I just whipped a quick and dirty map showing the 22 current teams, LAFC and Miami, and the 12 contenders for spots 25-28 (and possibly 24 if Miami fails). The first thing that I notice is that I-35 is currently the eastern edge of the Western Conference. Minneapolis-St. Paul to Kansas City to Dallas to Houston. I don't think MLS will be beholden to expansion keeping a balance between east and west, but they probably want to avoid what the NHL currently has with 16 teams in the east and 14 in the west (all 16 eastern teams are in the eastern time zone). The issue there is that 8/16 eastern teams make the playoffs while 8/14 make it in the west. Saint Louis could go either direction, but the candidates are definitely heavier in the Eastern half of the country, and I think that may work against those teams as a collective.
MLS is interested in money only. If they maximized profits by having the all 24 teams located in Wyoming, they'd do it. The only reason they look at a map is to see if it could increase revenue in both the new city and a nearby current city.... Not balance
They're interested in the best business partners. Ones who are fully capitalized and likely to have an operation and a gameday experience that helps lift all boats as the saying goes. There is a correlation between money and what MLS BoG is looking for, but the four winners won't necessarily be the four biggest spenders. Overly simplistic, and I would add bitter, analysis.
There just aren't as many prospective sites west of the Mississippi, generally speaking. Beyond the current teams and the cities that submitted bids, the biggest places left are Vegas, Austin, and OKC. The western half of the country just doesn't have as many urban areas, so the Western Conference is bigger. When it's all settled, if there's a team in Saint Louis, it's probably in the Western Conference. Other sports leagues have this problem, too. @AndyMead notes the NHL (a generally Eastern league), where Nashville and Chicago are in the West, and Detroit is the furthest west team in the East (and the midpoint of 31 teams). In the NBA, having equally sized conferences still requires a team on the east bank of the Mississippi (Memphis) in the West. MLB and the NFL use a different conference/division split than straight geography, but the same principle holds. Baseball's West Divisions are everything past Missouri, and that's for only a third of the teams. The midpoint teams are the two in Chicago. The NFL is similar, with Kansas City in a West Division (though teams in Texas are not). The midpoint here is the state line for Ohio and Indiana, basically like the NHL.
I-35 is well west of Houston. It runs from Dallas to Austin to San Antonio in Texas. The closest it gets to Houston is 150 miles west in Austin. I-45 runs southeast from Dallas to Houston. But yeah, the Minneapolis to Kansas City to Dallas to Houston line is fairly straight north-south and does divide things right now. I think historically that is kind of the rainfall line. West of that not much grows so those cities were the "frontier". I'd agree that if St. Louis gets in they would more likely go West just because of the number of metro areas east of there.
Let them all in if they have the $100M door charge. 36 teams, 4 geographical divisions w/ East-West conferences, lots of nearby rivals, mix of warmer weather teams for scheduling early season. 16 divisional games (H&H). 1 Game against other division in East/West Conference for 9 more games. Then 9 more game against on the divisions in the other conference - to flip every other year. That's 34 regular season games. Playoffs are 4 seeded (by Conference finish) pools of 4 with winners of each pool advancing to Semi final/final (that would be 3-5 playoff games). Remaining 20 teams go into 5 pools of 4 (randomly drawn). 5 pool winners along with all playoff qualifiers (with exception of champion- 20 total teams) get furthest bye (except champion - who get one extra round bye) in Open Cup next year. This gives all teams another 3 games (37 total) & revenue opportunities (same as playoff teams). The games have some additional meaning.
Forgot to add for CONCACAF Champions league. East and West supporters shield winners & Playoff winner along with US open cup & Canadian cup champions qualify (5 teams).
Yeah, tough to see a state with two markets in the top 25 have two teams in a league of 28 teams. Wait. No, no it's not.
Feel free to add in Vegas at another $150M, and if Milwaukee can bring a giant bag of cash, they can join the party too. Maybe OKC and another Canadian team. And Yes to 2 NC teams ( no different than Columbus & Cincinnati)
Except that none of those places will be in the 28. They'll have to hope for relocation or future expansion.
My point is, why not allow them all in so long as the have the $$$$. Expansion fees get dispersed back to owners. I'm certain Precourt knew there would be expansion, and he would make his investment in buying the team back plus. Running a professional sports team day to day is pretty much a money losing proposition. Owners cash in investment when they sell or when there is expansion. Our country is so big, we can support more teams than other country in the world. I know we have every other sport diluting the discretionary spending if families, but there is still plenty of markets that can support it. Why not 40-45 team league? I haven't heard one good argument that I can't make a counter point to.
