NFL's return to Los Angeles and & how it imapcts MLS discussed here: NFL's return to Los Angeles shouldn't be a MLS killer The Goat Parade
How about what I consider a more important question, which is how does it impact St. Louis? There is now a large empty football stadium in St. Louis that could use a tenant. Playing in a dome is not ideal, and would require artificial grass, unless an ownership group wanted to knock it down and put up a proper stadium! Or better yet, weren't the Rams looking to build a riverfront stadium a bit ago? Perhaps take over those plans and make a soccer stadium instead!
It WOULD be awesome if an MLS investor popped up and pursued a downtown St. Louis stadium this year. I know it's crazy to say this, but I could see them being another Seattle or Orlando fan base wise. In quasi-related news, here's where the mayor of St. Louis stands on the NFL: St. Louis mayor says city won’t pursue another NFL team NBC Sports
St. Louis is a great option for MLS expansion if you don't care about having a stadium plan, owner, or extended recent history of lower division success. They have the history but it's all pretty ancient at this point. Decent first-year attendance for Saint Louis FC but I would hardly consider them a lock for success.
If the Chargers and the Raiders stay put in their respected cities would the Galaxy be open to move into the new stadium in Inglewood? They would be closer to the city center and to fight against the upcoming marketing onslaught that LAFC might bring
The Raiders did not get permission to move to LA, San Diego did, but not to their proposed Carson project. They will be allowed to share with the Rams if they want to move to LA.
How messed up would that be. The Raiders were denied and then won an anti-trust lawsuit against the NFL to move to LA, and then bailed out back to Oakland right after the Rams left. I'd be really upset if they let the Raiders move again without several years history of declining revenue.
Ah yes. The first St. Louis-replaces-NFL-with-MLS-question-via-article has officially arrived: Does Rams' departure open the door for MLS expansion team in St. Louis? Yahoo Sports
I've seen a lot of loose talk about this topic today. Everything from St. Louis definitely will get an MLS team soon to now St. Louis definitely won't get an MLS team anytime soon. Then there's the whole now San Diego is surely moving up the MLS expansion list (followed by now MLS will definitely pass over Sacramento again because Garber is way more into San Diego than he is Sacramento). The whole thing -- everything -- is completely nutty. Expansion to Sacramento and San Diego and St. Louis are all on their own tracks. This news doesn't really change anything in general though it may change some stadium specifics in San Diego and St. Louis. But those specifics were never going to be decisive for granting an expansion spot. What is a problem for MLS is that now you're facing at least one (and maybe two) NFL teams moving into LA right when you're launching a new team in that city. The timing for LAFC's launch is bad. The NFL will suck the sports oxygen out of the LA basin for a good long while. You only get one chance to make a first impression. Now I'm worried not too many people in LA will be paying attention to LAFC when they try to make theirs. That's how I see it: this matters almost nothing outside LA, but within LA it really, really hurts LAFC. (And that's not to mention the stadium issues now. Where are LAFC and the LA Rams going to play while their stadiums are being built? Seems to me I've heard both teams looking at the old Coliseum.)
LAFC is not going to play until the stadium is built. I believe that is 2018. I think the decision was made to not start a season earlier at the Coliseum. James
How soon is LAFC able to break ground? I can't imagine the build out is longer than 18 months given they can work year round in LA. So as long as they start in the next 6-8 months they could have the place ready in time for 2018. The Rams otoh have only two options the Coliseum and the Rose Bowl. They played at the Coliseum until 1980 (correction) when the moved to Anaheim, I would be surprised if they landed anywhere but the Coliseum while Kroenke builds his football palace. <Edit> According to nfl.com, the Rams will be playing at the Coliseum through the 2018 season, before moving into their Hollywood Park site in 2019. The Chargers have one year to exercise their option to join the Rams.
Absolutely no way. There's no way in hell I can see MLS passing Sacramento for ANYONE as the #25 spot for MLS expansion unless the Sacramento investors or mayor's office there decided to give up completely. Unless they want Sacramento AND San Diego, but Sacramento would still have to come first at this point. Would be embarrassing for the league beyond words if they went to another California city for expansion before Sac-Town.
