changes your point. I'm waiting for Texas to get its fair share of teams.

coatimundi

Quote from: DTComposer on December 17, 2016, 03:13:17 AM
Quote from: dvferyance on December 15, 2016, 01:53:03 PM
Please not Sacramento. There is way too much sports in California and the bay area already has a team. The few MLS fans that live there can just drive in hour west and see professional soccer in San Jose.

First, San Jose and Sacramento are 120 miles apart. Factor in traffic and it's a two-hour-plus drive.

Totally agree with you. No one is driving from Sac to San Jose to see an Earthquakes game. Giants or 49ers, maybe. It's easy to look at the cities on a map and think that they're connected, but actually driving and being familiar with I-80 between Oakland and Sacramento, you would understand why it takes a lot more to get people into the Bay Area from there.

Quote from: DTComposer on December 17, 2016, 03:13:17 AM
Quote from: coatimundi on December 17, 2016, 02:12:45 AM
As soon as the Kings have a decent season, they're probably gone.

Were you around in the early 2000s when the Kings were one of the best (no rings notwithstanding) and most exciting teams in the league? Sacramento was a great basketball city then, but over a decade of mediocrity (at best) has soured the mood - if they had been even mildly competitive during the last ten years, you'd still see tremendous fan support. For comparison, it's easy to say a new (but much smaller) market like Oklahoma City is a "better" sports town, but they had the novelty of their first team, and then a very competitive product on the floor (with a couple of superstars) for several years. Put the Thunder through ten years like the Kings have had and see what the atmosphere is like.

I would bring up OKC as an example as well. I think you're going to see exactly what happened in Sacramento happen there now that Kevin Durant is gone. The novelty is going to wear off when they start losing. Same thing happened in Charlotte, and I think Memphis will go the same way in a few more years. In terms of smaller cities with the only pro team an NBA franchise, Salt Lake is the big exception, but there's such a large regional population there with no competing teams and a demographic that's open to basketball and willing to pay for it.

I definitely remember when the Kings were good and how excited Sacramento was to have a winning basketball team. But it comes down to support through the hard times, and Sac has already failed that test. I was genuinely surprised when they finally settled the arena issue. I always thought Seattle was a little bit of a long-shot, but I also thought it was just a matter of the right group coming forward with the right deal at the right time, but that just happened to be for keeping them there. Maybe the new arena will keep everyone happy for a while. I'd actually go to a game up there because I think the neighborhood has a lot of potential, in stark contrast to where the Warriors are now.

DTComposer

Quote from: coatimundi on December 18, 2016, 07:15:47 PM
I definitely remember when the Kings were good and how excited Sacramento was to have a winning basketball team. But it comes down to support through the hard times, and Sac has already failed that test. I was genuinely surprised when they finally settled the arena issue. I always thought Seattle was a little bit of a long-shot, but I also thought it was just a matter of the right group coming forward with the right deal at the right time, but that just happened to be for keeping them there. Maybe the new arena will keep everyone happy for a while. I'd actually go to a game up there because I think the neighborhood has a lot of potential, in stark contrast to where the Warriors are now.

In terms of failing the test re: the bad times - I should have expanded on my point: in between the four or five good/great seasons was 13 years of poor play before and 13 years of poor play after. I think that would be hard to sustain fan interest in any market. Yeah, Salt Lake City has been an exception for small-market teams, but the Jazz have been to the playoffs in 25 of their 37 years there, including 20 seasons in a row, and they had two of the all-time great players for much of that time - they've built up the goodwill to sustain them for quite a long dry spell (even with no rings) - something the Kings certainly have not been able to do.

bing101


Buck87

MLS has set tomorrow (1/31) as the deadline for cities to submit bids for the next round of expansion. The League has announced that they want to eventually get to 28 teams, and that they plan to announce 2 of the new franchises this year (that will begin play by 2020)

A lot of cities have shown interest (at varying degrees of seriousness) in pursuing an MLS franchise, such as Sacramento, St. Louis, San Diego, Cincinnati, Nashville, Detroit, St. Petersburg, San Antonio, Charlotte, Las Vegas and Oklahoma City.

