Miami-Barcelona Expansion & Bid Discussion

I would agree with their assessment of the front-runners. Miami and St. Louis are the most financially sound bids with the least possibility of hangups. Miami already has a quality stadium plan in place, signed and ready to go. St. Louis only needs the awarding of the team to start building their new SSS. Portland still needs some public funds and they have to reconfigure PGE Park. Vancouver has a shared CFL/Olympic stadium, albeit with a clever capacity reducing partition, which has no revenue control. Ottawa has a decent bid, but I can't see that market getting in over any of the others(even Montréal which is officially out), and Atlanta would be good but they have close to no stadium plan.

So looking at that, we have 4 realistic bids, and 2 get in. That gives Miami a 50% chance, and considering the tremendous potential upside, I don't see MLS passing us up. I also don't see them forcing Miami to wait until 2011 if we do get in, because it makes no sense. Why waste a whole year when you can have a team on the field selling tickets and merchandise and advertising. Spring 2010 can't come fast enough.

 

See I knew Miami will pull thru....wait til MLS Cup for updates

 

What is the chance that we might hear an announcement about the expansion teams during the MLS Cup?

 

No announcement will be made about with expansion cities are in. It will be done before the start of 2009 season.

 

Damn, I am so ready for us to get the team! Last match of the 2008 MLS season today, then hopefully just one more year. Although, it will suck since I am going to college in the fall of 2010, probably either FSU, UCF, FIU, or FAU, and if I go away, I cant get season tickets. Either way, i'll support the team, and am stoked.

 

Question for Miami fans, and please excuse my ignorance on the subject. Will the FIU stadium have turf or grass? If it's grass for sure then I'm all for Barci-Miami in 2011. Best of luck to Miami Supporters.

 

And will the team not have control over scheduling? Oliver Luck said earlier this year that Houston didn't host the league opener cause we didn't control the stadium.

 

The stadium has FieldTurf, and it probably won't change if we get in. Really with the football team practicing/playing there and MLS, combined with the weather and the ease of removing the football lines the turf is the better option at FIU. The university has already guaranteed there will be no football lines whatsoever during any MLS game. Obviously they would prefer grass, but when a brand new stadium comes along and offers itself up for nearly no rent, and gives up almost all revenue control for MLS, it works.

FIU uses the stadium only 6 times a year, and only 3-4 of those times are during the MLS season(their 4th home game this year was yesterday) I don't think there will be any problems with scheduling. MLS will be the sole tenant at the stadium until late August.

 

Well apparently, in a video that is linked in the "...www.miamifcb.com is now online" thread, Barça CEO Joan Oliver is quoted as saying they want to build a new stadium so FIU is only temporary. Unfortunately it's in Spanish with no subtitles, so I don't 100% trust it yet, but if it is true then that makes the FieldTurf even less of an issue, as it will work well for the short term.

 

Associated Press

The race for the two new MLS expansion franchises due to begin operations in 2011 intensified this week as representatives from hopeful consortiums met with league owners in Los Angeles.
Miami's bid, backed by Spanish giants FC Barcelona, appears to be a lock for one spot, although there is strong competition from other quarters.
Montreal dropped out of the running, leaving St Louis, Vancouver, Atlanta, Portland, Ottawa and Miami in contention.
St Louis would be a logical option, having fought a long campaign for inclusion. However, the Vancouver bid, backed by NBA star Steve Nash, is also impressive and gained momentum with Montreal's departure from the contest.
Several dynamics are at work and are of interest to MLS. The chance to team up with a club like Barcelona will surely be too good an offer to resist. Yet bringing in Portland and Vancouver would set up an intriguing Pacific Northwest rivalry, as Seattle Sounders FC joins the league in 2009.
Even Ottawa, long considered by far the outsider in the bidding process, has put itself in the mix, coming up with a highly impressive presentation on Friday.

 

Barcelona FC Joan Oliver Quote.


"Our inspiration is to go even further we want to contribute so that Miami can have a marvelous soccer stadium"

 

He did say that in the future we would play in a faboulous stadium, something like that.

And just to clear up, there wont be any American Football lines during MLS games. Just in case you thought there would be no soccer lines.

Hes from Germany.


Can someone please explain what's so bad about turf?

 

MLS is taking a huge risk or you can say is making a big mistake if they give Miami a team. I know Barcelona is big and all but the bottom line is the fan support is going to make a team successful, not the big name alone. I lived in my miami almost my whole life and let me tell you, Miami is probably the worst sports city in America. The Heat don't sell out their games and struggle with ticket sales, the Dolphins barely, barely sell out their games and most of their regular season games if not all are not sold out, the Marlins: hahaha, they play infront of 600-7000 fans on regular basis, the Panthers in Ft. Lauderdale also struggle big time with ticket sales and I never recall a sold out game there. The people of Miami are just not interested much in sports. They rather drink and party and go to the beach. That's all they do. MLS will fail again there, especially on that imature college stadium they're going to play on. It's a huge mistake MLS is making.

