Expansion folks: MISL Approves Expansion The Steamers are back along with newcomer Laredo,TX, tapping into that Mexican market. Interesting that the owner of the Laredo franchise plans to build a soccer-specific indoor arena with seating for 6,000. I think that would be a first. No hockey, just an indoor soccer arena.
Excellent!!! NIce to see St.Louis back in the fold. Also nice to see new city tried instead of the same old cities. Hopefully St.Louis is here to stay
Laredo is located on the Rio Grande a few hours drive west of the Brownsville area. Its twin city is Nuevo Laredo on the Mexican side. It would be an interesting (and potentially very good) choice for a soccer team.
It's good to see St. Louis back in the league. Boy, Laredo seemed to come out of left field. That's not a name that is usually mentioned in the same sentance as expansion. It sounds like they are in a good market to be successful. I seemed to remember Monteray drawing well in the CISL/WISL. Now a team in Houston would seem to make sence from a travel stand point.
St. Louis we've always known about as a metropolis, but Laredo is growing up, too -- my Rand McNally has Laredo with a population of 176,576, about half that of St. Louis. And Nuevo Laredo across the border? 273,797 people there.
Just for future reference, use the Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) figures to get a more accurate idea of how big the St. Louis market is. The city limits have been stuck since 1876 because of some complicated, ridiculous legal thing, so 90% of the area's residents live outside the official city. The actual population of the St. Louis area is more like 2.3 million. No diss on Laredo; I'm personally excited to see any new teams, especially one that could potentially bring back the Mexican flair of La Raza. Long live both new teams!
Also mentioned in the article was a possible franchise in Hamilton Ontario. That they had applied, but were pushed back to the following season. It also mentioned possible other expansion in Canada.
What the h*ll kind of logo is that?? Hopefully, it's just a temporary one. A rhino? What does a rhino have to do with Texas, Laredo or outlaws?? I think Rochester might have something to say about this.
"Laredo is known as the Gateway City and at Wednesday's press conference at La Posada Hotel the Major Indoor Soccer League announced its planned attempt to bring pro indoor soccer to town." http://lmtonline.com/sports/p1.htm
But don't you think that the Outlaws' logo violates Rochester's copyright? Aren't the Sidekicks sueing the Dallas Desperadoes of the AFL because the Desperadoes logo looks too much like the Sidekicks?
Overall I would say this is a good expansion for the league. Now hopefully the remaining teams will also improve and that we don't lose any teams over the summer. It will be interesting to see if Harrisburg has a similar off season to last one, where it wasn't sure if they would be back. This was not a very good season for them either on or off the field.