According to Martin Rogers' latest MLS expansion update from Yahoo! sports, Montreal and Vancouver seem to be two of the frontrunner's for 2011 MLS expansion, with a lot of focus on the City of Saints.
According to the piece, "Joey Saputo, owner of United Soccer League side Montreal Impact, is determined to secure an MLS license and already has some infrastructure in place. The Impact’s Saputo Stadium holds around 13,000 and could comfortably be expanded to 20,000 if MLS gives the green light."
What's the downside? Well, if you go by Martin's list of prospects - my home town comes in towards the end of the table! He gives Atlanta a 10% chance of getting on the MLS train, while St. Louis shares the second highest percent likelihood with the largest city in Quebec.
Rounding out the list are Vancouver, Portland, my Atlanta team, Las Vegas, a second New York franchise, and Ottawa.
Check out the full list and accompanying rationale on Martin's article.
3 comments:
Atlanta does not have much of a chance. There will never be a publicly financed soccer stadium built in the Metro Atlanta area. No sane person is willing to drop $250 million for land, a stadium and infrastructure and franchise fees with almost no hope of recouping the investment. This is American football country down here and it will never change. Don't you hear the dawgs barking?
Atlanta is a tough market for any sport - and no way will soccer supplant American football anytime soon, but I'll suggest that Texas is one of the most armoured wankball mad states in the US, yet the lone star state is supporting two MLS teams. Besides, other than sharing the name, the two sports are vastly different, so it's like saying Georgia has too many baseball fans so hockey will never take off?
Georgia has just about 90,000 registered soccer players (adult and youth), who knows how many unregistered, and tens of thousands more who are not actively playing. I think we have enough of a foundation to build on.
I don't think anyone will come forward with the stadium required for MLS to qualify for the 2011 season.
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