San Antonio's MLS discussion thread

there are two main reasons that San Antonio has nearly no shot an an MLS expansion team...

they are Houston and Dallas

the main reason Rawlins and his investors moved the team from Austin to Orlando in pursuit of MLS is because he rightly knew that TX wasn't going to get a 3rd team .... ever ... especially not in a place so close to both Houston and Dallas.

but that doen't mean that both San Antonio and Austin can't be top D2 level cities ... i definitely think they can.

eventually, in the distant future you have to think that beyond 24ish MLS teams there are going to be 24ish D2 teams and some of those D2 teams might very well grow to the Portland D2 and Montreal D2 level .... 10Kish fans a game .... i can see SanAn and Austin being D2 cities that could do that.

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Is this your conjecture or did someone connected to the former Austin team tell you this? I've only ridden in Texas once but the last thing I'd say about any of their cites is that they are close together.

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What ? You clearly aren't from Texas ... and if you are, get out.

Austin isn't a major league market, period. End of story.

Close ? That is your stance ? You do realize how many MLS clubs are in closer proximity/equal to in proximity than these three would exist ....

See: Northeast Corridor and Pacific Northwest for examples.

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And I would say because there are already two teams in Texas that San Anntonio has a great shot. MLS and Garber are about regional rivalries. Plus that Latino marker. If Crocketeers come out on fire, they'll be getting looks.

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well i guess you guys know more than the owner of the Aztex/Orlando City.


he has clearly stated ... in numerous interviews ... that he couldn't get any investors to keep the team in Austin and persue MLS because he and they knew that Texas would never get a 3rd team.

and yes ... San Antonio is "close" to both Dallas and Houston in relative "middle of the country terms" ... on the east coast things are more compact thus distances are relative ... but in terms of the wide open spaces of fly over country and texas the relative distance from San Antonio and Dallas and Houston make it nearly impossible that MLS would put another team there while still having to put teams in the South, Florida, SouthWest (ie las vegas/arizona), NYC2 and elswhere.

A. dallas and houston aren't Vancouver and Portland and SanAnt is not Seattle .... so that comparison hardly matters

B. 4 hours to dallas and 3 hours to Houston translated from wide open empty Texas distance to urban sprawl east coast distance is like 2 hours and 1.5 hours.

C. unlike other places with "close" teams the other instances they are in different states, with widely different TV markets and sometimes even in different countries.

D. i highly doubt the NFL would put a 3rd team in such close proximity to the other two NFL TX teams either ... and TX is football (pointyball) mad far moreso than it is for football (soccer) ... so it is insane to think MLS would want 3 teams all in TX all in a 4 hour triangle of each other ... not gonna happen my friends.

San Antonio will never get an MLS team ... i'd bet my life on it.

which isn't a bad thing as i said .... there can be only so many MLS teams ... and there is nothing wrong with being an excellent D2 city which San Antonio and Austin both are ...

but i understand that as people who live in San Antonio you are desperately hoping that one day you'll be an MLS city ... just like the delusional people in Tampa and Nashville and Indianapolis and Pittsburgh ... you are 99.9999% likely to be disappointed ... but you are a city and so i guess there is at least the smallest of chances but i wouldn't hold my breath. embrace D2 and become a great D2 city ... that is the only way to MLS anyway ... and worst case scenario you end up with a great vibrant D2 team/city.

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The NBA is doing well with ...............................3 teams in TEXAS (Dallas, Houston, and ......................San Antonio).

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And this response clearly establishes that you're not from Texas and likely haven't ever been here. If you have been, it was likely in once city and you did no travel within the state.

A - What doesn't matter about the comparison ?

B - LOL your translating skills. It's much closer to 5 hours to Dallas guy. Also, make the drive and then tell me it's anything like 2 or less hours. You're absolutely making shit up and it's pathetic.

C - The TV markets in Houston/DFW/SA are vastly different. Hell, the DFW area in of itself is vastly different than the rest of the state. Again, your lack of knowledge about Texas is making you look really bad.

D - You should try checking your facts about soccer and Texas .... ok, you need a reality check about Texas in general actually.

