And now, for #20...

[Jeremy]

http://www.vancouversun.com/sports/chief+Garber+wary+World+over+reach/3329537/story.html

HOUSTON — Major League Soccer has received a World Cup bounce and wants to create a second team in New York but will not get carried away by the boost in interest in the game, commissioner Don Garber told Reuters.

French striker Thierry Henry recently signed for MLS team New York Red Bulls, joining David Beckham as one of the North American league’s front men and Garber believes MLS will gain from a new club in the Big Apple.

New York headquartered-MLS, which began play in 1996, will have 19 teams by 2012.

"We are very focused on trying to have that 20th team in New York - a second team in New York, a rival for the Red Bulls," he said in an interview Tuesday.

"We have got a lot of work to do to achieve that. We may or may not achieve that but that is our goal and our main focus for the 20th team. That would be pretty cool," he said, confirming any new team would be in New York City proper.

The Red Bulls are based in Harrison, New Jersey, about 12 miles west of Manhattan.

The MLS have already held talks in the past with the Wilpon family who own Major League Baseball’s New York Mets.

Garber said the recent World Cup finals, with record television audiences across the United States, was good news for the league but added that it was vital to accept that many fans of the game were not yet supporters of MLS.

"The World Cup was a momentous event for the sport in America," he said. "It far exceeded our expectations, not just television ratings but the overall buzz and interest surprised even the most cynical people.

"We hope to be able to capture some of that excitement but we recognise that soccer continues to grow in America and MLS is growing as well. But there is still such a huge gap between club interest and the broad interest in the game.

"Our challenge, our task, will continue to be to translate the overall interest in the game into being a passionate supporter of your local team. Clearly we hope ratings and attendance will grow but it will be very modest, if it all. As the market grows it gives us more opportunity," he said.

"The sport is beginning to break through more into the cultural mainstream and that is because of ESPN, who have made soccer relevant and brought it into our living rooms.

"It’s also about the continued expansion of MLS - we will be in 19 cities in 2012. It is David Beckham, it is Landon Donovan, becoming a great American soccer hero, it was the officiating controversy at the World Cup (when) and all of a sudden Americans had their hair stood up saying we’ve got to really support our boys.

"So there are so many things at work and for the league. We have just got to grab on to part of that but recognise that is not transformational, that it is an evolutionary process," he said.

A deal signed earlier this year with the players’ union ruled out radical changes to the league’s structure and budgets but Garber said the league retained big-time ambitions.

He said MLS was wary of making major mistakes.

"This is a long-term plan, we hope to be able to be competitive with the great soccer leagues in the world," he said.

"All businesses should have a grand vision and that is ours. It is going to take a long time and it will be generational not immediate.

"But with all the things happening in our country — the broad interest in soccer overall, the emergence of the Spanish market as important socially, culturally and from a business perspective, the young American kids who played the game who are now mums and dads and businesspeople — I do believe that we will be able to achieve our goals. We just can’t shoot ourselves in the foot.

"As long as we don’t try to go after it too quickly, as long as we don’t think that because there is a great World Cup that all of a sudden MLS is going to be attracting those kinds of audiences, as long as we keep our heads down, we are going to be fine," he said.

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/sports/chief+Garber+wary+World+over+reach/3329537/story.html#ixzz0v0hoI410

Forget the south-east, Atlanta and Miami, the Don says his goal is to get a 2nd team in NYC.

[Free kick]

There are some other links to interesting stories on that page as well. Such as status of sales for season tickets deposits. Also lists some of the players that they trialing and will be looking at in the summer transfer window.

[bettermirror]

A second team in NY would be good....but I still do agree they need to get a proper team in the South Atlantic, be it Atlanta or Florida somewhere. Obviously those areas have a poor history supporting professional soccer though. Put a team in NY and you'll be able to get 15000 plus depending on location (NOT outback New Jersey!).

[ag futbol]

NYC would be good ... or successfully moving Chivas to the other side of LA which is vastly under served or actually moving FC Dallas to somewhere remotely near Dallas.

[shawn_strat]

There will be no MLS teams in the southeast for the foreseeable future. I just spent 2.5 weeks in the southeast. People don't give a % about football down there.

[Danny Boy]

There will be no MLS teams in the southeast for the foreseeable future. I just spent 2.5 weeks in the southeast. People don't give a % about football down there.

you talked to everyone in the southeast in two and a half weeks? That's pretty impressive.

[brettinhalifax]

There will be no MLS teams in the southeast for the foreseeable future. I just spent 2.5 weeks in the southeast. People don't give a % about football down there.

Funny, I have always heard that they only care about 2 things: football and NASCAR. Maybe three things: College football, NASCAR and NFL football.

They don't seem to care much about soccer though.

[shawn_strat]

you talked to everyone in the southeast in two and a half weeks? That's pretty impressive.

You think I'm wrong?

[BuzzAndSting]

Doesn't David Beckham have a clause built into his contract that he gets first right of refusal for ownership on the 20th franchise? For that reason it's definite that the team will be in NYC. There's no way he'd be involved with a team in Georgia or Florida.

[Juby]

to be completely frank, for hockey, soccer and and basketball, the southeast usa struggles with attendance (unless their completely dominating (like florida in basketball but at the same time, how embarressing is it that atlanta hawks aren't selling tickets left right and center, the raptors sell better in seasons with 20 more losses, you know how stoked we'd be if we had a team like the hawks here?). How many soccer teams have gone bankrupt in florida alone? The only way they should put a team in florida is if someone pony's up some serious cash to guarentee it won't die off when probably no one shows up for the games. Maybe one day interest, moneywhereyourmouthispride, and the tonne of people there will make a perfect storm for a successful team to work but instead of dumping tens millions on keeping an mls team there waiting for it to work, you might as well just spend a few million over a few years keeping miami fc going until it manages to do something impressive (like sell 2000 tickets to start).