The four expansion spots won't go to the four groups that offer the most money. "$$$$" is only part of the equation. Warren Buffett could find enough cash in his couch to fund an MLS team, but if he wanted to put it in Omaha, I'm pretty sure that MLS would decline the bid. On the other hand, if Yan Skwara was the point man in San Diego, no amount of awesome stadium funds from the city would be enough to get them over the hump. Assuming the markets are all of reasonable desirableness to sponsors and broadcasters and all the bids have their finances in order, the vetting will come down to who is in charge and how they play with others. I'm pretty sure Joey Saputo would find the going a lot harder today. It's why the Sacramento fans are shitting themselves. The existing MLS teams aren't collecting expansion fees. They're diluting their own share of the business. The bidders are offering to buy those slices. The BoG is looking for partners they can trust to help continue grow the collective brand. Any yokel with a few hundred million in cash lying around isn't good enough.
Because MLS is a business. If you're Anthony Precourt, would you rather own 1/28th of the business or 1/45th?
If I'm not mistaken Anthony Precourt doesn't own MLS (nor do any other team owners). He is a Franchisee/operator in MLS. But to answer your question, there is clearly a limited supply of owners/markets. When they are willing to pay you to join the club, why not take their cash. The old would you rather have 1/25th of $150M of 1/25th of $0? Take their money. If the suck at running a franchise, let them die. You already have their $.
That is incorrect. Precourt is an Investor/Operator of MLS. There are actually no franchises in MLS. The Investor/Operators buy into the league which gives them the right to operate a team. When the league expands the new Investor/Operators also become owners of the league. That's what the "expansion fee" is for. They get a share of ownership of the league. From the "About Major League Soccer" website : http://pressbox.mlssoccer.com/content/about-major-league-soccer
Yeah, because running a business where your partners fail and taxpayers are on the hook for empty stadiums is a great way to promote your business. Or, you know, you could do due diligence and only add partners that are likely to help your business grow.
The days of tax payer funded stadiums are ending. So we can take that partly out of the equation. That is one problem I have with MLS insisting on a "soccer specific" stadium. They really should just be concerned with can a team generate enough revenue in any stadium to survive. Cincinnati is a good example. I'm far from a Euro snob, but teams have been failing in European leagues for decades and the leagues march on. That is one of the pillars of those screaming for pro/release stand on. Let the strong rise and the weak fall. It's OK. FWIW I'm not necessarily advocating pro/rel.
That depends on the size of the business. It's better to own 1/45th of a billion dollar business than 1/28th of a hundred million one.
You say that. But municipalities are still funding/financing stadiums. Despite all the negative news about Saint Louis and Charlotte, you still have municipal support. The Raiders aren't trying to move to Las Vegas for their allergies.
Raiders deal was going to be privately financed. Adler as lead investor with Fi ancing from Goldman Sachs. Sure there is some municipal $ involved but it has now become more things like infrastructure improvements (roads). And some are taking ownership after construction, but this is more to avoid paying huge property taxes on the new huge value.
The question, therefore, is if adding your enterprise makes the shared pie grow enough that it offsets adding another slice. For mid-size markets with well-capitalized and competent ownership, a good pool of prospective fans and sponsors, and necessary infrastructure, the answer can be 'yes'. For markets much smaller than that, circumstances must be perfect to even be considered. There was a time that Warren Buffett's involvement would've been a big enough incentive to put a team in 1M-person Omaha--it could have been a no-brainer expansion partner with Toronto in '07, or certainly any time before then. Maybe even as late as 2012. That was the key period that transformed MLS attitudes about expansion from being generous about Dave Checkett's financial limitations to being ready to charge nine-figure fees and push out Vergara because they knew it was now a seller's market. Now, there are enough heavy hitters already involved that ownership reputation is no longer a limitation; every prospective group has it, and almost always already have involvement in pro sports. Without that as a limiting factor, the prospective market has become increasingly important; the smallest under consideration right now are about 2M, (Nashville and Raleigh-Durham) despite having ten markets smaller than that involved in the NFL, NBA, or NHL. Both are also outsized television markets, and by that metric are larger than several current MLS markets (SLC, Columbus, and KC).
If Kansas City wasn't an original team, and Lamar's personal favorite - to the point that he made sure to sell it while he was alive instead of leaving for Clark to sell it someone waiting to relocate it - I'm not sure Kansas City would ever have become an MLS market. Despite growing to over two million, it is - as you say - on the smaller end of the list, and you've got a market with NFL and MLB teams that suck up huge amounts of local sponsorship and broadcast dollars and the local sports media is pretty much split three ways between those two and the Jayhawks. If the MLS team never existed and Kansas City was one of the 12 prospective markets trying to get a team, it would likely be one of the longest shots on the list.
If I remember correctly, until the Rams and Chargers both bolted for LA this year, isn't Kansas City is the only U.S. market to lose teams in two of the "big four" leagues...in Kansas City's case, the NBA and NHL...and not have them eventually replaced? I mean, it happened here with the Lakers and the North Stars, but we eventually got back into both leagues.