Well, Garber said today that Montreal has dropped out, and a decision will come some time in early 2009. We are the only city that has a complete bid right now, with no holes to fill. At first they were going to decide in late 2008 or early 2009, but now it's definitely 2009. I think they are trying to give the other bidders more time to get government approval or fill some of the holes in their bids. I think they definitely want another Canadian team, but they probably weren't going to pick 2 Canadian teams, so Vancouver has to like its chances now, but I don't really see this as helping our chances very much. Maybe it helps us indirectly, if picking Vancouver means they don't pick Portland, because they don't want to only expand in one region. Our biggest competition now may be Miami, which MLS seems to really want as well, despite their bid's obvious shortcomings. What do you all think?
Obviously your odds just increased. I considered Montreal a front runner because they met the criteria and have a stadium that could be expanded. In my humble opinion, they were a front runner. My humble prediction is St. Louis and Vancouver or Miami, Portland is an attractive future market but St. Louis is one of the largest and attractive US markets and you meet all the requirements. I guess we will find out in a few months.
IMO, that means Vancouver becomes the leading Canadian candidate and if they get picked, I think the league will have a hard time picking Portland, too. So I think it becomes a Vancouver vs. Portland and St. Louis vs. Miami thing. But then the commish gushed over Ottawa.... But then he cautioned about putting too many teams in Canada... Who knows?
It's obviously not MLS's main concern, but could a USL-1 Portland side survive all by itself in the Pac Northwest with Vancouver and Seattle jumping to MLS? The nearest USL-1 clubs would be Minnesota and Austin.
There is a bunch of talk about forming a USL-2 western division with Tacoma, Kitsap and Seattle Wolves all showing interest. Victoria is also interested. Portland just added a PDL squad for 2009 so moving down to USL-2 if it were to happen would probably be the result of Vancouver getting a franchise.
I have a feeling MLS doesn't give a care about what happens in USL as long as MLS is doing well. Also, on an only slightly related note concerning teams long distances from the rest of the league, WPS has two team in CA, with the rest all east of the Mississippi river. With Seattle moving up and Atlanta dropping out, I think USL-1 in general may not survive for long, we may just pour all the remaining USL-1 and USL-2 teams into one big pot. I'm also not sure Montreal dropping out really improves our odds that much. I mean, yes, we now have only five opponents instead of six, but there are still more than two other very strong candidates, and even with our ownership group very solid - publicly, not secretly - a lot of people are still under the impression we have a weak ownership group. Even though MLS will see that we don't, I think that reputation from the past two years of attempts at expansion teams is going to be very difficult to override.