Garber needs to determine how many teams are going to be in this league!!!

What?

 

Ahhh.

 

No, Garber does not need to make any such determination.

It's possible the owners who employ him will also choose not to make any such determination.

America always dares to be different, for better or worse. MLS will continue to look a little more like NFL or even MLB until owners decide otherwise.

 

Scarcity breeds demand. Demand breeds a higher price for expansion. Businesses such as MLS want to make as much money as possible, so this sense of scarcity and urgency is good for the league. Just a few years ago, MLS would be willing to consider ANY city that came along but now they can stipulate who enters and when based upon the strengths and or weaknesses of each particular bid.

 

"I think the MLS needs to decide how many team will be in the league."

I disagree. They should expand and contract (hopefully not the latter) as markets demand. I don't think the MLS should be bound by FIFA's 18 team to a league "suggestion". They should make their own decisions as to what is best for the league.

"It seems like new viable expansion candidates pop up everyday. "

More people are interested and that is a good think. Most are just kicking the tires and don't have any clue about running a major league soccer club. If you look at owners with $1 billion or more (Van, Mtl, Philli, etc) then add in a strong fan base (St. Louis, Portland and the above 3) you can pretty much narrow it down. There are others with one or both but most of the "interested parties" are just thinking of getting in before the franchise fees go up.

"I personally think the league can hold 22 teams. "

I agree there that 22 or 24 is a very manageable size given the size of the markets (ie. lots of cities with 4-5 million or more).

"When the league reaches 22 the MUST form some sort of partnership with the USL."

I think the MLS will be the premier league with the USL-1 being for the smaller cities and markets.

"This is not for promotion and relegation"

Correct again. I don't think MLS will get many owners who will pay up the franchise fee if they can lose it via relegation.

Now how do you get people interested in supporting a second division team? That is the question! Here are my ideas on it.

1) CONCACAF inter-league championships. This will be big. Mexico, central America, Caribbean, USA and Canada. Let the USL champs & MLS teams play off to see who goes.

2) The top team in the USL-2 gets to play in the USL-1 playoffs. The winner from the USL-1/2 playoffs can get into the MLS playoffs as a wild card.

Look at the excitement that was caused by Havant & Waterlooville in the FA Cup this year. A bunch of regular guys with day jobs made it to the round of 16 before EPL powerhouse Liverpool defeated them 5-2 (tied 2-2 at the half).

 

how does a billionaire in a city determine if the market is good or bad?
It just means you have at least one person capable of owning a team but I don't see any correlation to how good a market will be.

MLS will eventually have 30+ teams just like every other North American league and their will be no promotion relegation in my honest opinion.

 

I don't think that MLS should limit itself to any number of teams. Let the market decide what the league does. By setting a set number of teams we do one of two things.

1. Grow too quickly trying to reach that magic #.
2. Limit ourselves to not grow if demand increases in the future. Either option could be very bad for MLS.

 

Why?

Why 22? and why not 24, 26 or 32

If MLS is doing fine why must it have investors invest in a 2nd division which will not affect it?

 

It doesn't.

However, American soccer does need it.

Anybody who wants the USA to be a strong soccer nation, and produce football talent on par with the rest of the world, should dream of the day when every city here, small and great, has its own team (or teams). From DC or Houston filling large stadiums to 2,000 people in Laramie, Wyoming coming out to cheer their local side.

In order to have this, we must stop thinking only in terms of top-level MLS. We could easily support more than 100 pro teams if lower divisions were encouraged. I sincerely hope that is what we are working toward.

 

I don't feel any need to cap the number of teams. This is a global sport which means there is tons and tons of talent all over the world. As this league grows it will eventually have its pick of who it wants to bring in for the most part. Its the nature of the beast. With that in mind you could easily expand above 18 teams. I say set no cap limit and quit worrying about it. Its not like this is a sport where only 3 or 4 countries consider it a past time and thus only they produce quality and quantity. Only thing I would maybe...maybe do to shut people up is eventually raise the expansion fee to the point where it becomes harder and harder to get a team. (oh wait they're already doing that.)

 

absolutely not.

the market over the next few years will determine that, not someone in 2008 trying to predict how things will go...

and so far there are 2 viable candidates (St. Louis and Philly) and a few promising cities... just beacuase someone writes a newspaper article doesn't mean that city is all of sudden on the verge of an MLS team...

 

Who's this "we" that's going to be supporting the lower division teams, going to their games and buying their merch? Right now, the US is barely supporting a couple of dozen pro teams in the MLS and USL1/2. Heck, most of the USL2 sides are semi-pro at best. Most teams hardly draw enough support to survive more than a year or two. I don't know what country you're living in. But 100 full-fledged pro teams won't happen in the US for decades, if ever.

 

I'm talking about over the next few decades.

England has 92 pro teams. With six times their population, I think we can consider the possibility of having 100 teams ourselves within a generation. We're a third of the way there already, even if some are, as you say, barely professional.

I'm not saying you should bet your life on it, but I believe the possibility is there. It also depends on your definition of full-fledged pro team. I'm willing to accept an MLS of 24 teams, and 4 USL type leagues.

 

20 team league. any more teams would need to be added to a 2nd , lower, division (call it MLS-2?) or USL (assuming a partnership is made).

I would like to have a promotion/relegation system, but if the league decided not to, then perhaps they could do something similar to what major league baseball does, with "farm teams" or what the national basketball league does with its development league.

my 20 team MLS league would be the following, in no particular order...

1. New York RedBulls
2. Kansas City Wizards
3. New England Revolution
4. Toronto FC
5. DC United
6. LA Galaxy
7. Chivas USA
8. San Jose Earthquakes
9. FC Dallas
10. Houston Dynamo
11. Colorado Rapids
12. Columbus Crew
13. Chicago Fire
14. Real Salt Lake
15. Seattle (2009)
16. Philadelphia (expansion club)
17. New York City 2 (expansion club)
18. St. Louis (expansion club)
19. Montreal (expansion club)
20. Vancouver (expansion club)

 

This thread hurts my brain

 

Miami!!!

 

i'd be all for miami, but MLS has tried there before, and as we all know, it didn't work out to so great.

 

Do you know why it didn't work out, or do you just like advertising your ignorance?

 

no mr. amdymead, please explain. and try not to be an ass this time. i thought it was because they weren't getting enough people to go to the games.

 

We'll end up at 20 teams and then we'll see what happens from there. I'm almost positive we'll be at 18 teams by 2011 and Garber will push his luck and add 2 more before the tv contract renewel in 2014 is up.

 

The main reason Miami was contracted was that their owner Ken Horowitz decided that he couldn't handle the burden of the league's cash calls anymore.

I'm sure that their attendance didn't make the decision harder. But that wasn't the reason.

 

It's true that attendance wasn't the immediate reason. But the Fusion had the lowest all-time per-game average attendance of any franchise in MLS history (they still do, and probably always will). If the league thought the team could work and the only problem was Horowitz, they'd have found a way to keep it alive.