I just don’t get this expansion other than a cash grab for the ongoing Ponzi scheme of league entry fees. We don’t have a growing fan base to add these kind of locations and we don’t have a large enough pool of players to increase the quality of play overall. Expansion simply dilutes the pool further. Maybe you can get away with it in the big cities and under the right circumstances but generally Nashville, Sacramento etc will be high risk.
No one else is expected - it counters LAFC/west coming in alone this year - maybe 2 teams in 2020 but I wish they'd wait (or get rid of expansion draft first instead)
Weren't you just recently touting how much better the expansion teams have been than United on-field and in the stands? Did you think Atlanta would have huge crowds and be a worthwhile team? (I think their on-field worthwhile-ness has been highly over-hyped, but they do have lots of fans at least for year one)
I am on record as saying Atlanta was a good choice even when they were selected. They were one of the last few big TV markets with major sports teams and a stadium ready with interested ownership that hasn’t yet been tapped by MLS. Also, being better than DC isn’t really a marker of successful expansion unfortunately. For that matter I have been an advocate for shuttering or relocating certain teams in the past (not DC obviously) so being an older team doesn’t make their existence good per se, but rather that was the leagues options at the time.
I disagree about the fanbase, I think there is growing support for soccer in the US. The quality of play is a much more troubling issue. I would assume that if salaries continue to rise in MLS, more top level athletes will consider soccer as their primary sport. Also of the "major" sports, only soccer and baseball don't require a certain minimum size to play successfully. Arriola is a good example, maybe he's a baseball infielder (short or second), no way he's playing basketball or football (or hockey for that matter), just too small.
The city seems to already have soccer teams at every level. My google machine brings up an Inter Nashville FC and a Nashville SC.
Several bad joke names are all over soccer twitter, but Tenn SC is my favorite of them so far. It won't be anything clever or anything, the guys these attract have no senses of humor or decency. If it's another ridiculously stupid FC name, I'll punch someone.
Well if that’s true then we’d be seeing real growth there empirically and we just aren’t. Right now pretty much every article on how MLS has “made it” relies on expansion as it’s primary source of evidence. Consider that viewership for this last MLS cup between two large market and highly followed clubs was good but flat and that ratings overall have been fairly flat as well and you get a better picture.
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ It's not DC United changing it's name so who cares. They can call themselves Nashbridges FC SC AFC
The average height of a MLB player is 73.7 inches and the average weight is 190.6 lbs. They never really were small as a group even when the great ones were called PeeWee. Of course baseball players apparently melt if they get wet so I assume we're talking dry weight
USSF President candidate bios https://www.ussoccer.com/about/governance/2018-us-soccer-president-candidates
On some level I would hope for either Solo or Wynalda to get the job. The entertainment value would be tremendous -- bigly even.
Unpopular opinion: I think Wynalda would be good at it - I don't like all of what he says he wants to do to the MLS schedule, but if being that outrageous gets folks to at least notice it's messed up now and think about it, that will be fine. The president can steer things, he can't change all that much (except behind the scenes which is much needed). Possibly more unpopular opinion: my vote, if I had one, would go to Kyle Martino - the P in POTY might have been short for President all these years, who knew I don't want any of the old guard to get it, even the lady who seems most qualified otherwise - and definitely not the current VP, we need some sort of real regime change. Solo would be cool for the lulz, until she started trying to put voice to her new power. Might be interesting to watch her hard-core clean house and expose some of the anti-female bias in that organization's leadership circles. In fact, I'd love for her to expose a bunch of that even when she loses. 'Tis the season.
That sort of funny/shake-up thing for a private company (which the USSF basically is) is one thing - I would never suggest it for a country's public government, that would be nothing but crazy talk
I tend to agree with @fatbastard regarding Martino. I actually think he's thought about this and has a plan. As a former player of some skill and product of the ancien regime he might know the pitfalls, errors and where the bodies are buried. While I also think Wynalda and Solo have thought about this and have plans, those plans look like a Hieronymous Bosch painting.