Expansion News -It's Cleveland and Chivas, apparently

The other tidbit of interest there is that AEG plans to sell of three of its five clubs. If so, that is more good news for the league in diversifying its ownership base. Any news on who and where, beyond mere rumor?

 

Yea exactly, but I think the most important part of that was that AEG was looking into selling 3 of the 5 teams that they own. I would have rather it been 4 of 5, but what can you do.

 

So much for expanding your national footprint. San Diego is like 150 miles from LA and Columbus is like 150 miles from Columbus. Also, where does Clevelend play in 2005? I know they have talked about building a stadium but that obviously wouldn't be ready for 2005. Kind of disappointing expansion news. I would much rather have seen like Houston, Philly or Seattle.

 

As long as that fifth team is the Fire

 

Certainly not the best choices geographically, but at this point the league has to take what it can get. But I would rather have a team in Cleveland with an SSS, than a team in Houston or Seattle knocking around in a monster NFL stadium. The "we must create natural rivalries" folks must be jumping up and down with glee.

 

Other interesting tidbits from the meeting at HDC yesterday with AEG and the Galaxy FO:

AEG is buying pre-libertadores rights, and will host the games and include both mexican and MLS teams in the Pre-Libertadores which will ultimately lead to MLS teams playing in Copa Libertadores.

Real Madrid will tour the US next summer.

Real Madrid may also join "forces" with an American team for "player development."

Cleveland and Chivas are on for 2005. But where Chivas is located is anyone's guess.

San Jose suck and will be relegated to the WUSA.

that's about it.

 

i think the other problem you may encounter is fans who currently travel from SD and Cleveland to go to games in LA and Columbus will now start going to the games in their local city which will in turn hurt the attendance of the Galaxy and the crew. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

 

So are we thinking AEG keeps the Galaxy and the Fire as its two teams?

 

i really don't see Cleveland being a hotbed for soccer, but then again niether is San Jose

 

That's my guess as well.

 

I don't know about LA-SD, but it won't be a problem with CLB-CLE. While the Crew does attract a fair amount of fans from Dayton/Cincy, that's not that case with Cleveland in any appreciable number. There are certainly people who do make the trek, including some very loyal fans, but in pure numbers they are a tiny percentage in terms of the Crew's fan base and ticket revenues. The Crew are of the opinion that they will more than make up for any "lost" Cleveland attendance by having Ohio derby, what with the travelling supporters and all.

I can assure you the Crew were MAJORLY in favor of Cleveland getting a team. They see it as a GOOD business move, rather than a detrimental one.

Again, I can't speak for SD-LA, but I wouldn't worry about Cleveland harming the Crew.

Sirk

 

I think Cleveland and San Diego makes sense...yeah you're not expanding your footprint but if you can solidify large markets that is a good thing. So are local rivalries because that means higher attendance which leads to more money. If Chivas ended up in SD, don't you think every LA-SD game played in LA will be a sellout? And once there is a SSS in SD, you know most of those games will sell out. Wouldn't the same principal apply to Cleveland and Columbus?

 

Until "Chivas USA" has been part of the league for at least 1/2 of a season, we are just guessing on their home and away drawing power.
We'll just have to wait and see how the fans actually respond.
For all we know a lot of the Mexican-American communtity may totally reject them as a "phoney Chivas" that lets Gringos play with them.
Or they may just reject it just as they do the rest of MLS citing the same reasons they do now.

 

I was giving more credit to the LA fans making the trip down to SD and the SD fans (whoever they are) making the trip up to LA).

 

That could be pretty good going by the sometimes rather large numbers from the supporters groups that make the much longer trip to San Jose now.
I would expect numbers of fans not part of supporter groups to make the trip too. It's only 2 hours away at most.

 

That's what I was thinking. Especially after drawing a paltry amount for the Celtic v. Boca game.

 

I hope so. But I'm not sure he would give up on New York so easily.

 

It's seems MLS couldn't get any one to invest in
Houston, OKC or Philly.

 

but isn't AEG = MLS?

 

I'm willing to give Cleveland a free pass on the Celtic/Boca match. It was definitely was not the most glamorous match of the tour, and I'm sure many were disappointed that AC Milan was not Celtic's opponent as it originally was.