Expansion based on metro area population

These rankings always amaze me. Cities can promote themselves as the biggest ro the fastest growing using different criteria. Metro area versus city or county limits. I was in San Antonio last weekend and they said they are the 7th largest city in America and the second fastest growing. No way are they the 7th largest unless you just count the city itself, and then cities like San Antonio and Houston that draw their city limits way out versus older cities will always look bigger. Chicago on has a population of around 3 million, but if you count the close in suburbs it jumps to 8 million. The TV media rankings are the best measure of where to add teams.

 

If you are going to look at population then you also need to look at not just where they are but where cities are going to be once they would get into MLS.

Using the data from the Census bureau and applying the 2005 to 2006 growth rate consistently, I have re-ranked the top 15 metro areas in the US.

Based upon population ONLY, 3 or 4 stick out in need of a team: Atlanta, Philly, Miami and Pheonix.

City20062005 change % change20121New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA 18,818,536 18,813,723 4,813 0.0% 18,847,432 2Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, CA 12,950,129 12,933,839 16,290 0.1% 13,048,177 3Chicago-Naperville-Joliet, IL-IN-WI 9,505,748 9,446,565 59,183 0.6% 9,866,419 4Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX 6,003,967 5,823,043 180,924 3.0% 7,174,652 5Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, TX 5,539,949 5,352,569 187,380 3.4% 6,763,694 6Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, GA 5,138,223 4,972,219 166,004 3.2% 6,218,246 7Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD 5,826,742 5,806,092 20,650 0.4% 5,951,745 8Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Miami Beach, FL 5,463,857 5,424,697 39,160 0.7% 5,703,067 9Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV 5,290,400 5,251,629 38,771 0.7% 5,527,330 10Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, AZ 4,039,182 3,878,525 160,657 4.0% 5,104,212 11Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA 4,026,135 3,909,903 116,232 2.9% 4,775,840 12Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH 4,455,217 4,448,884 6,333 0.1% 4,493,350 13Detroit-Warren-Livonia, MI 4,468,966 4,479,254 (10,288)-0.2% 4,407,592 14San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA 4,180,027 4,158,012 22,015 0.5% 4,313,868 15Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA 3,263,497 3,207,892 55,605 1.7% 3,611,665

Those are certainly not the next four places that are getting teams but if population was the only determinant, then they probably should be.

 

Jealous much? Anyway, I agree to an extent. I think that media markets are too broad and dont translate into much (especially with a sport that has almost zero tv money). MSAs, like those listed in the post right above this one are the way to go, along with other factors. As for population growth, I think its pretty obvious that everyone in the US will be living south of the mason dixon line by 2075, .

 

If this was how teams were choses then that would just be a set up for failure. Why are we even discussing this when it is not how teams or choses or even part of the "criteria" that was set out by MLS.

 

What are the populations, pingudo?

 

You heard it here first it will be St. Louis along with Minneapolis/St. Paul in 2010.

 

Not sure where you are getting your numbers or what year but Atlanta is #9 not #12. Boston, Detroit and San Francisco are each smaller than what you are listing.

At least according to the Census bureau, listed here via Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_metropolitan_area

 

I think we might be overstating the importance of a hispanic population. I think any ethnic population that has a love for the game could be a factor. For us it could Bosnians or even Africans. Somewhere else it might be Persians or who knows what.

 

Yeah, Hispanic support has been nothing to write home about in places like LA, Houston, and Miami. Up here in minnesota we have the largest population of Somali and Etheopians as well as a ton of immigrants from southeast asia... not to mention a substantial amount of hispanics. these people I mentioned have just as much if not more passion for the game than hispanics.

 

???
They must only be counting legal immigrants

 

It actually has been quite good in Houston, thanks very much.

And I for one would love to know how the Ethiopian & Somali national teams are doing? How about their domestic leagues?

Not to insult MN, but if MLS is looking for a cosmopolitan market to go to, I don't think that Minneapolis/St Paul is the first choice.

 

What does the Ethiopian and Somali national teams have to do with immigrants supporting MLS?

 

I'm questioning the alleged love affair between these immigrants and soccer.

I would love to know on what we're basing the love of soccer? Not on national team crowds. Not on domestic leagues. So what is the basis for this besides that the author believes that his/her home city would be a great expansion site for MLS?

I would also say that first generation immigrants are unlikely to have the discretionary income that's necessary to support MLS.

 

Fill up your stadium for every match and then we'll talk. Sure the hispanic support for your team is ok for the meager MLS standards... thanks mostly to the sheer percentage of the population they are in houston.

