That's interesting. I haven't heard any noise in the local media. Having just watched Sac Republic FC win the USL championship on youtube, I was thinking how awesome it would be to have something like that in town one day. Right now I'm waiting to see if the FXFL (Fall Experimental Football League) can do anything. If that flops it will open up more space in the sports/entertainment market for a pro soccer franchise. Soccer can work in Omaha. Creighton University was #4 nationally in NCAA soccer attendance last year. Over 8000 attended the state high school soccer championship last year held in Omaha. The local AAA baseball team averaged 5600 (in a ball park built on the far edge of town). Creighton University's basketball team finished 5th in per game average attendance last year, behind North Carolina's per game average by only 129. The Univ Nebr. Omaha hockey team finished 4th nationally in per game attendance ahead of schools like Boston College, Michigan State, Michigan. The local junior hockey team (high school age kids) average 3300 a game for a 30 game home schedule (basically a sellout every night). People here will support sports. But it's not automatic. I hope they would learn from the failure of the AHL Knights- a AAA hockey team in a hockey town that lasted only 2 years. Because if a soccer team comes to town and fails, it will be another decade until they try again. Maybe longer. I'm surprised that more attention isn't given to Des Moines. Their PDL team has been 1st or 2nd in attendance since 1999. They do have a strong AAA baseball team. But I can't think of any other sporting competition in spring/summer in a metro area of 600,000. I've read that Des Moines has a strong young professional demographic due to many college grads working in the financial services sector (Principal, Wells Fargo, Nationwide, etc.). That seems to be a good demographic for soccer. Plus about there are about 40,000 Hispanics in the county. The stadium situation isn't ideal. They currently play at a high school football stadium with turf. There is a soccer complex south of downtown where Drake University plays. The capacity is stated as 2000. But there is plenty of space to upgrade. Although admittedly it's not very scenic. The owner of the Menace tried for a while to develop a SSS. But probably for just 7 home games a year the math didn't work out. But if you play 14 or more home games (with USOC or exhibitions) maybe the numbers look better. I don't know how recent Bing maps are; but there seems to be open space south of MLK and west of 9th near downtown where the city took down some old factories. People could easily get to the Court Street clubs after the games and make a nice evening. Des Moines strikes me as a progressive town. I think the city would be pretty cooperative with a feasible proposal. But as Kenn reminds us, it all comes down to investors with money. The Menace do have a pretty deep-pocketed owner: the Krause family and their $2 billion a year in sales chain of 400 convenience stores. If it's true the OKC NASL franchisees are looking for a new home, maybe they should take a look in Des Moines and pay Mr. Krause a visit.
I'm spending far too much time thinking about Des Moines. But I am impressed with the solid foundation they have with their PDL team. I think it can be a "springboard" for a successful pro soccer team since they already have 3,000 to 4,000 coming out to see amateurs. I suppose that the way a downtown SSS makes financial sense is by it being used as often as possible and not sitting idle and empty. If a NASL team went to Des Moines, they would play 14 home matches plus some exhibitions (say 4). I wonder if Drake University would move its soccer teams to a more visible and impressive location near downtown (Drake has quite a bit of "Creighton envy" right now); that's another 19 matches for men and women. Now we're up to 37 matches. Maybe also the state high school soccer tournament could relocate from the Cownie soccer complex. That brings in 1000s of fans (8 teams each in classes 1, 2, and 3). That's another 24 matches which brings us up to 61. Maybe a few local high school matches could play there like they sometimes play baseball at Principal Park. Now we're up to 70. If they had a downtown SSS, I would think they could snag the Missouri Valley Conference tournaments. That tourism influx get the local Chamber of Commerce on board with this project... and it could happen. I think the leaders of Des Moines would love to say, "We have AAA baseball, AHL hockey, NBA-D League basketball, and NASL division II soccer... and Omaha only has AAA baseball !!" Of course all this hinges on the economics of Cownie soccer complex. If the city is depending on Drake and the state tournament to pay the bills at Cownie, then this is pretty much just an intellectual exercise.
