It would be nice and I would hope to have a fifth team in Sacramento or San Francisco , especially for us fans living in Northern California but I don't think it will happen anytime soon either.
Sacramento is the 20th largest media market and MLS has shown an incredible resistance of having viewers outside a local market watch its games or show interest in the league (lasting impact of Messi's signing pending, of course). Given this, I see no reason why MLS should care about the number of teams in a specific state as what is important is the team's local market.
San Francisco itself though is a fairly small city though the center of a large metropolitan area which includes Oakland and San Jose. If there was a team called San Franciscon it probably wouldn't be based in the city. Maybe San Jose/San Francisco Metro Stars would be a better name. Sacramento would nice as part of a regional rivalry but Indianapolis, Cleveland, Raleigh-Durham, Detroit Baltimore Pittsburgh, St Pete and Tampa Bay would be good places to expand rivalries too. I'm not saying that all would be perfect spots. And what is wrong with Phoenix other than the weather? Are the owners up to something dodgy?
man you must have went to common sense university or something. Bewildering others can’t understand that
The weather in the winter or summer anywhere in the Bay Area is perfect for playing soccer. I don't think there is any better weather on earth.
I hear it gets warm during their summer which would be our winter. At least warmer than SF. I recall attending Niners games at Candlestick Park in November wearing short sleeves and freezing at Giants baseball games in the month of August.
San Diego, yes. Nashville is actually opposite. My favorite never say never story. 10 cities trying to get in, Nashville throws in a hail mary with literally 3 days before that MLS deadline........and boom.......theyre one of the 2.
Sports Franchise Expansion bids are not something that is "thrown together" in a matter of days.... YOU literally called me stupid for questioning Sacramento's bid.... YOU said it was a guarantee. Sacramento literally had months to prepare for that bid presentation..... they walked in without the Republic FC name secured, proper financing (Meg Whitman bailed and then joined the FCC group a short while later), or a presentation at all..... Do you know who's bid was "thrown together?" Detroit's. Because everyone thought, Sac included, that pretty stadium rendering pictures, and some supporters groups chanting at downtown rally's would be all it took to get into the league. Right now MLS is realistically looking at: Tampa-St Pete Detroit Phoenix Those three have tons of questions and hurdles surrounding them too. Owners, Stadiums, etc After those three? Sacramento? Can Nagle & Co afford $1B+ in startup costs? Will MLS take their call? Las Vegas? Owner? Stadium? Is the market now oversaturated? San Antonio? How does the Austin deal affect this? Does SSE want into MLS? Jacksonville? Owner? Stadium? Raleigh-Durham? Stadium? Owner? Louisville? Does MLS want them? Owner? Indianapolis? Can their owner afford the fee? Would Irsay be interested? Stadium? Pittsburgh? Owner? Stadium? High Mark cannot be expanded to MLS level. With all the financial issues that the CSA and CPL are having, the talk from Concacaf about pulling the sanctioning for the three MLS Canadian teams should quite down considerably too. With the costs for a MLS expansion team rising exponentially from just 3-6 years ago..... starting a team from scratch, it's going to be a very long time before those owners pay off the initial startup costs, let alone make money. Blank paid $70M to get into MLS in 2017. That cost has more than quadrupled in six years.....
Speaking of cooler weather than SF and bringing it back to the thread somewhat, I talked to some people in the front office who are with Monterey Bay FC. They are saying their ambition is to eventually go to MLS. I don’t see it being remotely possible. They have a nice little USL park which can easily be enlarged to equal PayPal but I just don’t think the entire Monterey Peninsula or Santa Cruz County would be able to support an MLS team. There is around 700k people in the areas along the coast but unless they brought in other investors, their current owner also doesn’t have the capitol to buy a franchise.
----------------- If we went to 32, I would go with Detroit or Indy in east and Phoenix in West I agree with a lot that has been said. I think LV is going to be oversaturated with teams, so I go with the large metro in Phoenix. Oddly, both have grass field domes because of the NFL, but they are too big for MLS daily use. So if either of this cities get a team, would have to build a smaller dome in addition to paying the entry fee Long shot= OKC if the city/state builds the downtown stadium and owner "only" has to pay the fee. Indy/Detroit. Proven market in Detroit based on FC, but will those fans support MLS? Weren't there issues when they jumped up to USL from NISA? They need a stadium and the fee. IF the Indy stadium project finishes out (and it looks like it's in process), they have had reasonable support with the current team. So the fee would be the issue. Maybe add a couple investors to the group and hope that the real estate project around the stadium pays dividends. Long shot Tampa- had a team, lost a team. Too large NFL stadium,, so need a stadium and the field. My odd thought- Hartford ! Have a right size stadium (if you believe in growth), have a current team- whose stadium is perfect for your MLS Next Team, they have had experience with National team games there before. Could be a good market midway between Boston and NYC ? Also potential rivals in Montreal and Toronto (going back to hockey days As I posted elsewhere, Don got his 30th. We do need to slow down and get some of the franchises who still in MLS 1.0 or 2.0. up to 3.0 and even 4.0 level. Then we can move on.
A road trip from Gillette Stadium to Audi Field is 430 miles. The driving distance from the proposed Railyards Stadium site in Sacramento to Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego's Mission Valley is 503 miles. Few, if any, people grumble about the presence of five MLS clubs being located within the Boston to DC corridor. Yet, mention the possibility of Sacramento and San Diego both playing host to MLS teams on top of the State of California's three existing clubs in the league and the wailing and gnashing of teeth begins. It’s ridiculous. Given California's population of 39.2 million people, I'm fairly certain that five MLS sides could manage to operate successfully without cannibalizing support from one another.
The odds are better that MLS would add a third club to Florida, rather than seeing a fifth club added to California.
---- Not sure who the Florida team would be other than Tampa and we've been there done that. Sure, we also did Miami, but this time around Messi changed everything, and Miami also has a first class stadium coming as well. What could Tampa do to top that?
--------------- California's economy is like top 5 in the world if ranked as a country, so I have no doubt we could handle a 5th team. We have great weather so games get played outdoors, on grass and generally few problems. NorCal is different than SoCal and even SD doesn't want to be like LA, so those reasons also make for some nice points in a rivalry. SAC-SJ-LAG-LAFC-SD all playing home/away could make for a nice little Cali version of the "Cascadia" Cup as well !
Cali Cali Cali. All I ever hear is Cali. What about West Virginia? What about an Appalachia Cup? You know how California gets a 5th team? The first $billion expansion fee.