Collinsville city council approves annexation of land for STL MLS SSS

Exactly. The only cities that deserve a club are those with someone willing to bank roll a team. If that city and owner have a SSS in the works, all the better.

St. Louis has an owner and a possible SSS in the works . . . welcome aboard St. Louis.

 

Word. They should put this big notice at the top of the Expansion forums.

 

The hope is that as the league grows it can be more selective in picking its new teams. It indeed has to be a given that ownership groups are loaded and able to sustain million dollar losses and huge start up/stadium costs. No one without a SSS plan in place will be able to get in the door. What is nice about the Collinsville/Cooper plan is that it all disappears if for some reason MLS says "No thanks" at the last minute.

If suddenly you had like six cities vying for 4 slots, all with ownerships and SSS deals in the works, you then can take into consideration all the arguments pro/con for a city. Las Vegas might promise a futuristic casino/stadium experience, but Portland has a fervent fan base. Atlanta could offer a southern outpost for MLS, but Montreal comes up with 5,000 season ticket sales, etc.

That's when it will get interesting.

 

I guess for me, parking isn't as important as it is for some people. Yeah, easy parking is nice (and honestly, I rarely have problems at Busch since I found my personal favorite $5 lot at Spruce & 14th), but I'd rather have some gameday atmosphere around the stadium, including bars. Spending an extra 15 minutes waiting to get out of the lot isn't a big deal (although when it gets to be more like an hour, I'm as pissed as the next guy).

That said, I think the restaurant/hotel/retail part of the Collinsville development is supposed to be part of the first phase along with the stadium, so maybe we'll have the best of both: bars and parking (and rooms for an overnight stay). If only MetroLink went there...come on, gameday shuttle buses!

 

I was somewhat sceptical about the location when I first heard about this project, but over Labor day weekend I became convinced this could work out very well.

I was home in KC for the weekend and looking for something to do with my son and nephews. The Royals and Wizards were both out of town (a pity as we would have added 6 to their season attendance numbers ) so we loaded up the car and went to a T-Bones game -- single A baseball with no MLB affiliation.

The stadium is out by the new Kansas motor speedway in KCK. In short, it is in the middle of nowhere but with good highway access. It was a field a few years ago. In addition to the Speedway and the baseball stadium, the built up a development including shops, restaurants and I believe some housing. They basically created a town out of thin air.

We showed up early afternoon. We waited an hour and fifteen minutes for a table at the T-Rex Cafe. The rest of the "mall" and restaurants were packed. The minor league game had over 9,000 fans and we were limited to getting lawn seats even though we were there 2 hours before the game.

In short, this type of development can be done and can be very successful. The St. Louis proposal is about 15-20 minutes closer to downtown St. Louis than this place is to downtown KC.

 

Getting ahead of ourselves a bit, but your fan base should start scouting out a soccer friendly bar and work with them to sponsor busses to and from the game to somewhere in downtown STL.

Get them in touch with the Globe Pub in Chicago for details about how it can work. They get a good crowd in eating and drinking pre-game; everyone buys a round for the bus (or the bar can throw a pony keg on the bus and include beer in the cost of the bus); and then a dedicated crowd coming back post game.

If things work out well they can also get good crowds for watching away games.

 

HERE'S HOPING!!!