 

I disagree with you 100%. First of all Miami is not a bad sports town, sorry that everybody has other things to do here, its not our fault every other city in the USA is boring, but bringing in Barcelona giants to make a team here I think will prove the country wrong and show them that we can support a team (Miami FCB). Miami is inhabited by soccer loving people, We have people here from the Carribean (haiti, jamaica, cuba, etc.), central america (honduras, El salvador, guatemela, costa rica, panama, etc.), south America (Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Argentina, etc.) hell im damn sure we have people from Spain and Europe alike also!! This time around it will not fail, and im not including the Americans that live in West Palm Beach and Broward who have thier kids in soccer teams that would like to see a team here so they can take thier kids to see a professional soccer game. MLS is growing fast in the US, and I believe it would grow twice as fast here once it is concrete, and the news will spread fast.

And don't give me any crapt of the Cuban's that they like baseball and they don't fill the stadium, get over it, we have a bad baseball team, if they had consistency and were always good I KNOW the stadium will be packed, we aren't the Yankees who always makes the Post-season. I know alot of cubans who like soccer, and play soccer even and they play damn good. Im telling you once this team is here, it is here to stay for good, epsecially having it backed by FC Barcelona, hell I think we are gonna be a dynasty from day one (we'll be the Yankees of the MLS!!). MLS failed back then because the owner knew nothing of soccer, and pussied out when he first saw MLS having problems but look at MLS now, its growing and getting better, and everybody wants a team in this league and it is only going to get better in the future!! Adding Miami will give MLS more popularity because it is a gateway to South America. If the Miami team was to make it to the CCL, im sure there would be fans in every away stadium they play in because of the popularity of Miami and FC Barcelona.

So here me out people's MIAMI WILL NOT FAIL!!

 

I agree with you 100 %

 

Tune in to 560 WQAM Tuesday at
3:40 pm to hear Orlando Alzugaray interview Miami FCB’s Marcelo Claure. call Orlando and talk soccer. go to www.miamisoccerfan.com we have the link to 560 WQAM.

 

What Pablo and Lucho said plus this:

When you say the Heat and Panthers "struggle" to sell tickets it is either a flat out lie or a uniformed guess. Check my thread(https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=824288) that disproves the "Miami is probably the worst sports city in America" crap. The Dolphins do rarely sell out, but it's not like their getting 30,000 a game. They do just fine. The Marlins have obviously struggled at the gates over the years, but it's for an obvious reason. It's to hot/wet in the summertime to expect people to come out 81 times a year for what has been, more often than not, sub par baseball. Not to mention that the stadium they play in is a horrible venue for baseball. Yes, they have won two titles, but afterwards two separate ownership groups have dismantled those teams. The Fish will flourish when the new retractable roof ballpark opens sometime in 2011 at the old OB site downtown. As for top level pro soccer, both the Strikers and Fusion had decent attendances, and they both played a good 30 miles from Miami at Lockhart Stadium.

People please, enough with the "Miami is a bad sports town" nonsense. It's flat out FALSE and makes you look ridiculous. When you look at the numbers there is no foundation to the claim that we do not support our teams. We may not have the 100 year histories of places like NY or Boston, but we have dedicated fans for all our teams, and their numbers are growing. Yes, I'll be the first to admit we are not the best sports town, we we are definitely the worst or "horrible". MLS will be just as successful on and off the field as anywhere else, provided that this time, the ownership is committed(which it is) and the league itself is not in danger of failing(it certainly isn't).

 

Let me first say, that I'm still in FL, but not in South Florida and I would LOVE to see professional games when I go down which I usually do on a regular basis since most my family still down south. But I'm interested more in seeing MLS succeed as a league, not just be happy for 3-4 years of professional soccer in Miami. Lets be honest, you do know that all of our professional teams have a HARD time selling tickets. I did internship with the Panthers and let me tell you, they give THOUSANDS of tickets for free and still they do not sell out. I also know a woman who works for the Miami Heat's ticket sales office and they told me that the only time they started selling tickets without busting their butts is when Shaq came through, every season they had where they didn't perform well, they had to bust their butts to sell the tickets and that shows that the city is really not crazy about the teams. The Dolphins are an NFL team (America's number 1 sport) and still they do not sell out most of their games, look at the upper bowl during their games and you'll see plenty of orange seats empty.

About the Hispanic community, they don't give a crap about MLS and they disrespect MLS. I use to beg many of them to attend the Fusion back in 2001 and nobody cared. They just don't think the MLS is good enough and of course that's complete crap. The Hispanic community in Miami and South FL in general are still too caught up with their teams back home. That's a face, whether you want to admit it or not. They're very ignorant about the quality of MLS players and don't have any respect for them. They will go to a game or two but that's about it.

 

I'm just wondering how many fans signed up for season tickets?

No one will beat Seattle 18,000

 

Toronto sold out the first 2 years with season tix I believe. Not sure about now though.

 

I think people here can relate more to MLS because its soccer (population of hispanics in Miami 75%+), I believe there would be alot of locals in the tryouts if they had any. And to prove you (KEVNET) wrong about the Dolphins games, they have been getting more people in the stands, reason why, Dolphins are WINNING!! Have a winning record and by the end of the season they would get the stands full, because the Dolphins poosibilities of making it to the play-offs are great. The only reason why Miami teams don't fill out the stands is because most of the teams are not that good and if they make the play-offs they make it as a wild-card, never as a number one seed or the best in the league, meaning that the season was not that above average to be filling the stands.

Now I believe that if MLS was to change to a split season, every game would be more important, therefore increasing more people to go to the games of Miami FCB more often because there is more than one chance to get a championship in a season. This in fact would get greater attendance and more recognition in the USA.