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i drove across texas ... it is huge ... distances are far ... people are used to it ... to drive 4 hours on the crowded east coast is not the same thing as driving 4 hours in texas ... i think that is pretty simple.

texas is NOT professional soccer heaven ... the pac nw is .... texas is a red state ... there is much soccer hate ... of course there is much soccer love too ... so that is a good thing ... but let's not mistake it for an MLS attendance juggernaut shall we.

who do i believe ... fans of the city/team who are hardly unbiased in wanting to get an MLS and are understandably delusional about their chances ... or a person who has been involved in professional soccer in England (Stoke City) who spent millions of dollars relocating his minor league US franchise across the country so he could have a shot at MLS .... hmmm ... this is a tough call here ... who to believe ... who to believe.

look ... i understand ... you guys are fans of san ant and of the team there and you desperately would like to get an MLS team ... so you can hardly be objective ... but you need to face facts ... a guy who had a minor league team at the same level (D2) that was already established on on the way up ... decided if he wanted to get to MLS he had to move to Orlando because .... his words "Texas would never get a 3rd team" ... now if that weren't the case and San Ant were an excellent MLS prospect he could have simply moved the team a few miles down the road from Austin to San Ant (if it was only about Austin not being a big enough city) .... but he didn't ... he moved it halfway across the country ... that should tell you something.

and before you discount Ralwins this guy is a far more saavy soccer owner/operator than the Morgan's Playland, Soccer For A Cause guy ....

so take from it what you will ... i have no doubt you will keep dreaming and hoping that MLS is right around the corner .... from the outside laymen and experts alike find that laughable.

but my point was it really isn't the "Soccer For A Cause" idea (which is utterly ludicrous btw, as if minor league soccer makes any money except in the rarest of cases) that stands in the way of San Ant getting an MLS team but rather that MLS has about 10 places it would rather have a team than having 3 in Texas.

now if you could magically teleport the city of San Ant to where El Paso is .... maybe you've got a better shot since i am sure MLS eventually wants a "SouthWest" team.

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Texas is a soccer hotbed. Hell even Frisco and the surrounding suburbs are. San Antonio is a growing market and barely missed at on the nFL in the last expansion. (They are regretting that decision right now) Garber wants the future MLS to be built on regional rivalries and a Dallas, Houston, SA would be HUGE. Right now Austin is probably a D2 city, for reasons completely different then SA. And your comments about Rawlins and Garber, perhaps what he meant was you have a better chance of getting a team quicker in Florida. The time of dying markets being the expansion hunt like Cleveland and Rochester are over. San Antonio MLS future.

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So your saying being a red state = soccer hate. Do you have any data to back this up? or is this just an opinion?

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texas is a youth soccer hotbed yes. texas is not, as of yet, a soccer attendance hotbed.

maybe that will change.

and maybe in 5 to 10 years San Ant will be a viable market who knows. but as thing stands now a guy who knows a ton about owning soccer teams and wanted his D2 team to have a shot at MLS moved it out of TX specifically because he thinks there is no real shot at MLS putting a 3rd team in TX.

i doubt he is wrong for the next 5 years. he didn't qualify it so he meant ever but maybe after 5 years things will change .... but i wouldn't put money on it.

as a city, not taking into consideration location, san ant might be a decent MLS prospect ... but you cannot take it in isolation. there are at most 5 slots left. one IS going to NYC ... one IS going to Florida ... one IS going to "the South/east" (probably Atlanta) ... that leaves TWO spots for MLS to decide where to put a team ... and that is where being the 3rd TX team is a drawback ... yes rivalries are good but Hou/FCD isn't exactly blowing up the rivalry charts ... so you have TWO spots and many many places probably ahead of San Ant for them ... Southwest (Vegas/Phoenix), Detroit, Minneapolis, San Diego, San Francisco, Miami all on equal or better footing from a "market potential" standpoint.

it isn't "impossible" i guess ... just very unlikely ... and that is before we take into consideration the ownership model ... i just think the whole MLS discussion is pretty premature for San Ant ... let's see if the D2 soccer as charity can even work for the D2 level first shall we ... and i definitely hope it does.

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I've also lived in the DC Metro area. 4 hours in a car is 4 hours in a car. The only difference, is that in Texas you actually go somewhere.

I was speaking to your overall lack of knowledge on Texas and its affinity for soccer.

Moved it to a state that has lost TWO MLS clubs ... to a city located in a metro area smaller than the two that lost the clubs.

Just saying.

And right, it had everything to do with "texas not ever getting a 3rd mls club" and nothing to do with the fact that he couldn't drum up sponsors in Austin .... nope, not at all.

