as mls becomes a bigger league, mls teams are starting to become much closer together. making for rivalries, and away trips. rbny, revs, dc, and even tfc are all close enough for good sized travel and rivalry. throw in philadelphia, and even ny2 and montreal within the next few years, and the northeast of our league will be packed with mls teams, great for road trips, just like in other leagues around the world. in the center of our country, we could see the arrival of a st louis team. thus allowing for new rivalries with kc, chicago, cloumbus, and more road trips for the supporters involved. there's also the 2 texas teams, which already have their rivalry established to a degree. and out west, there's already 3 teams in california, making for good in-state rivalry. seattle will be here shortly, and then there's colorado and rsl filling out the rest. however if florida is to get a team within the next few years, where will we fall in? atlanta is a possibility, but they are near the back of the line. i believe the closest current teams are dc and houston. that could hardly be considered a good "local" derby. now i would just be happy if our state got a team, but it would be much more fun if we could do it with some of our neighbors in the south. anyways, what does everyone else think?
I'm all for soccer in Miami but nowhere else in the Southeast. That place does not like soccer, and never really has. They are so concerned about college football, the word soccer doesn't even have a meaning to most of those people. Miami should get a team, Atlanta should not because I think they will have very bad attendance
No Southeast. See, you guys are just too American down there. The league needs to expand to cosmopolitan cities in foreign countries. That way it can promote the growth of the sport in the United States and develop American players.
Carolina isn't exotic enough. Neither French nor Spanish is an official language there. You can't get Cuban cigars there. And Americans need not show a passport to gain entry. Carolina is out.
Actually Miami has the worst track record for soccer in Florida, especially compared to Tampa Bay and Ft. Lauderdale. Bullsh!t. I can't stand people who keep repeating this lie. Stop it. Go look up the attendance records for the Tampa Bay Rowdies and Ft. Lauderdale Strikers. Go look up the attendance records for the Tampa Bay Mutiny and Miami (or was that really Ft. Lauderdale?) Fusion. Florida outside of Miami doesn't like soccer? I'd say the reverse is true, if anything. And youth soccer is huge in Florida and throughout the southeast. Bradenton, Florida is near Tampa, btw. More gross generalizations. Atlanta attendances are like attendances in any city: you have to consider how the team in question is run and promoted and how well it is doing. All cities go through slump periods in the fortunes of their teams sooner or later. If Atlanta was really as bad as you say it wouldn't have so many major league teams. Also you grossly generalize about the populations of cities like Atlanta and Tampa, which are in fact fairly cosmopolitan (and if you think I'm lying or mistaken, I'd wager you've never actually lived in these cities). These cities are not populated entirely by college football and NASCAR watching "rednecks" but have people from all over the USA and from overseas. I've been to games with 50,000+ people in the stands of Tampa Stadium (some of whom were in fact "rednecks") to watch soccer, so don't tell me that people down there don't like soccer - and that was circa 1980 when soccer was still fairly new to most people down there. You have no idea what you are talking about. MLS has royally screwed over Florida, it's a burnt over area at the moment in regards to professional soccer thanks to the many mistakes MLS made back then, but don't confuse the current temporary situation with some inherent anti-soccer bias in Florida or in the southeast. All that Tampa or Atlanta or any other city needs is a sufficiently wealthy ownership group willing to invest money in MLS, and either willing to build a SSS (ie Philadelphia) or with access to a stadium essentially rent free (ie Seattle). There are no major cities or regions in the USA any more that are "anti-soccer" or which could not support an MLS team if given a chance and a sufficiently wealthy and competent ownership group.
Ah, you were being sarcastic. What a relief - it's hard to tell sarcasm on the internet sometimes, especially when there are people who actually do think this way!
The old Tampa Bay Rowdies vs. Ft. Lauderdale Strikers rivalry was very intense. Rowdies Fannies and Striker Likers would travel to each other's away games in large numbers. Unkind words were exchanged, as were mullets (the fish, not the hairstyle).
