Re: Expansion based on city population If you make SA wait until 2016 they will not go for that. They are wanting a team next year. So why make them wait another 10 years. This thread has no baisis of reality in it.
Re: Expansion based on city population WHAT!!!!!!! Did anybod read this post. I was not aware of an mls team ever being in New Orleans. I dont know what is guy is on. The city I live in has 57000 people and probably 5000 hispanic so I think they would be good to have an mls team.
Re: Expansion based on city population This thread sucks. Any thread that mentions a horrible sports town like Atlanta as a possible expansion site for MLS is sucksville.
Re: Expansion based on city population Actually I thought this thread was quite funny. Especially the post I responded to three posts above.
Re: Expansion based on city population I think you're better off cross-referencing population size with population growth. Cities that are large and getting larget in the Sun Belt are a better bet than Rust Belt cities that are slowly dying. Sachin
Re: Expansion based on city population Although LA does okay, I think MLS needs to be veeeeery careful when considering cities that already have MLB teams. Every MLB team plays 81 home games a year, so ticket prices are much cheaper. Combine that with higher visibility and more media coverage for baseball, and soccer is something of a losing proposition. And then teams in markets with the NBA and NHL have to compete with three other sports, sometimes into June (when those sports aren't on strike, that is), sports that are much more firmly established in the community. So, nix Atlanta and Philly, and forget about another NY team altogether. San Antonio might work, and I still think the next expansion team ought to be the Albuquerque Isotopes...
Re: Expansion based on city population I totally disagree with you. Philly is not a Phillies town. It is a huge Eagles town, followed by the Flyers and Sixers. The Phils don't draw as well as them unless they have a Pat Burrell bobble head give-away. There definitely rabid baseball fans, but what city doesn't have them? The simple fact is that a city with a passion for sports will get behind a professional team. And Philly is one of those cities that has unbelievable passion for all sports. Even with all the competion for attention from the 4 big leagues, the Phantoms (AHL) and the Soul (AFL) draw well in this city, and not because of the NHL strike. This city will support a fifth professional team, and it will rankle the sports talk soccer-haters because the team will draw as much as the Phillies. By the way, I noticed on some of the population list that San Fransisco is 4th largest area. According to the US Census, Houston just passed Philly as the 4th largest city in the US with Phoenix closing in very quickly behind both...Just a thought.
Re: Expansion based on city population Better than pure population is the American City Business Journals index, which factors population, cumulative personal income, and the number of teams already in the market. By that measure, the top four 'markets' in the US {and note that there's a difference between a market as a pure economic concept and an actual good location for a club} for MLS expansion were, in order: 1- Philadelphia 2- Houston 3- Orlando 4- Portland, OR Of those four, three would be excellent expansion candidates if the stadium and owner were right. {Orlando is a bit of a special case, as much of their income comes from unusual sources like wealthy retirees and tourism, and they also have an unusual number of teams not in the market but close to it in Tampa and Jacksonville.} I don't believe in expansion solely based upon market size or wealth/competition. However, for a good enough market, MLS might consider incentivizing expansion there to create the best owner/stadium situation (for instance, say to an owner, "if you can come up with $X Million for a stadium, we'll kick in $X-Y Million"). This might also come in handy for markets the league is already in that are looking to secure a stadium deal.
Re: Expansion based on city population Oh. My. GOD. LA does "ok"? What, close to 6 million baseball fans between 2 teams PLUS the juggernaut that is the Galaxy PLUS Chivas USA in the top 5 of the league... and LA does "ok"?! Maybe instead of moving KC and/or SJ, we should move LA. And once Harrison gets underway and Metro plays there for a couple of years, I would say a Cosmos team in a decent location w/in NYC itself would be a MEGA success.
Re: Expansion based on city population Speaking of which, I did not caveat my above post by noting those were the top 4 markets that did not already have an MLS club. NY (and for that matter LA, but i think 2 teams will do) blew them all away. Heck, Chicago, the Bay Area, DC/Baltimore and Boston all outpointed Philly.
