Yes "nobody" in Tampa went to a midweek B team game at freaking 9:30 PM against an opponent most never even heard of. For shame. And we have more than just Cubans and Puerto Ricans, though the latter are showing up for Orlando City games just fine.
The interesting thing about Tampa is the amount of single young people coming to live here. Some ridiculous increase like 70% in 10 years.
I agree on Hispanic demo's not being as important. But if MLS already failed once and attendance sucked for a game the league was measuring interest. Guess what Tampa blew it !
Big difference between the young transplanted P.R's from the island and the American born P.R's from from Chicago & NY in Tampa. Sorry but Tampa just doesn't impress me.
Then all you have to do is find an airplane with 18 seats in first class. And an airline willing to give them all to you. The real problem though is that like with anything else, MLS is unlikely to just give this kind of travel away. They'll rightly want to make it part of the CBA. The union has apparently not felt that it was worth giving up something else for. And as everybody knows, when theres a union involved you dont get free shit in between contracts.
The only reason the Mutiny were contracted was because MLS couldn't find an owner for them. It didn't "fail" in Tampa any more than Kansas City did.
The city of Tampa has already approved a stadium deal. Only one other expansion bid city has that. If Tampa blew it, the other expansion markets haven't even gotten into the starting gate.
Tampa and Sacramento have two things in common and a little luck going for them. The most important thing is the stadium is ready to go with the awarding of the franchise. I would guess and i stress just guessing but you need to announce two teams by the end of the year or you might slow the bidding process. First off both these teams can expand the market for MLS geographically in an area they have existing teams. If Miami finally gets the go ahead, Florida will have a large footprint with three teams. Orlando and Tampa are only 85 miles apart, with Miami close enough for fans to travel too. San Jose is just an hour and a half from Sacramento and with two teams in LA, California should see some new rivalries develop. It's seem to done wonder for the Red Bulls. With these two spots gone and Detroit, Cincinnati and Nashville trying to finalize their stadium plan, this should add to the pressure to get 27 & 28. Even though i think the number will end up with to 32 teams eventually.
Yes if league goes to 32 , Tampa gets in..but in mean time I don't see it happening. There's no way I believe St Louis is dead, Nashville has Garber wet and Sacramento is a lock. Also there might be questions about the ownership in Tampa.
I agree about the ownership concern. Hopefully Edwards has some good partners lined up that he's just waiting to announce closer to decision time to make some noise.
Nashville is the favorite after Sac. But if San Diego, Detroit and St Louis haven't got their acts together but the time 28 is announced I can't see Garber giving up on them, which means 30 or 32.
Ummmm...San Antonio is currently playing in a SSS as well........and has an expansion plan for said stadium......just sayin...
My understanding is that the financing plan for the necessary expansion to meet MLS standards is still up in the air. Or is my understanding wrong there?
I wonder if there are some owners who would want to pay for charter flights, to give their team a competitive advantage? You've gotta think there are plenty of coaches out there who are begging for it for their players' bodies.
It would be easy for the league to make some small changes to the travel policy that would make a real impact. In the next CBA, or even in an interim appendix, allowing playoffs to be exempt like CCL would be a dramatic shift I expect to see. At present, teams save charter flights for playoff games most end up not having. The maximum number of road playoff games for a team is four, which is what a 5 or 6 seed would experience if they reach MLS Cup. As a result, teams don't use charters during the season outside of very unusual circumstances. But there are only 17 playoff games held total. I'd guess most teams use no charter flights in any year for league play, and under a quarter use more than a couple. A simple change like this means more front office strategy, which BigSoccer nerds love. Teams would go from using zero or one charter flight in a regular season to being a regular thing, with decisions about when to use them becoming subject to our remarkable insight.