Sorry. I've never been handy with icons. I guess I spend too much time on punctuation and grammar. You're right, though. The arguments that I was satirizing have become axiomatic.
Rivalries aside, MLS NEEDS at least 1 team in the southeast, but preferably 2. Having 6 or 7 teams in the northeast and none in Florida or Georgia is downright absurd. If Florida/southeast US does get a team or teams, it will be Miami first. If there is a second Florida team(only likely if the league goes to 20 teams or if they ever add promotion/relegation) it should be in Orlando. It's centrally located, so fans from all over central/northern Florida can root for them. I think if the MLS goes back to Tampa they will lose a lot of east coast fans that would be willing to make the trip to Orlando, but not all the way across the state. The Cape Canaveral/Titusville area is growing in terms of people, but there is nothing to do besides Disney and Magic games. Soccer could be huge there, and it would be a great rivalry with a Miami team. Ideally I would like to see teams 17 and 18 be Miami and Orlando/Atlanta, with St. Louis getting in via relocation. That would spread out the league over the whole country again and give it more national exposure. I'd also like to see Puerto Rico get a team one day, it would give the league a Caribbean influence(maybe the USL's Islanders could get promoted someday).
I second this motion. That is a rivalry that goes way back... two generations. And for the nay sayers, it's worth remembering that Tampa, at least, was screw#d out of their team. Mutiny attendence was ok, especially considering the quality of that last team. The problem was lack of ownership... mostly the fact that Garber wouldn't take what the Glazers were offering. It wasn't much in the pockets of the league, but it would have kept the team afloat... The Fusion had more difficulties with attendence, but that was due to location, location, location. I say do justice and bring back the Mutiny and Fusion. Or better yet, introduce promotion/relegation and let these cities and any others earn their way into the league.
So is Orlando or Jacksonsville completely out of the question for expansion in Florida? It sounds like the league only ever talks about Miami but it doesn't make sense to only have one team in the southeast corner of florida without having a companion in the league.
Miami & Tampa have the history, but I don't see any problem with three or even more teams in the state. CA has three teams in two markets, so why not FL with three teams in three markets? Orlando is big enough to support a team, as is Jax. The key is local ownership, a good stadium deal and (for a change) decent marketing by the clubs & league. History is good to have, but Toronto proves it's not necessary... all you need is fans. More teams in FL would intensify the rivalries already here as well as expand them. FL would be on the soccer map again. (...it's nice to dream).
Yeah Jacksonville had the old NASL Tea-men that moved from boston. I think there were here all of 2 seaons. Not a big soccer town (and I live there )
Back in 2003, AFC Ajax had set up a partnership with the Royale Orlando Football Academy, with the intention of setting up a complete player development system; toward that end, the newly relabeled Ajax Orlando applied to enter teams in both the PDL and the A-League. But while the Prospects entered the PDL in 2004, the higher-division professional team never took the field. By 2006, the Orlando organization's status was at best murky -- the local club had become dissatisfied with the lack of support from Amsterdam, while AFC Ajax had already announced that the affilation agreement would not be renewed. Finally, new owners purchased the American organization and formally severed all ties with AFC Ajax. As the above suggests, one of Ajax Orlando's problems was that it was never clear what their club's relationship with AFC Ajax was: were they simply licensing the name, or was their affiliation intended to go deeper than that? (The fact that the Orlando-based organization was setting up further affiliations across the country -- including one with a youth club in Anchorage -- would seem to suggest a lack of focus.)
I guess I ask this question because it seems to MLS pundits that there isn't any sure fire expansion locations and that they have to maybe gamble with some places. I would assume this would also take into account that they probably want to go into markets that aren't already sports saturated and Orlando and Jax both that have a lot of pro sports franchises (one has nba and one has nfl). It might be a nice compromise to have MLS in the Southeast and not in a saturated market.