Haven't heard any definitive's yet this year. Heard San Antonio fell thru. They got to put two more teams into the mix. I mean this year the league has been very successful. The last couple of weeks attendance has been pretty high everywhere. any definitives.. or any ones that u guys think will happen.
Garber has said at the EARLIEST 2007 but he can easily go back on his word. If Club America can't work out a purchase of the Earthquakes and say that they MUST play next year or the deal is over, then MLS may do expansion next year. If that happens, expect MLS to try and get Rochester in also, which is what they tried when Vergera wanted to enter Chivas in 2004 on short notice. Tomorrow, there is gonna be an announcement about the formation of a Milwaukee Soccer Group looking for expansion AND a downtown SSS.
No, AEG just wants to kill this team. http://thefirealarm.matchnight.com/tfadefault.cfm?page=ARTICLE&show=882 And a correction. It looks like MLS is going to AWARD THE EXPANSION to Milwaukee tomorrow. That could possibly mean a 2006 2-team expansion. My hope is that MLS is giving Milwaukee 20 months to prepare, not 10.
I really hope not. I think should expand maybe every four years. Does anyone remember the lessons we should have learned from the NASL or from the Mutiny and Fusion? With average attendance down about 8% this year, and the questionable futures of two clubs, MLS would be better served by addressing the issues of the Quakes and Wizards before expanding.
No expansion in 2006. There were 240 players in MLS in November, 2004 There are 336 players in MLS now The next expansion will push that number to at least 392. Going from 240 players in November, 2004 to 392 players by March, 2006 is putting way too much pressure on the talent pool.
What does expanding every 4 years teach us about Tampa Bay, they were a founding team? Tampa Bay and Miami taught us that we need to pick our markets more closely,example SLC, possible Houston, etc. MLS does not need to be in the largest cities possible but the best soccer cities possible.
Wrong. Tampa Bay and more accurately Miami taught us that we need to pick our INVESTORS more closely. There isn't a bad soccer market in this country, it's all how you present it.
Yep. You said it better than I did. Tampa and to an extent the continuing saga of the Clash/Quakes has taught us that league-owned teams are a horrible idea. But of course, without them, there wouldn't have been a league in 1996.
i don't disagree, but those figures can be slightly misleading considering the four back-end roster spots added to each team. 48 of those 96 extra players are there because MLS tacked on developmental spots to round out reserve games. Not to mention, bringing in overseas players like Ramon Ramirez and Sequeira mitigates the stress upon the player pool, which, believe it or not, is not a closed a source of talent . I do worry about the effect upon level of play, but i think if the right situation comes along (great investors and city/stadium) MLS may have to strike while the iron's hot, and endure the gowing pains. We definitely can't expand next year, but 2007 would be bearable.
I think this is 100% correct. It seems that many people forget about this fact and focus on things like stadiums and the like. I think it is already fairly obvious that the talent pool for MLS is at its current limit. I would like to see new teams as well, but there is not enough quality home grown players to currently support new teams.
I don't think this accurately reflects the situation in Miami at all. I know you mentioned the management/Investors but Miami had an exciting team playing in a great little stadium and couldn't get the fans to come. Miami is known for being a bad sports city, just ask the dolphins and heat(prior to Shaq,Wade).
I think we will see MLS increase the foreign player roster spots soon out of necessity. They want to keep exanding for reasons like TV so I dont think the player pool is a reason for them to hold off expansion. While the American player pool is maxed out, soccer has the advantage of being able to get talent from all over the world.
Wha??? How many of the U-20 Nats are unsigned? U-17s? The American player pool isn't even close to having the surface scratched. There are plenty of players out there, it just takes a little investment in development.
I wonder if fans really care anymore about how many foreigners are in the league. If you look at baseball, basketball, and hockey they are loaded with foreign players now. I think this was an issue with the NASL because they had virtually no American presence. MLS has many talented American players now and it will only get better from here. I think most people just want to see the best possible product on the field now regardless of who it is.
2006 is a World Cup year. That will take a lot of players away for one-three months. Pluse the WC draws all the attention of soccer fans in the middle of the MLS season. However, the after glow continues and 2007 is an excellent time to expand. With more new owners and their money coming in, there may be more dinero to pay better quality players. I think international slots will be expanded. Two new teams in 2007, and, if the ownership is ready, 2 more in 2008 doesn't seem undoable. Getting to 16-18 markets will make renegotiation of MLS, SUM, AEG TV deals easier since the current deals run out after 2006.
Sure, but that investment is going to take three or four years MINIMUM to pay off. The CURRENT American talent pool is starting to wear down, especially with the expanded rosters, reserve teams, etc. It's not like MLS benches are filled to the brim with talented youngsters that could go elsewhere. We need at least a year to let the smoke clear and see where we stand. Right now there are a lot more Memo Gonzales' than Hercules Gomez's in the reserve league. Plus, that will allow for the new USL to organize their rosters after losing some teams, let the college pool really deepen, and perhaps deepen the SI talent pool with a raise in salary caps. Our coaching pool is also in sad shape. Maybe with the first generation of MLS players now taking up the coaching mantle, things will change. But right now, there is too great a possibility that Rongen or Andrulis would go right back to coaching Milwaukee or whatnot.
What if MLS would expand by one team ( Houston ) next year, why does the number of teams have to end with 2,4,6,8 or 0 ?
Scheduling becomes a nightmare with an odd number of teams. One team will always be sitting idle every weekend. You would either have to play fewer games (Lamar Hunt is against that), play more mid-week games (bad for attendance) or lengthen an already long season (April-November).
just wondering how attendance is down by 8% from last year.. Where is the statistic for that? Because i thought attendance was up.
Average attendance may be down, but there is no way that with RSL and Chivas that the raw numbers are down.
Chicago, Colorado, and Dallas have cut back on marketing to focus on their stadiums (I don't know why Colorado's doing that). Kansas City and San Jose have lame duck owners. And Columbus finally fell through the bottom. So there are explanations for 6 of the teams for having crappy attendances. You could throw in Chivas in there too. And the biggest factor: the Adu effect is gone. Last year, Adu's road games averaged about 23,000. This year, it's down to around 14,000.
Code: 2005 2004 GP Attendance Avg GP Attendance Avg Difference % of change Chicago Fire 10 145,413 14,541 15 257,295 17,153 (2,612) -15.23% Chivas USA 10 118,492 11,849 Colorado Rapids 8 113,224 14,153 15 212,925 14,195 (42) -0.30% Columbus Crew 10 114,726 11,473 15 253,079 16,872 (5,399) -32.00% D.C. United 8 133,180 16,648 15 258,484 17,232 (585) -3.39% FC Dallas 6 54,185 9,031 15 136,319 9,088 (57) -0.63% Kansas City Wizards 8 76,918 9,615 15 222,235 14,816 (5,201) -35.10% Los Angeles Galaxy 9 205,273 22,808 15 357,137 23,809 (1,001) -4.20% MetroStars 9 145,102 16,122 15 257,923 17,195 (1,072) -6.24% New England Revolution 7 82,058 11,723 15 183,385 12,226 (503) -4.12% Real Salt Lake 8 166,426 20,803 San Jose Earthquakes 7 86,691 12,384 15 195,015 13,001 (617) -4.74% 101 1,441,688 14,274 150 2,333,797 15,559 (1,285) -8.26% Unfortuneately, I don't have the raw numbers from last year after 101 matches, so I can only compare them to last years total. The teams that have the largest change from last year are Columbus, KC, and Chicago in that order. Dallas and Colorado are the 2 least affected teams. As you can see attendance is down league wide even with RSL and Chivas bumping hte numbers up a bit