MLS Expansion

I'd love to see the Scorpions join the top flight. I'm incredibly impressed with the stadium and hope to see fully expanded soon! Also hoping Orlando gets a team with the way they've been supported since their inception. That ownership group seems to be pulling all the right strings.

 

Following the template for pulling together grass roots support through an NASL or USL/Pro team and putting together a stadium deal I could see a number of cities greater than four making themselves viable candidates well before 2020. I am interested to see how the Indy Eleven are supported when they begin play. With the size of the city and no Major League Baseball to compete against it could become a hot bed for soccer. Youth soccer has been well supported in Indy for decades and the target demographic market for soccer may be ripe there. It could also flop but it will be interesting to see how things develop in Indy.

I have a hard time seeing San Antoino being bypassed again with the kind of fan support they seem to be getting as long as they can find or already have in place the deep pockets the MLS wants backing a team. Like Indy, SA has no MLB team to compete against though I beleve both cities have strong AAA clubs. The lure of another top tier professional team to this city to complement the Spurs winter season seems like an easy call to me.

Orlando seems like a foregone conclusion.

I have always wanted to see a team in St. Louis but I have a hard time seeing a professional soccer team competing successfully against the Cardinals. St. Louis is a baseball town and I wonder if it can support two summer professional sports teams. Corporate sponsorship dollars are only going to go so far and I would wager the Cardinals have that market well cornered.

Other major cities like Charlotte, Nashville, Memphis or Oklahoma City where there is no MLB team to directly compete against may be target markets for the MLS.

Phoenix could probably support both a MLB and a MLS team but I wonder about the heat in Phoenix. Is summer soccer viable there?

 

Encorespanish reminded me of where I would like the next MLS expansion team to go - Minneapolis. They already have a NASL team, a fantastic stadium, a US Dev Academy, and have hosted the largest youth soccer tournament in the western hemisphere for years. As much as I want a team in Cleveland, and we were oh so close at one point, Minneapolis deserves it.

 

Thank you Clevelandmo!!!!! And ouch HatterDon! Don't forget about the Minnesota Lynx man! We won the WNBA title 2 years ago, were in the finals last year and are still dominating this year...I think. :mrgreen:

And to Clevelandmo's point, our NASL team is pretty darn good, the complex in the northern 'burbs (which hosts the tourney he mentioned with national and international teams) is unbelievable. Plus, the Vikings are getting a new stadium in 2015 or 2016 and I can see that being used as a potential home (whether full time or part time) for games for a new expansion team.

 

Orlando?!!! When we go to a winter season.
http://www.weather.com/weather/tenday/USFL0372

That aint Miami.. or even Tampa Bay weather. Most miserable I ever was was at Sanford Naval Air Station, in late fall.

 

Ran across this article HD;

http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/article/2 ... -community