It would sure as hell be embarrassing for Sacramento. But it might tell mid-markets that they needn't bother with MLS, that they are likely to be strung along and should not be involved in helping drive demand for franchises.
Passing up a passionate fanbase, ownership, political support for an unproven money chase? It makes the league look desperate for locations instead of actually being in tune with the national market. Sure, Sacramento may not have been the dream location for MLS over places like Minnesota or Miami, but there's something to be said when Sacramento has everything ready INCLUDING the passionate fanbase, and instead, they chase after stadium deals that weren't ready. While it might work out in the end for those two markets, passing Sacramento up at this point would be proof that all that stuff on their "checklist" for expansion requirements are irrelevant. This absolutely.
Although I would love to see Sacramento join, I can envision MLS passing Sac by for #25, just as they have passed them by for #21, #22, #23 and #24, and for a similar reason: expanding the league's footprint. If, and this is a very big if, cities such as St Louis, Charlotte, Phoenix, or others had everything in place I could see them getting preferential treatment over Sacramento. I even think, if everything was in place, San Antonio or San Diego would get preference (especially if His Sacred Soccerness, Landon Donovan, is involved with some much wealthier partners). In short, while Sacramento is a slam-dunk, the league might prefer scoring 3 points instead of 2. I'm just not as confident as many others that Sacramento is next in line for a team. But, let me add, I do think they will get a team because they are ready to go and those others aren't.
No way in heck. The Galaxy are not going to give up a stadium in the 'hood that they own, control and is custom built for them to move to an NFL monstrosity in slightly less the 'hood that they'll have to pay to play in, most likely on plastic. Not to mention they'd probably lose a lot of fans who don't want to make the slog up the 405. The 405 is no joke. No joke.
I know that. You know that. But tell the panicking ninnies at Reddit that ... or the journalists who occasionally feed that panic: Exhibit A.
I don't see how this makes any sense. I offered up the beginnings of the following argument on the SRFC board. I'll go further here. Imagine that MLB and the NFL were starting over -- 100% completely from scratch. Would they be placing teams in old Rustbelt cities, or would they be looking squarely at a top 20 TV market like Sacramento. I think they'd be looking at Sacramento instead of Pittsburgh and Milwaukee. Two teams in Ohio? Probably not. Green Bay? Hell no. They'd be ticking off as many big media markets as the can. In other words, they'd do exactly what MLS is doing. And Sacramento, as the number 20 media market, would be damn attractive to any of those leagues. If you're filling out a 30-something team league -- really -- how do you fill out that league to maximize your media coverage without including every top 20 media market possible? The fact that Sacramento never attracted real attention from the NFL and MLB is nothing more than an historical artifact from the days when it really was a smaller, basically agricultural city. When those leagues established themselves, Sacramento was not a big city. It is today. It's all just a glitch of history -- same reason Green Bay has an NFL team.
I'm digging MLS' role as the opportunist to swoop in on markets that got shitted on by the other leagues. Worked like a charm in Seattle, and I can see it succeeding in St Louis. Maybe there's a way to re-model the Edward Jones Dome roof after BC Place. I know 4-5 MLS teams in California would raise concerns about over-saturation, but San Diego would only have the Padres if the Chargers skip town, so it's an option to at least consider. (Bold prediction: Spanos will somehow stay San Diego rather than be Kroenke's bitch in a market where the Chargers have a limited history and fanbase, opening the door for Davis to move to Inglewood) The LA situation will be interesting with LAFC and the Rams (plus maybe a second NFL team) all coming to town. Going from seven pro teams to possibly 10 pro teams in the Greater LA area in just a couple of years would be a lot to digest at once, even in a market the size of LA.
Paging @Knave . Looks like your map showing California compared to the East Coast is relevant yet again.
How about this: the distance from Boston to Washington, DC is about 400 miles, while the distance from Sacramento to San Diego is about 500 miles. The population of California is about 39 million, which is more than all of Canada or about 10 million more than Australia and New Zealand combined.