http://www.wftv.com/news/news/local/brazilian-investor-provide-80m-build-orlando-major/nWRkR/ http://www.actionnewsjax.com/conten...-80M-to-build-MLS/R1WBGcLybUeloNF7lwDqvQ.cspx FEEDING FRENZY!!!
To summarize: this is a promised $80 million to cover the franchise fee and $30 million of the stadium construction. The remaining estimated $75 million in construction costs would come from taxpayers. Are Orlandoionians going to be okay with that?
I think having a presence in Florida would be great for MLS to further legitimize itself and attract a wider fan base...I just wish Florida's history with fan support was better (aside from the Heat). Also, not sure this means they will be number 20, just that there's a commitment from the investors to make it happen.
Look, if there is enough money, Don will take it. There is no way he doesn't take the fee. There is no geographic pattern or superior markets. You got the stadium and the expansion fee, you are in ... and if this fills before NYC2 exists, I bet they shoehorn it in as 25. What I want to see is if Garber balks on this, if the stadium is built. No league in the US didn't take the expansion money.
That's why I put this in MLS: Mouthbreathing. This tickles me to no end because there is a question us soccernerds never entertain. What if the league building model IS successful, you really think its will stop with 24? 19 can become 26 real easy... its like a panic buy. And if Don keeps it so we don't have an internal pro/rel, we have an NBA style post-season. Which is why he shits on the SS so much, because this is model. HAHAHAHAH! I can hear the hearts exploding!!!
Not a done deal, but it sure looks like Orlando is a serious expansion competitor. It's not a bad fit- #20 media market, and only be other professional sports team as competition.
If there was an owner for a team in KC they could have bought Atlanta or Phoenix and moved them there. No owner, no team.
been trying to read up on the brazilian owner of the club and can find very little; any1 have any info on him-- especially his deep money pockets and professional and personal ethics that would make him suitable to the MLS board and owners?
orlando and minneasota is what im hoping for followed by san antonio and new york and then st louis and tampa the league will then be half as big as the nhl/epl
No reason at all to say "aside from the Heat." Go and do some research about their crowds over the years and you'll see nothing different from the other Miami sports teams. As for Orlando, yes this helps their chances of an expansion bid. But I still don't get why some people (usually from Orlando) think that Garber and the league are going to stop what they've been spedning a lot of time and money doing in NY to instead turn their attention to Orlando. Why? What is the incentive? Rawlins, by saying from Day 1 his ultimate goal is MLS, has given the league every reason to say, hey that's super, hold tight, and we'll be with you, say, about 2017. What's he going to do, fold his team? hardly. And actually, might even be of benefit for the league to do just that. By then, I'm betting you'll see more than just Orlando trying to put things in place for a bid, and when you have competition for something, what happens to the price? Everything is about money at the end of the day, and right now MLS holds all the cards and can control expansion on its own terms to its greatest benefit.
There isn't really anything preventing MLS from working with two expansion teams at the same time. I mean, Portland and Vancouver joined the league in the same year, right after Philly joined the year before. The league has a history of welcoming every viable expansion team. There's no precedent for the league telling a team that is ready, willing and able to join MLS to hold off for some abitrary period of time. I don't see any reason why MLS would want to put Orlando on the backburner (assuming Orlando really is getting close to becoming an expansion candidate).
Ding-ding-ding! Which leads to my point, that any conversation about what the league will look like is relative to when the expansions fees run dry. Shove a stadium and an expansion fee and MLS will bite. 32 teams in a 16-team playoff! Can all the Europurists deal with it?
32 teams I can see happening in the future but I really doubt the league will ever exceed 10-12 teams in the playoffs.
32 might be a stretch, IMO. The other American leagues seem to have overexpanded at the 30 mark. I would be happy sticking with the current playoff format for a while- there's no reason to make the jump to a 16 team playoff.
I sort of agree with this point. But I think it'd be really interesting if, 30 years in the future when I'm either dead or regressed to wearing diapers again, if MLS had one team that represented Cuba, one that represented Jamaica, maybe a 4th team in Canada. That would change the math of it.
That is a really simplistic analysis but in Orlando's case it's close to that. Central Florida is a big market with few pro teams and Orlando is the current economic star of the region. You also have a good USL team with good attendance. 6k average attendance is a good base to build off. Add a new stadium, good players and you should have Philly level success. Also, we're far from having 32 teams. We already have a de facto slow down in expansion since this is the first year this decade to not have an expansion team. Just getting to 24 teams, which is a nice number, will probably take 10 years.
The best thing about Orlando is that it's in the middle of the Central Florida region and most people there are accustomed to driving a few times a year to Orlando to get to the amusement parks. Heck, most of us are used to paying a few hundred dollars for a season ticket to an amusement park and then drive for two hours to go there five times a year. I don't see a pro team being much different.
