In 1997, then mayor Willie Brown tried to convince the then Clash to relocate to a new Niners stadium in the city to ease financial costs.
There was a big story breaking out around 1996 that San Jose Earthqaukes GM Peter Bridgwater picked up the lunch tab while talking to Willie Brown. Then it fell through and the Quakes along with SJSU decided to make Spartan Stadium wider in time 1998 season. and that is what happened.
If Milan Mandaric listened to the Old NASL's heads in 1973 and decided to put his team in SF as opposed to San Jose, things may have gone differently. Its been 40 years and since then however and we've seen the coming and going of the NASL, MISL WSA/APSL and the reincarnation of MLS Clash/Quakes from 1996-2005 and again from 2008 onward. In each case, its always been about the South Bay and San Jose area. The only teams to have started a team outside of San Jose were Mandaric's Oakland Stompers (1978) , the indoor San Francisco Fog (80-81) and the California Victory (2007). No other interested party has ever lasted more than one season and no one has ever come forth with a bid or interest in placing a team in the city. As it is SF has been the home to many top amateur teams for decades. You had Lothar Osiander's Greek Americans, El Farolito/CD Mexico , SF Glens, SF Scots and Concordia but still no professional team. I welcome a team in the city but I really wonder when it will ever happen.
After drawing 45k for a USMNT friendly vs. Guatemala and good turn out every trip there, when is there going to be a push for Nashville. Hopefully an owner steps forward and joins the NASL ranks. USL-Pro will come calling soon.
The owner of the Harrisburg City Islanders has allegedly been looking at relocating the team to Nashville.
For NASL sake I hope not. If NASL keep losing markets like Nashville, St Louis, OKC to USL...be prepared to be division 3 soon.
Unless the two leagues merge eventually. I can see that happening. Maybe not now but in 3-5 years time.
There are plenty of available markets similar in quality to Nashville, I wouldn't sweat it. It would be a good get but so would Baltimore, San Francisco, San Diego, Northside Chicago, Milwaukee, Cleveland, etc, or if you want to stay within Tennessee, you could say bring back the Memphis Rogues.
There are no deals on the books. All player contracts are one year deals. All advertising is local, so that goes away. Virtually none of the front office would relocate. The team name means nothing in another city. Relocation is not going to happen, they will just fold if a local buyer is not found.
They could still relocate if the price for NASL's Atlanta is less than the $3 million expansion fee for a new club making it a more cost effective option.
Reason would be to sell at a lower price than 3 mil and have the club move to another market rather than fold it and have the league contract by 1 club and get zippo for Atlanta.
That assumes the new owner isn't willing to pay 3mm, in which case you prob don't want them in the league anyway.
They especially like when taxpayers foot the bill for things like stadiums even when they are mega-billionaires (Hi, Sheik Mansour).
So? The seller has to be willing to offer a discount. The problem here is people seem to think buying Atlanta is functionally different than buying a new expansion, it isn't. To the league shutting Atlanta and selling an expansion is no different from selling an expansion and contracting Atlanta. If nobody buys and the league contracts by one, so be it, it isn't like they need to keep an even number of teams or something.
Memphis would not necessarily be at the top of my list, but with a committed owner (that's the rub with most markets) and I think they could make a real go of it...
Has there every really been anything resembling a soccer culture in Memphis? They would seem to be at the bottom of the 'outside the box candidates' list
While a relevant comment, it reminds me of what people said of Orlando 5-10 years ago. And for the most part I agreed. No matter how many events, emails or phone calls, the most we had show up was 100s. Now look at them. Just saying, if the ownership, drive and money is there and there's a decent population and age groups, anything can happen.
And team owners don't always like someone getting franchises for less than the going rate. A prospective owner would get a better deal taking the cheaper option, but ( a ) they're not really getting anything of value since there are few carryover player contracts, local sponsorship agreements would be worthless and the Silverbacks' "brand" carries no weight in any other city and ( b ) there's nothing in it for the league to sell the existing franchise rights for less than an expansion team would fetch. So ( c ) you'd be letting someone into the league with what would be absolutely no different than an expansion franchise for less than the cost of an expansion franchise.
I really wonder why Detroit hasn't got a professional soccer team yet. They should join the NASL next season.