MLS 2014

Dempsey is getting back on track with another two goals tonight (five in his last two games).

 

Still trying to get to my first Rapids game of the season. unfortunately, i don't follow as closely as I should, but from the little coverage in the papers, they have been looking pretty good. Yall would probably know much more about that though.

 

I enjoy watching Dempsey with the chip settling in on his shoulder once again just before Brazil. There's some fire in him yet.

An aside, I had to fly out of San Jose on Thursday and saw the shell of the new Quakes' stadium - it looks sharp and I'm excited for it. However, my daughter and I watched the Quakes draw the Crew on Sunday (Higuain is pretty damn good as are the Crew, but Gonzalez is a $hithead), fantastic day out and for all of Buck Shaw's makeshift stadium feel, it is a great fan atmosphere (for all 10k of us) and I'll actually miss it when they leave. Now if the Quakes could only grab a win...

 

So in succession, of the newest MLS teams:

One Will play in a baseball stadium until nearly the 2018 World Cup

The second and third don't even have stadiums to play in temporarily

And the fourth will play in a cavernous 80k seater football stadium; with turf.

I thought MLS was very specific about new teams needing Soccer Specific Stadiums? I respect the fans of MLS, but have I have minimal amounts for the administration.

 

Increasing MLS expansion fees apparently make things easier to overlook.

 

If you're talking about Atlanta, the roof on the stadium will be lowered for soccer matches to create a capacity of somewhere around 30k. Though that still means they're playing indoors. I still don't understand having closed stadiums in the south.

Out of curiosity, how many current MLS teams play on turf?

 

I hope they stop at 24. Going beyond that would be a bit unruly and lose the home & away vs everyone aspect.

Hopefully #24 is San Antonio. But I doubt it. While we have drawn well for the Spurs, the Alamo Bowl, the Saints temporary exile here, the Rangers v Astros series recently and other exhibitions & tournaments we've hosted, and we have little direct competition with the Spurs being the only pro game in town, we haven't had any int'l soccer exhibitions and that last part concerns me. Too bad, b/c San Antonio is just the type of city MLS should be targeting. It's very big, very underutilized, has plenty of local corporate sponsorship opportunities and it's constantly growing with plenty of room to do so.

 

I'm guessing St. Louis or Minnesota will be #24.

 

St. Louis would be a complete surprise to me but Minnesota I can see.

 

Selfishly...C'MON YOU MINNESOTANS!!! You betcha!

 

Expanding to Miami and now Atlanta?? If I had to vote for the two cities that are most apathetic to their teams these would be my two votes :angry-banghead: We've talked plenty about Miami, but Atlanta is equally terrible. The Braves can't even sellout baseball playoff games. The Falcons currently play in the Georgia Dome, but it might as well be called the Georgia Library for as much noise is generated. The Hawks? :lol: The NHL tried to force feed a hockey team to the 8th largest TV market and :shock: it lasted as long as a ice cube in Death Valley. Other than Georgia and Georgia Tech football and NASCAR there isn't much support. However, combine Arthur Blank's wealth and that all important TV market and you can see why it was chosen, but at 30K capacity for soccer they'll be lucky to draw half of that on average.

 

With the MLS trying to increase TV ratings I have found their city selection for new MLS franchises pretty predictable. If you look at an map of MLS cities and then a listing of metropolitan TV markets by size it isn't that big of a surprise San Antonio is not getting an MLS franchise. It doesn't mean they shouldn't but my guess is they won't.

http://www.sportmapworld.com/map/soccer/north-america/mls/

http://www.nielsen.com/content/dam/...easurement/television/2013-2014-DMA-Ranks.pdf

When the MLS expansion to twenty four teams was announced I made a list of the four locations I expected to receive serious consideration for the franchises. I had two self-imposed rules for picking the locations which where the sites had to be in a top 20 TV market not currently serviced by an MLS club and it had to fill a geographic void in the MLS map.

Prior to the expansion announcements of Orlando and Atlanta when you looked at the map of current MLS cities three geographical vacuums exist where there was little to no MLS representation. The first and largest is a southeastern-middle eastern corridor represented by drawing lines on the map from the tip of Florida to St. Louis then to Indy then to the North Carolina coast and back to the tip of Florida and can best be broken into the two sections of the southeast below Tennessee and the northeast above Tennessee. The second largest geographic area is the central-northern section of the US. The third largest area lies between San Antonio and San Diego.

From the Nielson listing of top TV markets (updated to the current listing) I pulled what I thought was the top TV markets without an MLS presence and where possible assigned them to a geographic region or removed them from my consideration for not fitting into one of the geographic locations.

