Actually, it doesn't. Under "Markets; Stadia; and Fields", General Requirements, it says Under "Markets; Stadia; and Fields" for D2 it says In the preliminary information there was a 5 year requirement. So everyone expected that was going to be required. But when the actual standards came out, it wasn't part of it.
Frankly, if you're some random newspaper sports writer covering a local minor-league team, there's not a lot of incentive to go into probing analysis beyond what its ownership is telling you. So yeah, the N&O really is at least sometimes a mouthpiece for the Wellmans. This is one of those times. It's not a surprise, and it's only a disappointment if you were expecting an interview with somebody in the news to be anything more than a chance for us to hear things from the interviewee about what's going on. I'd love to see a guy like Quarstad weigh in on the matter. I trust his analysis of almost everything we see in the D2 world. But as for the data that's there to analyze - well, here's a bunch of stuff straight from the league leadership.
If US 2nd Division becomes MLS2... any MLS team could lobby for Puerto Rico as a 2D market, since it's an attractive destination for Caribbean and Latino players >> Any MLS team would love to have access to promising Caribbean and Latino players. I could see Navas Cobo (Dynamo) getting developed in PR, for example. Just sayin'...