I live in NC so of course I'm going to be for a franchise in Atlanta or somewhere else in that region. There is a big hole in the MLS geography and that is the Southeastern US. For me personally it sucks that right now the closest team is in DC which is a bit over 5 hours away if you miss rush hour. I actually think we would have fantastic support for a franchise in the Triangle area. It has a soccer friendly population (a highly educated populace, a soccer tradition with the Railhawks, UNC, Duke, and NC State soccer teams) and is one of the top 10 fastest growing metro areas in the US, currently with 1.4 million in Raleigh-Durham-Cary area. We also have no professional football or basketball to compete with except for two sad teams 3 hours away in Charlotte. A franchise here would increase the MLS TV footprint considerably. But as far as I know no one local is making the push. Sigh...
Agree that it is probably a better market for soccer than ATL, but without a sugar daddy it can't happen. Sad that.
Just took a look … what an ugly building. The renderings of the interior are very claustrophobic from and the whole thing has mid-90’s sci-fi movie aesthetic of what a sports arena of the future should look like. Seems an awful decision, another plastic pitch and I have doubts that a city like Atlanta is going to follow Seattle in filling an NFL stadium with enough people to not look embarrassing. The idea of an MLS team playing in a cavernous stadium should be an absolute non-starter for the league.
Skydog's post reminded me of something. I will post this here as I don't think it warrants a thread of its own. I remember that years ago somebody created one of those on-line maps of the US where LAG fans could show where they lived. I have lost the link and can't find it with a search engine, but I remember is as a pretty impressive scatter diagram showing LAG had die hards all over the country. Does anyone still have that link? If not, could one of you techie types create the map so we can once more mark our territory?
Likewise, @skydog. Atlanta is only about 3 hours (give or take depending on where the stadium would be located) for me. That's a very manageable trip for games.
I remember that. It was very cool to see the geography covered.... Alas, I have no techie skills to make a new one...
It looks like it will be a stadium with a retractable roof. Provided it has a real grass field, that could address a lot of my concerns about being able to play games in Atlanta in late May through September.
not too techie. it's google maps. should be publicly editable unless i screwed up. just click the little teardrop looking marker icon in the menu and place yours. you need to be signed into google to add to it. https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit?mid=zJFvgg3SGho8.kV2PQxZGs0T4 probably needs it's own thread if it's going to have visibility, but i have this aversion to starting threads on the internet. feel free to move.
Talk of Brek Shea going on loan to Toronto FC. .... And another one bites the dust in Europe. Jozy will probably be NYCFC's first major signing.
Well, you can say what you want about our league, but at least we've reached the point where MLS > Euro-Bench
Interesting that TFC is taking a flyer on Brek. His whole career has been in freefall, even before he decamped for Europe.
It's kind of weird to say that a Dallas game should be good. MLS never ceases to amaze - each season is crazy!
Fox Soccer has hired Piers Morgan as an analyst. I didn't think they could sink lower. Clearly, I was wrong.