Let's also remember that you're an outsider looking in, and not someone living in a city that actually helped support said team from this guy before we found out we were getting our own club. It's not like we here in San Antonio couldn't possibly know anything more than what we read in interviews and what the media presents ... not at all, what with us being right freaking next to the entire situation.

Yes, because it's just that simple ... you know, just pick it up and move it to the next city down the road.

Let's also completely ignore the fact that SAN ANTONIO ANNOUNCED THE TEAM BEFORE THE AZTEX MOVED

OR

THAT SS&E HOLD THE RIGHTS TO A USL TEAM IN SA

I will take from it what I will .... you don't know what the blue hell you're talking about.

Case in point ^

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no. you are definitely right ... red staters overwhelmingly LOVE soccer and don't at all equate it with socialist european scum or "brown people" as a way to denigrate it.

i am sure there is some sociological data somewhere that shows soccer fans "TEND" to be more liberal than conservative and "soccer haters" TEND to be more conservative than liberal.

obviously that is NOT absolute. there are 300 million people in the US and even if the conservative/liberal divide is 50/50 (which it isn't) out of 150M conservatives even a small percentage who buck the "norm" and like soccer just fine is a bunch of people. and i am sure that with 150M "liberal" types even a small percentage being "soccer haters" means there are plenty of blue state types who hate on soccer.

this is not some sort of absolute black and white thing ... but rather a "trend" sort of thing where it holds true for the statistical majority of the category but by no means absolutely.

so let's not feign outrage and pretend that it isn't true in the generalized "majority" context ... understanding that there are obviously exceptions on both sides.

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So your saying Texas can't have three teams in a 24 team league but Cali can have four? k

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Yea My 2 best friends who are die hard republicans hate soccer so much that they always renew their Columbus Crew season tickets every year.

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Your entitled to your opinion.
I wish someone would do an exit poll at a Scorpion or Dynamo game, I have a funny feeling you might be surprised.

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uh? well that isn't exactly a representative sample since they are already at the soccer game and they are also from a majority conservative area.

i did find a brief study of political affiliation and sports fandom and this was a chart that accompanied it:



the WNBA and WTA being skewed democratic is no surprise ... but i am pretty shocked that WWE is more democratically skewed than MLS ... i guess it is because it is a young demo maybe? and the NBA is the 3rd most democratically skewed, perhaps that is because of the large african-american fan base?

I am shocked that "extreme sports" aren't more skewed democratically .. i'd thought they'd be the most skewed truthfully.

but according to this chart the MLS while not the most democratically skewed sport it is as democratcially skewed as NASCAR is republicanly skewed. and pretty close to being skewed democratically as much as ANY sport's fan base is skewed republicanlly (PGA and college football being the most republicanly skewed

here is the national journal article:

http://hotlineoncall.nationaljournal.com/archives/2010/03/sports_viewers.php

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Uh? You said "there is much soccer hate" in red states.
Where on that study does it say how many Republicans hate soccer?
I don't view baseball or Nascar but that doesn't mean that I hate it.

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it is called hyperbole pedant ... but fine ... there is "much soccer not liking in red states" is that better?

the point is soccer has an uphill battle to fight in "red states" (more conservative/republican areas) ... it is in general less popular and has fewer receptive potential "fans" than it would in a similarly populous "blue state" (more liberal/democratic area).

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@OleGunnar: Muzza here took the words right out of my mouth. I think the quote from the owner of Orlando City was taken out of context. Keep in mind he was trying to justify moving the team from Austin. I think you are right in that team 21 won't be from Texas and Rawlins probably wants to be team 21-24. But San Antonio is definitely a potential market for MLS expansion.

Perhaps some people from San Antonio know better but awhile back MLS was really close to playing in the Alamo Dome. The mayor was pretty much going to give them the building. Then others politicians stepped in and said no sweet heart deal no matter how much the dome is draining finances.