What the heck does that have to with anything? So the national team and domestic league show how much a country is passionate about soccer? That would put the USA way up on the list. Go tell that to the kids playing street soccer with a ball of tape.

Obviously that's not what they're looking for when we see teams like columbus and kc in the league.

 

Do you really think that MLS is upset with the Houston market or their percentage of Hispanic fans?

If you don't have money for a soccer ball, how many games do you think these fans will be able to attend in person?

And they wouldn't put teams in those markets now would they. These markets were used because Lamar Hunt wanted them and he was willing to pay to have them there. There is no chance that they would get an expansion team at this point.

 

Metro population really isn't really material to this conversation. Business thinks of an area based on its market population not its metro population. The United States is broken up into 210 Designated Market Areas (DMA's). Within these DMA's is a population that is considered an audience that would visit an attraction anywhere (generally) within that area. The problem with your way of looking at things is that it can be misleading since there may be several cities in a DMA. For example, in the list below of the largest metropolitan areas, you have St. Louis on the bottom but when it comes to a market area two of the cities with larger metro populations actually have smaller marketing areas. Moreover, the ranking realign otherwise too since in metro population DC ranks fourth but as a DMA it ranks 8th.

This is also why the MLS could care less if a team is in the city or in a suburb. Some people in St. Louis can't get over the fact that the projected stadium for St. Louis is in Collinsville and not in St. Louis proper. That is actually a good thing since the primary demographic for MLS patronage is the soccer family living in the suburbs (Hispanics are a big group but nowhere near the biggest). This makes a suburban stadium a good thing since it is often easier for a suburban family to get to a stadium in a suburb than one in a city.

The MLS is first and foremost a business and one has to apply business principals to it....

 

It is easier for people in the suburb to make it to the games, but for people in other suburbs it can actually make it harder.

And by putting it in the suburbs (if there are no real transit options) you take the game away from people that at least have followed soccer on a professional level.

And the problem with media markets vs metro population is that the stadium may not really be conducive to the other cities in the market. The 20th market in the US is Sacramento/Stockton/Modesto. A stadium in North Sacramento would be an hour and a half from Modesto. So even though Modesto is in Sacramento's DMA, it's not a likely source of ticket buyers on a regular basis.

 

I have to agree with Veruca here. The suburb thing may work for condensed markets like Philly, but in sprawling cities it just won't work. I know that this is true for Atlanta and Miami and I would imagine that it is for most midwestern cities as well. The distance from a southern suburb to a northern suburb is just too far. The distance from Newnan, GA to Lawrenceville, GA (where they have said they are looking at properties) is almost the same distance from Philly to NYC. To expect a large group of fans to make the treck every week is just too much. A team in the city of Atlanta would be 20-40 minutes for all suburbs rather than 5 minutes for me and 2 hours for others. (especially when you factor in Atlanta and Miami traffic.)

 

That is not always correct, almost every major US city these days has a business loop around the city center. It is almost always quicker to reach a suburb on the opposite side of the city using this loop than it is to go through the congested downtown and it is often a lot quicker even if it is more than twice the distance. There are exceptions but they are not the rule. Distance has NOTHING to do with it since it is all about traffic density. For St. Louis it is ridiculously shorter to use 255 to go around the city than it is to go through it even after business hours. Not to mention parking issues. I have found this true in Texas and almost all the major central and southern cities.

I have visited dozens of metropals and avoid the city centers like the plague. The few times I have been caught almost always turns out to be a nightmare.

Also, city centers have very few soccer fans so your bit about access is moot. Think like business people for a change. Where do they build malls. They don't build them in the cities do they?

 

Downtowns are designed to bring people into them from all spots in the metro region. And I would love to know how being in Collinsville is somehow better for the people in any part of the NW suburbs of St Louis?

I would also love to know which major cities are building new stadiums for their teams that are not downtown? And could it be that they've figured something out in the years that MLS didn't exist, and that MLS feels the need to make the same mistakes?

Now I'm not down on the Collinsville plan. It seems great. St Louis should be in MLS, but if you gave me the Collinsville plan or one downtown, the one downtown is destined to be a bigger success.

And don't make me laugh by saying that there are no soccer fans downtown. Soccer works best when you mix the atmosphere & passion of immigrant based downtown with the money of the soccer mom suburb crowd.

And just so that you're aware, most cities have some form of downtown mall/shopping district. Why? Because people come into the city to do a lot of things. Shop, eat, see a play/show, see a game & work. So it makes a ton of sense to be a part of that.