Combing geographic location, TV market size, overlapping markets and the current soccer climate as I understand it I gave all of the locations a star rating that indicates what I believed was the likelihood of a city to receive serious consideration for a franchise. Below is what I arrived at from purely a business modeling perspective.

TV Market Size City Geographic Region NASL Team Stars
11 Detroit CN *
15 Minneapolis CN X ***
34 Milwaukee CN **
19 Cleveland N/A
23 Pittsburgh N/A
9 Atlanta SE X ***
14 Tampa Bay SE X **
16 Miami SE *
18 Orlando SE X ***
24 Raleigh-Durham SE X *
21 St. Louis SE/ME **
26 Indianapolis SE/ME X **
29 Nashville SE/ME **
12 Phoenix SW **
28 San Diego SW *
36 San Antonio SW X **

In essence the MLS did not exist in the southeast prior to expansion and with 50% of the available top TV markets falling in the SE/ME corridor my only question was how many franchises would be awarded in these areas I believed a minimum of two would happen.

Being the top TV market available in the least represented area of the country made this seem like a slam dunk decision and that was before I knew the deep pockets of Arthur Blank would be involved. I never really doubted the MLS wanted into Atlanta. From a business perspective Atlanta was not a market the MLS could pass on. I have no idea if any professional sports franchise can successfully thrive in the ATL but this franchise needs to exist.

Orlando was my second choice. Tampa Bay and Miami have larger TV markets but Orlando has a successful minor league soccer team in place and no professional baseball team to compete against. Rumors of a soccer specific stadium from the onset elevated Orlando’s position for me. Add in the existing tourist draw to attract casual fans I think Orlando will be successful.

Minneapolis seems like the next best and most likely choice for an MLS franchise to me from a business perspective. Minneapolis would fill an empty geographic area of the country and a top 15 TV market. They have a long standing NASL franchise to potentially build from but I do have questions about the depth of the ownerships pockets, where they would play and the ability to compete against other professional franchises including MLB.

Beckham of course is more than likely going to get the fourth franchise but I truly hate the idea of putting a team in Miami. With all of mother-nature and other professional sports franchises to compete against I consider Miami to be a high risk, high reward situation. There better be some deep pockets on Beckham’s ownership team because if this team is not a great spectacle I fear for the high flop potential.

Next best choices

Tampa Bay –On the upside it has a large TV market and helps fill the SE market with an existing NASL franchise to build from. On the downside there would be competition against professional franchises from MLB and NFL.

San Antonio – SA has a ready-made NASL club to build from with an existing soccer specific stadium and the potential for a very good local market. Top that off with no professional baseball or football teams to compete against and everything from the grass roots side of soccer makes sense to and outside observer. However, being the smallest of the TV markets listed without an existing MLS presence is a huge hit and will likely see SA remaining in the NASL. I believe if this team were in Phoenix it would already have an MLS invitation in hand.

 

Cleveland was awarded an MLS franchise that was to start in 2005 but it was dependent upon financing for a new soccer specific stadium. Then owner Bert Wolstien died in the process of getting the financing in 2004. It is frustrating to see others in MLS getting to play in football stadiums and baseball parks and yet they wouldn't let Cleveland. Browns stadium is a fine place to watch a soccer game, certainly better than Yankee stadium. And don't get me started on how the whole USL/NASL debacle ruined Cleveland's soccer team.

 

Would be interesting to know what impact saturation has on tv markets. Minnesota has all 4 major pro sports. That's 4 teams competing for sponsorship $, fan $, and tv ratings. They may have twice as many tv homes (1.7M vs 881k when compared to San Antonio), but what % of those can a 5th pro franchise really hope to get?

I'm not trying to lobby for San Antonio, per se. Just making the argument that going with cities like Columbus, Salt Lake, & San Antonio are probably better than Minnesota and Phoenix.

Tampa is a bad choice. Shouldn't be on paper, yet they drag the rear in attendance in both the NFL and MLB. They're actually do okay in hockey.

 

Not sure unsaturated markets will have a lot to do with it. Columbus is not saturated but has some of the worst attendance in the league. However, when it comes to tv viewership of national team matches, central Ohio is usually among the highest in the nation and so are areas in FL. Go figure. Minneapolis would be a great place to have an MLS team. They have a really nice set-up there, but their stadium probably isn't large enough to be an MLS stadium plus it is not in downtown Minneapolis - something that I think has hurt previous St. Louis bids.

What I wonder about is how much an MLS team's local support is affected by whether it was created out of thin air or whether it was an established club with roots in the community and a history of producing good players. If it's not the latter then I think the franchise needs to be careful it is not resented by the local soccer community.