I think Des Moines has a strong market and should definitely be considered for an NASL franchise. Their fans show more support than some current NASL teams and, I agree, they should get more games in a season so that they could have a SSS and probably more fans. I'm on your side in this one but I believe that Omaha should get a franchise too. They could have a rivalry like Portland-Seattle. (Probably not that good but you get the point a good rivalry) Des Moines and Omaha should have a team by 2016 or 17
I’d love to see teams in both towns. I think it could be a good rivalry since the fans only have to drive 2 hours to follow their team to the other town. And while there is not hatred between the two towns, I do think that people in each town kind of enjoy it when their AAA baseball team beats the other town. Maybe all the years that the Univ. of Nebraska and Iowa State (30 miles north of Des Moines) played each other in sports sort of feed into that. Since I live in the Omaha area now, I would love a professional soccer team here next season. But if I was risking my own money I think Des Moines is the safer bet at this time because of the foundation of the Des Moines Menace. Also Des Moines is a bit more of a progressive town, and that seems to translate into stronger soccer support. Since Des Moines is the state capital and maybe because of the Iowa Presidential Caucuses, politics and ideas seem to swirl in the air. (Progressive Senator Tom Harkin is from Des Moines; he sure couldn’t get elected in Nebraska.) Omaha is more about business: Union Pacific, Mutual of Omaha, TD Ameritrade, etc. It seems to me that if Omaha is more like Chicago, then Des Moines is more like Portland. Of course there is business in Des Moines and the arts in Omaha. But each town has a little different vibe. When I moved to Des Moines after 15 years in Austin TX I was pleasantly surprised by Des Moines. I found an interesting article and video about this “Des Moines vibe” on a Drake Univ. sports board: http://www.nationaljournal.com/next...er-thing-possible-move-to-des-moines-20141016 Get a SSS (like Pittsburgh’s or Atlanta’s) downtown near the Court Avenue night clubs, and I think that a pro team in Des Moines would thrive.
Des Moines would be the smallest market in the NASL by far and the Menace has no intentions of moving up, even to the DIII ranks, much less DII.
If they can viably support a team on that level they can viably support a team, as long as the NASL can meet D2 standards no reason to ignore a potential location.
Indianapolis or Sacramento aren't the biggest of markets but we all seen what a mid-major city can do with the right ownership and backing by the community
Indianapolis and Sacramento are metros of 1.9 and 2.2 million people respectively. Des Moines, which is a growing city that I've visited and liked quite a bit, is 600k. It's not even remotely in the same ballpark as the other two.
Nonsense. Supporting a team that doesn't pay players does not mean they can, or will, support a team that pays players and charges an increased amount for tickets. Then there's the matter of sponsorships, etc. that make it a non starter if there isn't an owner who both has the financial means and the desire to play at the D2 level. Just to put it in perspective, Indy charges anywhere from $144 to $1600 for a season ticket with 13 different pricing levels while Des Moines is charging either $80 for general admission or $650 for VIP with no scale in between. There's absolutely no evidence that enough of the $80 a season fans are willing to buy into the $144 level, much less $208, $416, $720, etc.
But....the question is whether they COULD support a D2 team in a market that size. They have a AAA baseball team and an AHL team. Adding a D2 soccer team would be a lot for a market with a half-million people. Market size matters. And the Menace has no interest in becoming a pro team.
I don't know if they can or can't, but all you said was market size. While the odds at 600,000 may not be good, they technically could if a larger percentage of people are interested in supporting the team than in a larger city. I don't know if in this specific case if they do or don't, just saying you shouldn't dismiss them out of hand without doing some research first.
It pretty much stops there, but that actually wasn't all I said. I also said the Menace has no interest in being a professional team (even at the DIII level, much less DII). So it's a non-starter. And if my mom had two wheels she'd be a bicycle. But...who needs research when you can go on "vibe," like the other guy did? Des Moines has a vibe, man. How about this, Small Town? How about you study over the course of many years, what actually makes teams successful at various levels? How about you actually work in the game and see what it takes? How about you look at where the trends are going? The trend is not towards Des Moines. It is about market size. You can't count on "a larger percentage of people" being interested in supporting the team than in a larger city. That's ridiculous.
To further the case against a good small city like Des Moines, just look at growth trends. Des Moines is currently growing at a pace of about 10k per year. That means we're talking about 2029 before the city hits the 750k mark which is the threshold for D2 that 75% of the markets have to be over. You can combine Des Moines and Omaha, two nearby cities that could form a legit derby, and still be smaller than Indianapolis. Omaha is growing at about the same rate as Des Moines and it's still likely a decade away from hitting the 1 million mark. Throw in the competition in those cities and you've got no reason to expect them to succeed unless a deep pocketed owner comes in and is willing to lose money for a long time. Des Moines seems like a great place. I really like their take on the river walk concept. They've invested a ton of money into a sound long-term growth plan for the city. It may end up being a boom area in the not too distant future. It's not a good option for NASL without someone willing to pony up the cash and lose money for an extended time period.