Re: Expansion based on city population Actually, Honolulu's not even close to cracking the top 10 in population. When last I checked, the City of Honolulu's population was around 378,000 people... making it the 45th largest municipality in the United States. The Honolulu Metro Area had a population of almost 903,000 people... which ranked 56th out of all US Metro Areas. Factor in travel time/distance and the accompanying travel costs and placing a franchise in Honolulu is not a smart bet.
Re: Expansion based on city population I disagree, I think baseball is HUGE in Philly. I think we could even support a second baseball team again (remember the A's used to cohabitate with the Phillies) but that is a topic for another thread. When the Eagles were bad, they didn't draw as many people as they do now. the Eagles had to rely on channel 10 to buy up the remaining unsold tickets so they could claim a sellout and be allowed to televise the games. So it's not just the sport, it's how well the team is doing. if the Phillies were better, they would draw more, it's that simple. There is a certain amount of bandwagon-hopping that goes on, but that's ok: if you continue to support a bad team, they have no incentive to get better, so it's good that some people only support them when they are doing well. Let's not forget the Kixx, the Wings, and the Barrage! That demographic includes San Fran, Oakland, and San Jose. But they are all separate television markets, so it all depends how you slice it. Washington and Baltimore are 2 separate tv markets, but for population reporting they are often listed together as one. Philadelphia is still the 4th largest single television market by a pretty substantial margin. I don't have access to the latest numbers to back me up, so if someone else does please post it. But I think we are something like 6.1 million versus 5.4 million over #5.
Re: Expansion based on city population We are??? I'm in Oakland right now, and from my house (near Lake Merritt, 'hood side, represe'in', yo) to downtown is 12 miles. Downtown SF is closer to Oakland International Airport than SFO. Hardly a different t.v. market. It's about 40 miles to Spartan stadium in SJ. I'm listening to a radio station that broadcasts out of SF and SJ, fairly weak signal, but comes in quite fine. SJ/SF/Oak are the same tv market.
Re: Expansion based on city population That differs from what I was always taught in media classes, but since you live there I will defer to you. btw, can we have the A's back?!
Re: Expansion based on city population As a former television and radio broadcaster, I can categorically tell you that Nielsen Media Research regards San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose as a single television DMA (designated market area) of approximately 2,360,000 "TV homes". The SF-Oak-SJ DMA is ranked sixth in the United States. Based on the market rankings in one of my Nielsen guides, Major League Soccer currently operates franchises in seven of the "top ten" DMAs: 1) New York 2) Los Angeles 3) Chicago 5) Boston (Manchester)... plus, the Providence-New Bedford DMA is #49 6) San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose 7) Dallas-Ft. Worth 8) Washington, DC (Hagerstown) According to Nielsen, the remainder of Major League Soccer's current markets rank as follows: 18) Denver 31) Kansas City 34) Columbus 36) Salt Lake City As for the ten highest-remaining DMAs which are not represented in MLS: 4) Philadelphia 9) Atlanta 10) Detroit 11) Houston 12) Seattle-Tacoma 13) Tampa-St. Petersburg (Sarasota) 14) Minneapolis-St.Paul 15) Phoenix (Prescott) 16) Cleveland-Akron (Canton) 17) Miami-Ft.Lauderdale
Re: Expansion based on city population As long as I'm paging through my Nielsen guide, here are the DMA rankings for a number of cities that are often mentioned as MLS expansion/relocation sites: 20) Orlando-Daytona Beach-Melbourne 21) St. Louis 24) Portland 25) Indianapolis 26) San Diego 28) Charlotte 29) Raleigh-Durham 32) Milwaukee 37) San Antonio 43) New Orleans 45) Oklahoma City 51) Las Vegas 75) Rochester Incidentally, Toronto is the largest DMA in Canada, with an estimated 2,492,000 "TV homes". That figure would place Toronto as the #5 DMA in the United States, bumping Boston (Manchester) to #6 (and shuffling all of the other US markets accordingly).
Re: Expansion based on city population So I got the media thing wrong, this is why I got out of media/advertising and became an architect. thank you for posting this, and mea culpa. But your numbers underscore how ridiculous it is that Philadelphia doesn't have a team.
Re: Expansion based on city population And then there's the small issue of Dallas' being a "small market."
Re: Expansion based on city population Gotcha. that was a pretty senseless statement, equating columbus and dallas.