Slight difference in that the Sonics were still in town when the MLS Seattle expansion team was announced, and were playing their last season in Seattle while the new MLS Seattle expansion team was announcing the team colors and name, and selling tickets. A child conceived around the time the Sonics played their final game in Seattle would have just been born around the time the Sounders played their first MLS match. Both Montreal's MLB team and Atlanta's NHL team had been gone for a couple of years already before there was even rumors of MLS expansion to those cities.
Wow, that was the saddest BigSoccer fight I've ever seen. Like that passive/aggressive couple in your family that shows up at Thanksgiving
Can this thread please be about what the title implies? Tired of threads being hijacked. If you want to talk about City 'X', then create a thread for that instead.
Yeah, I was hoping that would get more traction. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. In my defense, I was on about beer number four and shot number two. So maybe not lubed up enough.
OK, I think Sacramento SHOULD get an MLS team before St Louis. I know the Rams leaving left some kind of void, I'm just not sure it's a void an MLS team can fill. As far as market footprint, I'm not sure that's a problem, and it certainly isn't if Miami and San Antonio get teams. I'm not really sure St Louis covers much ground that Kansas City and Chicago don't, it's a pretty narrow market.
When economists do those studies to see which markets are over- and under-served by pro teams, it's baseball, not football, that takes the most money.
It's interesting (and sad to me) that the inglewood stadium is to have field turf and a glass roof. Why shut out the best climate in the country? Probably means all big ticket soccer matches will stay at the rose bowl or coliseum because why would anyone pay $1m + to install shit grass when there are cheaper options that don't require it? Seems to me that kroenke is turning his back on 2-3 more big gates at his new palace each year.
I don't live in St. Louis, either, but I did attend college there three decades ago, at which time it punched well above its size in terms of corporate headquarters. Here's a look at the current landscape: http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/...ouis-company-makes-a-leap-in-fortune-500.html
It's California. The people there are already recycling their own urine and drinking out of dirty puddles just to survive, how are they supposed to water grass pitch, er I mean field? Spittle?
Back on topic. The implications are STL is way way way behind Sac and even behind SA . Sure if they get a stronger ownership group and SSS ready to go, they are in as 27 or 28 because MLS has a hard on for that geographic coverage. Probably with SD. Spanos did not get rich being stubborn. He's going to either partner with Kroenke or pay the 1$ year nominal rent to Kroenke. A quarter of his fan base is in the OC , I.E. and metro LA He virtually has no choice but to leave SD. And yeah there will be 8 west coast teams and there will be 4 divisions of 8 eventually. Blind man can see that coming.
Are you referring to the gated communities of San Diego, or the crazy country music loving fundies in the Central Valley?
Oregon was created as a "white utopia". Blacks weren't allowed to move there until 1926. Can you spot the 2 African-Americans?
People have been saying that about St. Louis for a very long time, and an owner has never materialized to make it happen.
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/01/in_a_changing_world_portland_r.html http://nationalreport.net/portland-oregon-deemed-racist-city-united-states/