MLSsoccer.com polled 22 of our editors, writers, videographers, statistics specialists and social media masters to bring you the Stories of the Year, our annual look at the biggest storylines from the outgoing year in Major League Soccer. Contributor Nate Sulat grows our knowledge about the boom in MLS expansion.
For as much as expansion in Major League Soccer dominated the headlines in 2013, the plot changed a bit this year, and left the door wide open for more debate in 2015.
The league awarded Atlanta a franchise expected to debut in 2017 and formally welcomed David Beckham’s bid for Miami to rejoin the league sometime in the near future, but now the race is on for the 24th and final spot before 2020.
First, Atlanta and Miami. Instead of sticking with the usual expansion strategy – focusing on cities like Vancouver, Portland, Montreal and Orlando, that had already displayed enthusiasm for the game at the lower division level – MLS went back to largely untested major metropolises.
In the case of Atlanta, it seems to be paying off already. In addition to producing perhaps the cleverest inter-fanbase trashtalking of 2014, the as-yet unnamed franchise has already collected over 14,000 deposits on season tickets for their inaugural campaign in 2017, after the construction of a brand-new stadium in downtown Atlanta that they will share with the NFL’s Falcons.
"This market is much different than the average American or Canadian city," MLS Commissioner Don Garber said in April at the team’s introductory press conference. "It's incredibly diverse. It's very young and most of those young people are working at corporations downtown and are living downtown. It's a very large Hispanic market, larger than most people understand. It's the perfect market."
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Miami’s bid hasn’t progressed as smoothly. The team’s ownership group, which is spearheaded by Beckham, is still fighting to build a stadium in the city after two failed proposals. The specter of a failed first run at MLS in Miami also lingers there somewhere – the Fusion folded after the 2001 season – but the vastly bigger issue is if Beckham can deliver the downtown stadium most expected to be in the works by now.
After reiterating repeatedly throughout the year the importance of Beckham's group locking down a downtown stadium site, Garber told Reuters in December that "certainly this can't go on forever."
If Miami can sort the stadium situation and eventually take the field in 2017, that leaves just one spot left for a slough of prospective expansion teams. At times the chase for the final spot has felt like musical chairs, but for the fans clamoring to see their team in MLS, maybe it’s more like Russian roulette.
The day before MLS Cup, league officials met with representatives from Sacramento, Minneapolis and Las Vegas, and in an official statement announced that San Antonio was going to be discussed at the same meeting. That was the clearest indication yet of which markets are leading the charge for spot No. 24, but each have their own credentials.
Sacramento is home to arguably the most successful USL PRO franchise ever, shattering the league attendance record by attracting over 20,000 fans to their first home game and regularly selling out their 8000-seat permanent home throughout the year.
Minneapolis and San Antonio are two of the second-division NASL’s premier franchises, sweeping the league’s trophies in 2014 and both regularly drawing over 5000 fans a game.
But the inclusion of Atlanta and Miami means that a place like Las Vegas - with very little fanfare until 2014 - still has hope on the basis of their large and rapidly-growing population. The owners have submitted a contentious stadium proposal that will be voted on by the City Council this week.
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Meanwhile, groups in other cities have made their MLS aspirations known: The ownership groups of the Austin Aztex, Oklahoma City Energy FC and even a stalled USL PRO bid in Detroit are all eager to snag that 24th spot in MLS, even if the obstacles to actually getting it might seem insurmountable.
What to expect now? The league hasn’t put forth a hard and fast timeline on the expansion decisions for Miami or the other cities trying to get in, but Garber said this month that the league hopes to make an announcement about the next expansion franchise sometime during the first six months of 2015.
Regardless of the outcome, this one could very easily make the Stories of the Year countdown again next year.
