If they build it, MLS might come to Philadelphia
By: Bob | August 29th, 2007
I have to think that there is a certain segment of the American soccer population that spends its entire time trying to track down rumors and speculation about MLS expansion. I admire their tenacity, their ability to read tea leaves and their willingness to put up with disappointment after disappointment. Today’s find comes via a member on the Big Soccer message board who was reading the Philadelphia Constriction News journal and unearthed a possible scoop. God help us all if we have to read construction journals to follow MLS!
Anyway, the scoop is that there is an ad in the journal’s planning section looking for a bid to build a stadium in Chester, PA. The details from the as:
* Drawings are complete
* Bidding possibly 4th Quarter of 2008
* 20,000 – 30,000 seats
* Owner is listed as Major League Soccer
* Value is $100 million
Of course this is simply an ad in a construction magazine that no one (except for eagle-eyed MLS fans) reads, but it still has to give hopes to those looking to bring MLS to the City of Brotherly Love. At least until tomorrow when fans from Seattle, Cleveland, St. Louis, et al find something that points to their cities being next in line for an expansion team.
Spotted on My Soccer Blog
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Category: World Football
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Comments
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Philly deserves a team! It is a large market! A great sports city! And probably has the best youth club system in the United States in FC Delco!!!
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United States
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Cool logo/coat of arms by the way!
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Philly is a natural fit bewteen DC and NY. I hope it happens.
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United States -
Let me play devil’s advocate here- Should we really be thinking about expansion in MLS?….or relocation?
MLS is working well in some cities (Toronto, DC, LA) and not so well in others (Salt Lake, KC). I’m thinking mainly about attendance but also dilution of the talent pool and the effect more teams will have on that.
Instead of expanding, it might be better to move a team from a “failing” market to Philadelphia (or some other city).
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I had heard that they were planning to build a stadium on the campus of Rowan University in South Jersey in hopes to lure the MLS to the Philadelphia metro area. I don’t know if that has since fallen through or not. However, my sister, who goes to the school brought that to my attention last spring.
I agree that the league, that has already contracted franchises, is not really in need of further expansion. Given the disparity in salary for some of the players, the inconsistency of attendance… it would make sense to move another team to the area.
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United States -
No can do Karl. KC and Salt Lake both went through massive drama last year that might have resulted in relocation but now KC has an ownership group of local real estate and businessman who bought the team pretty much to keep it in KC and Salt Lake finally managed after pissing off the entire political establishment in Utah but buying the governor (or is it one of the gov’s daughters is dating a player?) to get the state to fund the infrastructure around their new stadium and construction is humming. The KC group has to give up and sell which won’t happen for at least 5 years (and only then if they can’t get a stadium built) and no one wants to move a team that has a stadium in place in the current state of the league. KC is in no more danger than the other stadiumless teams (DC, Houston, Chivas) and SL is as stable as NY (and why didn’t you list that as a city where MLS isn’t working as well?).
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Rowan died sometime last year due to financial issues.
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Having lived in Philly for a few years (back in the day), I don’t think that Southern Jersey is a good fit. I heard that Chester, PA was the preferred location now…
I agree that you don’t want to dilute talent. We’ve seen that in the NHL. The league doesn’t need 30 teams (+/-2) which seems to be the magic number for other sports leagues in the US. Maybe 14-16 is enough. Focus on the product and organic growth before expansion. Expand in 2020 when you have 20,000 – 30,000 person soccer specific stadiums in every city with a 30% sell out rate and average attendance of 70% of capacity. The more I think about it, the more I agree with bluemeanies. There is plenty of organic growth to be had…
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All good points bluemeanies. I wasn’t really specifying which teams should move but suggesting. I skipped NY as I figured there just needs to be a team there even though it’s not doing well. Actually, probably what NY needs to do is move to NY. Playing in Giants stadium away from the population center is not helping their cause.
Having the soccer-specific stadium is important, but if you are going to carpet it with sports turf or can’t fill it up because you share a parking lot, what’s the point?
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Biggest problem I see (if this happens) is that Chester is often the homicide capital of PA. It’s not a happy place.
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But the point is that the two franchises most vulnerable as identified by you are two franchises that are stable. NY just needs to move onto pub trans (like the new stadium in Harrison will be once they clear out Jimmy Hoffa’s corpse and get construction moving) and actually building in NY proper is a pipe dream.
As for the talent I think that the talent pool will expand either naturally or through rule changes (ie making Canadians and USians native for all teams though Canada might not have all that much available talent, increasing senior internationals, increasing the salary cap so we can keep the USians who currently go to Scandinavia) in the next three years so that the league can add 2 more teams for 2010. The original plan was to sit at 16 for a couple of years but Garber recently had an interview that mentioned the possibility of 18 by 2012 if other investers got their stadium ducks in a row and that might be straining it.
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RSL has one of the highest attendances in the league, how can you say its not working?
Massive research there Einstein.
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Put the team in Camden! There’s plenty of people on the streets who will be more than willing to sell the materials required to line the fields with thick, chalky white touch lines.
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Oh and I hope some of that $100 million is budgeted for an underground lockup like they had at the Vet. With all due respect, Philly fans are insane. I wouldn’t go to an Eagles game without at least a small militia in tow. And I’m a Raiders fan.
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You have to take advantage when the political will is there. If a city is willing to work with a new club to develop a 200 million dollar stadium it is hard for the MLS to ignore that opportunity. We are not talking about owners coming to the MLS asking for a team for a few million dollars and saying that they will play at a local high school. A quick look at the current high profile expansion proposals. Seattle has multiple big money investor groups fighting over the possibility of getting a shot to get an MLS club. Some reports have as many as 8 fighting for the right to get a club. In St Louis a developer has got a proposal on the table for a mixed use development in the billion dollar range. Next month the city council I believe is voting to see if they will back his proposal. In Philadelphia the governor is behind the idea of a 200 million plus dollar stadium to help revitalize Chester. It looks like this proposal has lots of backing from the city and the state. In Miami the Mayor is looking into the option of redeveloping the Orange Bowl property into a baseball and a soccer stadium mixed use facility.
With the amount of cash and political wheeling and dealing that is needed to get these deals done the MLS can have these cities and owners fight each other to come to the table with the best proposals to the MLS. Garber is playing the game he has to play.
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MLS expansion in Rochester…
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I agree that expansion isn’t the way the MLS should be thinking, unless its part of a very long-term plan. The marketing guys at MLS have never struck me as unusually bright, and I’m sure they’re banking on the continuation of the Beckham factor long into the future. It’s a bit like Disco Stu on the Simpsons … if these trends continue, hey … The only difference being that Disco Stu doesn’t advertise, and MLS advertises badly.
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United Kingdom
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