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one thing to consider is that as the expansion slots get fewer and fewer the league can be more and more particular ... so any city "with an owner and a stadium" will no longer be the criteria ... the league will definitely look to carefully pick and chose expansion locations based as much on wanting to expand their "market footprint" and the potential to be "huge" soccer markets (seattle/portland/vancouver/philly/montreal level) as they will the particular investors and the stadium situation will have to be much better than the Alamo Dome.

it is only a "potential" market in as much as just about anywhere is a "potential" market. the fact is that 3 of the 5 total spots left in MLS are going to go to NYC2 , Atlanta, and FL. it isn't a matter of IF but WHEN for all three of those places.

so that leaves 2 expansion spots left for every other "potential" city to fight for.

there are 12 number of "potential" MSAs bigger than SA: #8 Miami, #11 San Francisco, #12 Detroit, #13 Riverside CA, #14 Phoenix, #16 Minneapolis, #17 San Diego, #18 St Louis, #19 Tampa/St Pete, #20 Baltimore, #22 Pittsburgh, #24 Sacramento

at least 3 of those have much more MLS friendly demographics: San Diego, Minneapolis, San Francisco

i am not sure how SA stacks up in terms of Corporate HQs and potential corporate sponsorship and media/tv/radio market but i can't think it is much better than middle of the pack of the above MSAs

MLS is most likely going to want 1 of the remaining two to be somewhere in the "Southwest" ... which leaves only really two options Las Vegas or Phoenix.

so basically ... in all likelihood San Antonio is fighting with a bunch of bigger and some better demographic cites ... many with far more professional soccer history ... for ONE remaining expansion slot.

so if that is "potential" then i guess but it is about the weakest definition of potential there is.

if MLS were going to 30 teams than i would say that SA would be on the radar ... (like the NBA) ... but the league isn't going to 30 teams anytime in our lifetimes ... and the deck is simply stacked against SA.

now if in 10 years the SA Scorpions have built their fan base to 10K+ strong and have become a huge deal in SA it might be a different story .. but as of today they haven't even played a game and the city has no history of soccer culture on a professional level and not much on any other level (aside from, like everywhere else, lots of kids playing it).

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San Antonio Scorpions have sold already 2300 season tickets. The soccer supporters group the Crocketteers has over 650 members. The Crocketteers held watch parties for US games that drew over 350 people per match and the World Cup final was held outside of the AT&T center and it drew nearly 1000 fans. Nope, San Antonio does not support professional soccer.

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What about Libertarians?

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two seasons? two whole seasons? 35 years ago. and nothing since? well i stand corrected! not.

there is no need to "show work" on NYC2 or the "South" or FL ... the league honchos have said multiple times and simple logic dictates that the league will have to have teams in those areas ... period ... end of story.

and the demographics are high percentage of young population, high education, high number of "wealthy" households and low number of "poor" households ... there are correlations between all of those demographic factors and high attendance cities ... and San Antonio, according to the most recent census data ... is way behind those three markets i mentioned on those demographic factors ... it is obviously not a be all end all but definitely one of many factors.

again. i get it .... you love SA and you love soccer and you'd love an MLS team in soccer and you can hardly be objective ... so i won't hold your delusion against you ... let's see if you guys can support a strong D2 team first shall we and go from there?

and the Alamo Dome and BC Place are not similar situations ... unless the government of TX and SA were going to pay $400M for a total refurb including a fancy retractable roof/inner roof system .... and i don't know much about TX but i am going to guess that such a large public expenditure was not in the cards.

and yes some of those markets are "close" to other markets ... and i don't like all of them ... i was simply pointing out on various single factors who SA has to compete with and where they fall short of their competitors .... i was not advocating for one or another of those markets as where MLS will/should expand.

you need to look at it the way the league is looking at it ... they have 3 markets, either specific or general that they are coveting desperately (NYC, South, FL) .... those places will get teams ... the league has even dedicated resources towards getting a stadium situation set up in the case of NYC and will likely put the same sort of effort into the other two when the decide to focus on expanding their footprint into the South and into FL. despite what you might think those three areas are as good as locked into 3 of the 5 spots left.

and i happen to think the SW is a spot they want to fill in their national footprint ... that might be more debatable of course but whether it is 2 or 1 spots that SA is fighting for when you stack it up against all of the other competitors for those 1/2 spots it certainly doesn't stand out and often is well back of others on many key factors: Size (way back); Demographics (mediocre); Soccer History (mediocre); current support for soccer (????/TBD); ownership (????/TBD); stadium situation (????/TBD) ... now many of the markets are also ????/TBD on some of the same factors but comparing SA to other markets on the factors that we do know right now there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING that indicates SA is any better than mediocre and behind other potential markets.

sorry to hurt your fanboi feelings and all but that is just objective analysis.