But what if DES MOINES RESIDENTS LIKE SOCCER IN HIGHER PERCENTAGES THAN IN BIGGER CITIES, HUH, JOE? Have you thought about THAT?
Despite what you seem to think I actually know what I am talking about. I just don't go around and making assumptions based on limited data like you. I'm smarter than that. I'm also not going to waste my time researching every potential city because I don't have the time for something so meaningless to my life. The odds that Des Moines is too small is high, but I don't know what kind of soccer culture they have there. If it was all about size Indianapolis wouldn't out sell teams like the Cosmos, Atlanta, Tampa, Minnesota, Carolina, and Ft Lauderdale. Hey maybe you actually have done all the research, and know which markets are and aren't viable. I don't know, although I highly doubt it from your trollish behavior, and lack of conversational skills. There is a reason why the MLS is taking its time picking a new expansion team. There is a reason why they are considering Las Vegas, a media market about half the size of Sacramento, and Sacramento a market with about a million fewer people than the Minneapolis-St. Paul market. The equation is much more complex than that. If I had to guess I would say Des Moines is not a good market for the NASL, but if I was the NASL and a man with money came to me saying I want to put an NASL team in Des Moines I wouldn't say no until I had done research to see if an NASL team was viable or not. Look at Jacksonville, they are ranked 50th in the US. Yet they got a team in advance of several other major league (markets that have 2 more teams in the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, or MLS) markets that are double or even triple the size of Jacksonville. Milwalkee, a market a decent size larger than Jacksonville, was a city Peter Wilt was looking into prior to choosing Indy. His opinion on Milwalkee would be a good USL Pro market, but not NASL. Hell look at Green Bay, there is no reason why that town should be able to support an NFL team by its size, but it does. If you can get the support you can get the support, size doesn't really matter at that point.
Jacksonville is an epic failure in the NFL and the most likely team other than Oakland to move in the near future. Things have gotten so bad that they are trying to get people to come to games by showing the NFL Redzone channel on the big screens during TV timeouts. Jacksonville also doesn't have the financial power to offset its lack of size. Jacksonville is a minor league city and nothing more. It's actually a great argument against your position. Ah yes, the old exception to the norm nonsense. Green Bay is extraordinarily unique in the US sports landscape, otherwise we would still have top tier pro sports teams in places like Rochester and Lexington. Throw in the part where they have existed since before TV ratings and market size were even considerations and they have absolutely no bearing at all on this discussion.
The fact Jacksonville is the smallest NFL market has no bearing on Des Moines as an NASL market. Because by all standards, the Jacksonville Jaguars are still an NFL franchise, and "failure" is all relative. They're still an incredibly valuable sports property, merely by virtue of their status as an NFL franchise. And Green Bay....oy. That can be thrown into any discussion, I guess, by people who've been here an hour and a half and have no sense of history or how things they see every day came to be. If you were starting an NFL today, you wouldn't put a team in Green Bay, Wisconsin unless you had a 100+ team league. What made Green Bay, Wisconsin, viable as an NFL market was its public ownership (without which the team was going to fold), the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 and NFL revenue-sharing. Oh, and the NFL becoming a behemoth. Ask yourself why Green Bay has nothing else if it's such a valuable piece of real estate, a magical place. No other sports teams. And then look at the fact that the Packers are Wisconsin's team, benefit from an incredibly passionate fan base forged over 100 years of history and the fact the very nature of the NFL mitigates the problem of its small market size. And then tell me again why that has eff-all to do with Des Moines potentially joining the NASL, when ( a ) they don't even have the desire to be in USL Pro because they understand the limitations of their marketplace and ( b ) none of the market-size mitigation factors that exist in Green Bay's case exist in Des Moines' case. IF someone with the appropriate net worth and the interest in owning a team in Des Moines and building an appropriate stadium and playing with the big(gish) boys wanted to plunk down the money to make it happen, they could certainly do that. It would be silly, but they could certainly do that. It wouldn't be a wise investment because, "vibe" aside, there simply isn't a large enough population base from which to draw, not a large enough corporate base from which to gain support (especially given the presence of the Cubs and the Wild in the market) and, quite frankly, Des Moines adds nothing to what the NASL is trying to do and trying to be. It's not where things are trending. It's just not. And when your "research" consists of "Derp, derp, Jacksonville and Green Bay" and you tell others to do some research, I'm sorry, you're showing your naivety. Please, let it go.