They're professionals--best they can do is adjust to the new scene. Personally, so as long as they don't diss the San Jose fans it's no harm no foul. It's enough just sticking it to the arses that's AEG.
From a neutral point of view this is just bs. San Jose is an expansion market and yet the current team was taken away. Houston is such a great market and yet the MLS is going there without fulfilling all the requirements that future expansion teams need to meet (Toronto Stadium). This was an opportunity to cash in on a great expansion market. It just seems like MLS is afraid to make investments and watch them grow. If the SJ expansion rumors are true then this one year "sabatical" is idiotic. I highly doubt that San Jose fans won't show up again to see their quakes again but surely this creates so much anger and resentment towards the league. This "Franchise" thing is just crap. If ownership can't get a team to work in one market you shouldn't get a shot to try in another market.
That we would show up in droves again to see "our Quakes" is almost assured. However, it's somewhat problemmatic to assume that we would show up to see an expansion team full of has-beens and never-will-bes, coached by your-name-here posing under the banner of our beloved Quakes. I doubt we're going to come back under the MLS banner so soon and so easily. Remember: Fool me once, shame on you - fool me twice, shame on me...
My speculation is that AEG feels like it did MLS and San Jose a big favor by taking over the team, and that AEG thinks that as a business it should not be punished for doing so; therefore it wants compensation for those years. The way to get that compensation is to charge an expansion fee for the next SJ franchise - if AEG holds one-third of the league, then it gets the benefit of one-third of the fee. The fact that charging an expansion fee makes it HARDER to get a San Jose buyer is not considerd.