Seattle to MLS: A Backdoor Promotion?

By: Laurie | January 6th, 2008

A few weeks back, Soccer by Ives wrote a post on an interesting strategy used by Adrian Hanauer, who is both the current owner of the Seattle Sounders USL1 team and a co-owner of the new (and as-yet unnamed) Seattle MLS team:

“According to sources, Hanauer, who also owns the Sounders, basically told MLS that if the new Seattle MLS team would not be able to retain the rights of any of the Sounders players then he was going to disband the reigning USL champions after the 2007 season. MLS, wanting there to be a soccer presence in the city the year before MLS Seattle started in 2009, relented and now Seattle MLS will be granted the rights to between five and eight players from the Sounders 2008 roster. The league is still working out the final number of players, but MLS Seattle will have Sounders players without having to use discovery options to acquire them.”

Ives’ take is that the Seattle MLS team is using the Sounders as a feeder team. True. And I also think it’s as close as we’re ever going going to get to a USL promotion.

In the time I’ve been following MLS, there have been a few feeble calls for a promotion/relegation system similar to other leagues in the world. Combine the teams into a single table, as opposed to the two-conference system we have now, and at the end of the season the bottom two MLS teams would be relegated to the next lower league, USL1, and the top two USL1 teams would get promoted to MLS.

It will never happen. If I’m remembering correctly, the cost of getting an MLS franchise runs something like $30 million, and that’s before you factor in costs associated with things like getting a soccer-specific stadium built. If you’re a city like Philadelphia or Miami, are you going to sign off on using tax dollars to build a stadium if there’s a chance your team wouldn’t be getting MLS-level revenues the following year? Not a chance.

So this — the Seattle deal — may be the closest we’ll ever get. By the time of the Seattle expansion draft, the team will already have a solid foundation, a team philosophy, and a core of players that will go a long way toward mitigating the expansion franchise blues (and the many, many losses) that usually come in a team’s first year. Chances are that this will not be your typical first-year team.

The arguments I’ve seen against what Seattle is doing basically boil down to one thing: It’s not fair. It gives Seattle an unfair advantage.

Because we all know that the original expansion season is supposed to be total crap. It’s an unwritten commandment: Thy team shalt suck in its first season. It must be that way for all new teams, because it was that way for all the old teams.

But who’s hurt here? Not the current teams, or at least not too much. Chances are that they will still hold an advantage over a team that has 20-23 players who have never played together. And this is USL we’re talking about. The level below MLS. In theory, there should be a quality gap to overcome, and for Seattle to count on this new system is a gamble.

Plus I have to think that even if Seattle did come into the league and rip everyone apart, wouldn’t this be better for the league than bringing in a lower-quality expansion side? Isn’t it better to field as many competitive teams as possible to bring up general quality of play? Even if it means the other teams won’t get easy-win expansion team games like they otherwise might?

I think this is a great idea.

Yes, granted, I’m from Seattle, so I’m a little biased. But I like to think I’d feel the same way if the expansion team were from…well…even Portland.