Will be interesting to see where the league expands in the coming years. 


dvferyance

Quote from: coatimundi on December 17, 2016, 02:12:45 AM
Sacramento can barely support the Kings, I don't see why there's a perception that MLS would help 180 sports in that city. I mean, I like Sac, but it is not a sports town. Sports just provide a venue for local corporate employee appreciation events. As soon as the Kings have a decent season, they're probably gone.
Right which is why I have always thought the Kings should be in KC. Sacramento is as far from San Jose as Milwaukee is from Green Bay and lots of fans from Milwaukee are willing to drive up for a Packer game. We don't need all these teams in California they have got enough sports as it is.

Buck87

There are 12 cities that have officially had prospective owners submit bids for MLS expansion:

Charlotte
Cincinnati
Detroit
Indianapolis
Nashville
Phoenix
Raleigh/Durham
Sacramento
San Antonio
San Diego
St. Louis
Tampa/St. Petersburg

There are 4 spots available. Franchises 25 & 26 will be announced by the end of the year, and the timing of the choice for franchises 27 & 28 will also be set by the end of the year. (Franchise 24 is the Miami project, which is still not quite official yet)

bing101


dvferyance

Quote from: bing101 on February 01, 2017, 08:22:09 PM
Quote from: bing101 on January 30, 2017, 08:18:25 PM
http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/Group-Holds-Rally-San-Diego-Plans-Stadium-412189083.html

Now San Diego is fighting to for an MLS team.

Apparently San Diego  is also a bargaining chip city for the Raiders not just the MLS.
Yeah right they ran one team out of town and now they want another one. Not unles they are willing to build a new stadium and they already blew it last fall.

english si

Quote from: bing101 on December 03, 2014, 10:58:59 AMThe San Jose Earthquakes will oppose the move for ticket sales reasons at Levi's stadium.
Understandable when it's League 2 Leyton Orient opposing the move of a Premier League team (both Tottenham and West Ham's moves were opposed by Orient, the latter being more serious a threat, the former being seen as more rude as it was far more a crossing into someone else's patch) moving to the Olympic Stadium just under 2 miles away from their ground*. But we're talking about 2 cities 120 miles apart and teams playing the same level of football! The middle locations are 50 minutes freeway drive away, not 50 minutes walk away with faster modes available - like, say Arsenal and West Ham (it's 5 miles from the Emirates to the Olympic stadium).

And that's before we look at Anfield being 3/4 of a mile from Goodison Park, the two Dundee clubs being in almost adjacent stadiums, the many teams that groundshare (Rome, Milan and Munich doing so with two high-pedigree clubs) - something that happens in the US with the Giants and the Jets.

In Europe, pretty much every million+ city (and many with smaller populations) has at least two top-level pro-soccer teams, and maybe even a lower-level one as well (eg Tranmere for the Merseyside conurbation) - and obviously London has umpteen pro-soccer teams in its urban area (off the top of my head, 15 fully-professional teams). Surely, allowing for differing geographies and support of soccer, the US can manage with two MLS franchises over 100 miles apart from each other without complaints of interfering with market?

Also, local rivalries bring out the fans and gets them to the game - OK, the Manchester and Liverpool clubs see games against the big London clubs (Chelsea, Spurs, Arsenal, who also have their rivalries amongst themselves) as big guaranteed sell-out games too, but the intra-city derbies as well as the games between the clubs of the two cities (especially Man U and Liverpool) that are 30 miles apart are the games that the fans care about the most and want to attend the most.

*White Hart Lane is 4.6 miles from Orient's ground, and the Boleyn Ground was 3.6 miles, so the effect was already in existence to an extent.



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