Well, I guess this is the announcement about '09 that was supposed to take place before the end of January. Now, Philly, St. Louis, et al have another year to duke it out. Also, looks like they are planning to go to 18 at some point, no word on when that is actually: "Even if 2009 is out, both of the lead communities still have ample reason to reach the finish line first. About 10 million reasons, in fact. Garber has already stated that club No. 16 will pay a $30 million expansion fee. After that, Nos. 17 and 18 must pony up $40 million each."
Agreed. Philly's got 16 locked up. Now St. Louis gets to duke it out with Miami, New York, Montreal, Atlanta... Somebody remind me again why I give half a damn about this league.
Why did the league decide to increase the fee after the 16th team? and not, just for talk, the 15th? Is there any technical reason? Plus, if the league really wants to stop for a while at 18 teams, it would have had sense to put a 40 millions fee in the incoming round of expansion. your thoughts about that?
To give several investors / cities a '$10 million dollar' incentive to get their act together faster for spot 16. Of course Philly could afford the extra cash, but won't have to spend it. Now STL will need to come up with a higher fee, but doesn't have the assumed resources yet.
I'd rather put this increase after 18th ... I mean, if MLS really wants to stop expansion for a while when getting 18 teams, it could have had sense to keep 30 millions for this expansion race and say hey hurry up, till 18 it's a great deal ... after, not only you'll have to wait, but you'll have to spend 10 millions more too.
And by 2013 we should have a promotion/relegation system with the USL-1, it would make the league way more interesting
But far less interesting for the investor who ponies up a $40 million MLS expansion fee, gets a 20K-seat stadium built, and then gets relegated to USL-1 to play the likes of Rochester and Charleston. If we see pro/rel in MLS in my lifetime, I'll eat Dwayne DeRosario's jockstrap.
After the 18th I'm sure they'll just bump it to 50 million, and announce that ahead of time so Montreal/NYC2/Miami or whoever are 'forced' to fight for the 18th spot. Same scenario all over again, and more money for MLS.
If you're going to use my quote, use it as it is written! Do NOT alter it to fit your motives! People get sued for crud like that!
$30 or $40 million? What does MLS do with that money? Increase all MLS big guys salary? or what? I don't see why a team needs to pay so much money? do you guys know what's the money for?
I suppose that will make the Mississippi River the divide between the conferences, with KC going west, again. I'm losing track of the teams, actual and proposed. Will there be a natural split of 9 and 9, East-West, or will Chicago also be transferred west to keep things even?
How about paying the interest on all the debt they have to finance? MLS has lost a ton of money since it started. Did you know that? And MLS has lost a lot more than $30 or $40 million over the years.
As of November '04 they were down several hundred million: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_47/b3909099.htm?campaign_id=search Given that only FC Dallas and the Galaxy were profitable in 2006, and that the rest are projected to be in 2010, the league has likely lost at least another 100 million since '04 and will still lose money over the next few years. After that, they'll be trying to get back in the black overall. http://web.archive.org/web/20060520...tontimes.com/sports/20060511-120809-9655r.htm
Great with the links but with all due respect, we would still be taking the word of the Business Week writer. What's his source? He doesn't mention any. At this point its still all speculation and nothing more. Are we talking about profit after initial investment? Return of the initial investment plus proft? How are we defining this profit that we are being told about? I'm not trying to send this at you, but in general. I don't think for a minute that if the league wasnt profitable from Day One that it would have lasted this long. I think that they are speaking about Profit in terms of return of initial investment and profit.
"With an average attendance of 14,282 in 1999 -- the last year for which figures are available -- the league's financial statements listed $62,940,084 in revenues and $97,364,283 in costs and expenses for an operating loss of $34,424,199." http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/soccer/mls/news/2001/07/30/stadium_future_sa/ https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=195648 Is that good enough for you? Or do you just think they're making the numbers up?