I'm not sure whether this belongs here or in the Expansions boards (since this refers to a past event rather than to future expansion), but here goes...       Earlier today I was rummaging through bags of old World Cup paraphernalia when lo and behold, I found two MLS Season Ticket Presale brochures that I had picked up at one of the World Cup '94 matches at Stanford Stadium (one of the brochures had the tear-off order form missing - the one I had used to secure my eventual season-tickets, of course - while the other one still had the order form attached).       The brochure bears the pre-launch league logo (which has a blue-white-red motif instead of the green-white-blue motif that was eventually adopted) and states that the league was set to open in 1995 with 12 teams (things had obviously changed since then). The most striking thing, though, was the Potential MLS Communities list on one side of the tear-off order form: it lists the 43 cities that had made the final cut for the season-ticket deposit drive to be among the initial 12 MLS teams (I had heard that about a year earlier there were as many as 100 cities bidding, some of whom either dropped out later or were consolidated like the separate New York and New Jersey bids were just prior to WC '94).       In any case, here is the list of 43 cities/communities listed in alphabetical order: Albuquerque Atlanta Austin Boston Buffalo Charlotte Chicago Cincinnati Cleveland Columbus Dallas Denver Detroit Houston Indianapolis Kansas City Las Vegas Long Island Los Angeles Louisville Memphis Miami/Ft. Lauderdale Milwaukee Minneapolis Nashville New Orleans New York/New Jersey Orange County, CA Orlando Philadelphia Phoenix Pittsburgh Raleigh-Durham Sacramento Salt Lake City San Diego San Francisco San Jose Seattle St. Louis Tampa Tulsa Washington, D.C.       While some of these cities have been mentioned recently around here as potential MLS expansion cities, some of the others haven't. Does anyone here remember this brochure at all, and/or live in or near one of the cities listed that had an MLS season-ticket deposit drive but eventually ended up not getting an MLS team (but got the deposit either returned or destroyed)? -G
Salt Lake City? It had to be a joke. I don't remember anyone ever saying anything about trying to get a MLS team in Salt Lake. Even if someone had, they would have been laughed out of the state. We are lucky to have a very successful D3 team that gets next to nothing in televsion coverage. Newspaper yes, local tv, no. Phoenix and Las Vegas? Also had to be a joke.
Wow -- interesting find, Goodsport. Do you (or anybody else) know how many season-ticket deposits were required to make this cut?
I recall 10,000 pledges at $75 per pledge as the number. This is why Columbus is in the league, with many thanks to the Kroger chain.
Was the pledge binding -- were you contractually obligated to purchase tickets if you made the $75 pledge?
Fantastic find, I remember reading through these cities hoping for a Bay Area team Any chance you could scan in the old red white and blue logo?
Actually, wasn't it Marc Connelly, or someone of his ilk, who's from Albuquerque, and said that high school soccer matches outdraw high school football and other events of larger national stature? Whoever it was said Albuquerque had a great soccer history and culture, and would be a great fit for a MLS team (presuming an I/O and a stadium plan of course).
That may be true, but regardless, New Mexico has never proven itself to be able to handle a pro sports franchise (aside from AAA baseball and stuff like that). And I'm surprised they chose Albuquerque as a potential spot. Isn't Santa Fe larger? Might as well throw Taos and Gallup in there.
Tulsa only got around 2,000 ticket deposits for the original MLS. It was a grassroots effort and the city was one of 18 finalists from the list you posted. The problem was that Univ of Tulsa officials balked at taking out the artificial turf and replacing it with a natural grass field.
I still have my "Kick In For Indy" button on the bulletin board behind my desk. I was working in TV in Indianapolis at the time, and was schmoozing the people who were behind the bid, just in case they got a team and there were broadcasting opportunities with the team. I know they made a formal presentation and bid whenever it got down to whatever round the bids happened in. The biggest problem (besides that I don't think they got a whole lot of ticket pledges) was that the only facility that was even remotely suitable, and the one they used in their bid, was Butler Bowl on the campus of Butler University. It seats about 18-20k now, depending on how box seats are used, and has an outdoor theater at one end. Butler's Division I-AA football team plays there, and the ASL's Indianapolis Daredevils played there in the late 1970's. However, it was too narrow, and would have required some renovations to widen the field; it had (and I believe still has) no lights, so those would have had to have been added; the facilities are that of a small college, and it would have, obviously, had the other restrictions that come with playing on a college campus (and the campus is just north of downtown Indianapolis, wedged into a residential community, without a whole lot of parking....not a huge deal when your football team draws a couple thousand a game, and they make do for basketball, which averages about 5-6k IIRC, but would have been a big deal for an MLS team). Obviously, they weren't selected. Couple years later, Indy got a CISL team, and then a D3 team (which is now an A-League team, and might be a PDL team next year). The same folks who bid for the MLS team were behind the 1997 US Open Cup Final, which drew 9,776 (which I believe was a record at the time).
Louisville's been on the fringes of expansion talk in the past. They were actually included by the league in a list of potential candidates at one point not too long ago.
At the time, no one thought of Rochester as a big time soccer market since the Rhinos were a couple of years away from being born and it had been a while since they had an NASL team. So that doesn't surprise me at all.
You are absolutely right. I stand corrected. Interesting to note that Rochester joined the A-League in 1996 and: Code: GP W L SW GF GA Pts Montreal Impact 27 17 6 4 40 18 55 Colorado Foxes 27 14 11 2 55 33 44 Seattle Sounders 27 12 11 4 35 25 40 Rochester Rhinos 27 11 13 3 44 42 36 Vancouver 86ers 27 10 14 3 38 38 33 New York Fever 27 6 18 3 30 40 21 Atlanta Ruckus 22 3 19 0 14 60 9 Semi-finals: Rochester defeated Montreal, 3-2, 0-3, 2-1 Seattle defeated Colorado, 1-0, 0-2, 3-0 CHAMPIONSHIP: Seattle defeated Rochester, 2-0. made it all the way to the final!
Albuquerque (c. 1999) 420,578 Albuquerque MSA 678,820 A City's population is only half of the people story. Mind you, in some places a city may be 75% of the metropolitan area's population or in other cases maybe 15%. In Albuquerque's case, its about 60%-66% of it. here are a few other interesting ones... New York City 7,428,162 NYC MSA 20,196,649 Harrisburg PA 48,619 Harrisburg-Carlisle-Leb. MSA 618,375 Harrisburg-York-Lancaster-Car.-Leb. MSA 1,454,996 Just a little tidbit of my hometown for the sake of comparison. The downtowns of the Harrisburg-Lancaster-York area are all within 40 mins of eachother by car.
      I'm glad I could help!       It seems that Paul Schmidt has already provided the answer. -G
Thank you Noah for digging out the facts. I knew Albuquerque was significantly bigger but didn't have the time to prove it. And Connolly or whoever it was was dead serious that he thought it was the perfect town for MLS because a) it had a significant soccer culture and b) it would get such prominent attention from the media, etc. precisely because it would be (one of) the biggest game in town. One point of view anyway...