Another great addition to the league. The Manic (Okay, the Impact) will no doubt become another stellar new market for MLS and the matches between the three Canadian clubs will be truly special occasions.
Congrats to Montreal. They'll be a great addition to this league. As for 20, my money is on St. Louis. They're organized, seem to have the will, and I believe they have the $$$ if I'm not mistaken. With Montreal, YVR and PDX all leaving USSF D2 St Louis seems the next likeliest candidate from the second division to make the jump up.
I still don't understand this logic. When they were in the southeast the league was close to going under and they got rid of the southeast*. Since then they have had great success with their business plan. I just don't see how you can logically say that they NEED to be in the southeast. *Yes, I understand it isn't necessarily cause and effect. I'm merely pointing out that being in the southeast just isn't one of those "you need to be there" sort of things.
Someone will need to correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the last time MLS put a market ahead of a solid ownership group was. . . 1998? Since then, ownership, relationship with the market (i.e. stadium, fan base) has always always always trumped location. What's interesting to me is that after Montreal, we've really tapped out the obvious USL Teams.
The Rochester having strong enough attendance for MLS myth is about as overused as the Dallas' attendance would be better if they were in Dallas proper myth.
I was looking through articles about this when I found this: http://www.oursportscentral.com/services/releases/?id=4005185 I might be out of the loop, but has the login info for this ftp always been publicly available? From what I can tell there are only some highlight reels from the past couple of matches, plus a few other miscellaneous things, but it's an ftp, so you can download them, and they're in very nice quality.
Remember though that the further away you get from the centre of those cities, the less popular soccer is. I moved from Vancouver to Kamloops (3-hr drive, pop 85,000) and when it comes to sports interest, it is a whole different world. Hockey is so popular compared to other sports here that you can't even rank popularity of sports because hockey would need its own category. Only some of the active soccer players in town know anything about the Caps. Admittedly TV exposure will help change that, but I am just saying that for the sake of support and viewership, most of your numers would come from outside the metro area of those cities. Hockey rules in non-metro areas in Canada.
30% about? Or more..... It's over 10 million in the three metro areas, plus if you start including places like hamilton into toronto.....
Congrats to Montreal. Should be great. When they upgrade the stadium I hope they eliminate the ridiculous net that I remember seeing behind the goal last season. Was that to protect fans a la hockey from the ball, or to prevent fans from throwing stuff at the players??? Also, the proposed stadium expansion I saw last year was no great shakes, so hopfully it has been tweaked. With Red Bull and soon KC putting out stellar parks, it will be a shame if the Montreal facility is barely up to TFC/Crew standards, functional but rather blah, BUT, any full stadium looks good and we all expect nice fan turnout from the Montreal folks.
Beh, c'est bien ca! C'est fantastique! Trois equipes au Canada, c'est formidable. Don't forget the MLS used to have 3 divisions. It's possible, not necessarily likely, that next year we'll see 3 again. The West would have the 6 teams from the Pacific, the Central would have the 2 Rockies, 2 Texas, KC and Chicago, and the East would have the rest. When Montreal is added the East simply gets a 7th. But, like I said, it's unlikely but possible.
I'm just concerned that Canada has massed 85% of their population along the northern US border as a prelude to invasion. Before you know it, we'll all be forced to say "aboot" and "sore-y."
To be honest we could use some of their banking regulations and some of their education systems. Canada is fast becoming like the USA. Illegal immigrants from the Southern neighbo(u)r overwhelming the country.
Ummm.... On parle français and we don't speak english like that here, I've never even heard anyone pronounce words like that in Montréal.
I went to college near Montreal, so I can confirm that the Anglophone Quebecers do pronounce those words that way. I don't think they realize it though. Montreal women are very pretty, by the way. They have this whole "sexy repressed librarian" look going on.
=This will add a nice euro-french influence to our euro-anglo and hispanic flavored league.. We our obviously a very different league- split over 2 countries.. Any other league like that ? =I think Montreal became obvious choice once the stadium deal got done and the USL broke apart. Be interesting to see what Saputo and MLS agree upon in terms of financials and entry fees etc =Good rivals of course- Toronto, NY and Boston with in reasonable distance = My worry is the odd 19 team arrangement.. Of course, single table and no playoffs would be 36 games and be traditional and pure.. but I am affraid we we will get some weird arrangement.. I would settle for 10 in the west and 9 in the east , until #20 comes along. I think the money says it should be an "eastern-ish" team (anything east of KC?) =I can then live with 2 10 team divisions... you can skip big playoffs.. 20 teams= 38 game.. I would then make the MLS CUP East vs West again and limit to max of 3 rounds #4 east @ #1 west #3 east @ #2 west #4 west @ #1 east #3 west @ #2 east (this is the quarter finals) #2 east @ #1 west #2 west @ #1 east (this is the semi) #1 west vs #1 east (this is our current cup- neutral site) -All rounds on 3 straight Saturdays for best crowds = = Anyway, welcome Montreal.. Last saw a Montreal Franchise back in the A-League days (I think) when they came to play the LA Salsa at CS Fullerton. Don't remember if they were the Impact then - Prior to that, I saw the Montreal NASL beat my beloved LA Aztecs in a playoff game at the LA Colesium, which lost on a debateable PK in what turned out to be our last game ever. We had moved from the Rose Bowl to the Colesium when our ownership changed.. I also believe that was the year that the Manic drew a HUGE crowd to the BIG O for a playoff game also. So we know Montreal has some good history.. I great CCL run last year as well ! Welcome again.
St. Louis. We should keep on eye on AC St. Louis' attendance this season. In a stadium that holds 6,200 people, their home opener had 5,696, and their second home game had 2,985. It's too early to tell where that might be headed, but for such a small, awkward stadium, it was really rocking in both matches. I don't know how the city has gone decades without a pro team.
Frankly, I don't understand this argument. It may have made sense when most teams were losing money/game by not having their own stadia, but not now with everyone but DC with their own SSS, one on the way (Houston, KC, SJ) or in a decent sharing arrangement (Seattle, NE, Portland, Vancouver). If the mid-week game draws about 10k, they'll make money. Some markets won't crack it, but even now most will, save for Dallas or NE. They'll still be getting the same amount of games (or one or two more) on week-ends, with the probability that league wide, they'll still make $$ in midweek (you know Seattle, LA, Toronto, Portland, Vancouver, Houston, Chivas, and Montreal will, and probably Chicago, NY, RSL, KC, and Columbus as well). They'll offset any losses in DC, Dallas, Colorado, or NE (if indeed they are losing on midweek games). I say pump it up to more games. Get some good promotions for mid-week only (buck-a-brat) and you can get decent crowds. Plus, once those games get incorporated into the culture more, they'll get better numbers.