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

Maybe worth bearing in mind that 2000 tickets sold was always a bit of an achievement for the Toronto Lynx as well and there were many prophets of doom on Bigsoccer five years ago (used to argue with them on an almost daily basis and sadly many were fellow Canadians) about what would happen if MLS ever expanded to Canada.

Think the problem with the Miami Fusion was more with stadium location (a bit like TFC playing at Ivor Wynne stadium) and having an I/O who lacked the money to meet league cash calls. Really no reason to see Miami as any less suitable than say Kansas City, Dallas, Denver or Columbus where there have been major attendance issues as well but where there was greater backing from Phil Anschutz and Lamar Hunt to make it through the league's lean years.

The 20th franchise could be from just about any major city in North America with 1.5 million or more people. Nobody saw Salt Lake City coming. It all boils down to who is willing to write the largest cheque for the expansion fee and having a viable stadium plan. No chance they'll stop at 20, in my opinion, for broadcasting footprint reasons so New York can wait if nothing emerges there in the next year or two.

[Danny Boy]

You think I'm wrong?

No... I was just making a sarcastic comment. You just made it sound like you were an expert on the southeast market after only being there for 2.5 weeks. I'm sure there's a niche or two down there who really do care about soccer or that could probably be converted. But the amount of work needed to do that versus trying another franchise in an established multicultural/worldly market like NY seems like the obvious route to go.

btw... where in the southeast were you?

[Jeremy]

I'm sure there's a niche or two down there who really do care about soccer

http://www.miamisoccerfan.com/Soccer/Tickets.html

[BuzzAndSting]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/europe/7933407.stm

Becks has a clause in his contract that gives him the right to buy the 20th franchise after the 2011 season. Again, there's no way he'd be involved in a team that wasn't in a huge market like NYC. He'll be teaming up with the Wilpon's to build a venue and team in Queens.

[shawn_strat]

I was in the Savannah, Georgia area.

[villus]

Miami is not your normal South Eastern city though with a huge South American/Latino population that no doubt are soccer fans. They just need to find a way to bridge the gap between being a soccer fan and getting behind a team. I would assume they could attract alot of top class players to a team in Miami, many players from abroad would be willing to play in LA/NY/Miami and if you can get some top notch South American talent for example you might do well to bring out some of those SA soccer fans.

[Grizzly]

Miami is not your normal South Eastern city though with a huge South American/Latino population that no doubt are soccer fans.

This is a complete fallacy. Not all spanish countries are soccer hotbeads and those latinos in Miami tend to come from countries where soccer is not the dominant sport. 34% of the population of Miami is of Cuban origin where baseball is the most popular sport. Next at 5.6% of the population is Nicaragua, again a baseball country. The third most populous ethnic group is Haitians at 5.5% and once again not exactly rabid soccer fans. It is not until you get to the 4th group, Hondurans at 3.3% that you hit a real soccer nation. The 5th group, Dominicans at 1.7% is again not a soccer nation.

Having lived in the southeast, I also have to agree with Shawn_strat that soccer is not very popular in this area even by US standards. They produce some decent players since university scholarships can result and people do follow it to some extent at high school and university level but that is mostly because many people will follow any sport their school plays in this part of the US. I think as a professional club sport there is very little interest in soccer in this area, Miami or elsewhere.

[CanadianSoccerFan]

Don Garber talked expansion with Sports Illustrated and it's worth a read.

SI.com: MLS has made some solid choices recently with expansion: Seattle, Toronto, Philadelphia, with Portland and Vancouver coming in next year and Montreal as the 19th team in 2012. What comes after that?

Garber: If we could write the book, the next chapter would be a second team in New York. We're working hard to achieve that. We've been spending time talking to potential investors, doing a lot of planning to figure out how to make the economics work. The Red Bulls have been very supportive of having a hometown rival. I hope our 20th team is in New York City. We've got a lot of work to do to achieve that.

SI.com: Would it be in Brooklyn, Queens or somewhere else?

Garber: We're looking at a number of different sites, sites in Queens for the most part, and not just at Shea but Long Island City and Flushing Meadow Park. So we have three particular sites we're looking at. But we have a lot of work to do to get something done. It's a very difficult market, very crowded.

SI.com: What year would you be hoping to start that team?

Garber: It certainly wouldn't be any earlier than 2013, and we're racing up against a deadline to get it done by '13. In order to get it done by 2013 we've got to get something done in the next 12 months.

SI.com: Where do Atlanta and Florida and the Southeast fit in for expansion then?

Garber: Beyond New York, Atlanta is still very engaged and started a committee to support the sport at a wide variety of levels. San Diego has just entered the mix. The man who bought the Silverdome in Detroit has been in discussions with us. I get probably 10 to 20 e-mails a day from fans in Miami trying to have us pay attention to their interest. I believe strongly that we need to be south of Washington D.C. in order for us truly to be a national league. But like everything with us, we're not going to do it just to round out the map. We'll do it when we have the right owner, the right stadium, when we have a sense the fans will support it and it will be a success like our other recent expansion teams.

SI.com: How long would MLS want to stay at 20 teams?

Garber: I don't know the answer to that. We'll tackle that when we finalize the 20th team.

Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/grant_wahl/07/28/allstar.garber/1.html#ixzz0vQ9AxMft

San Diego was the #1 city in America for US national team TV ratings at the world cup even with a few 7 am local kick-offs and local investors seem to have taken notice.

[masster]

The New York Cosmos?

http://goal.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/cosmos-twice-in-a-lifetime/

[Free kick]

A quote from Garber that's music to my ears and is a refrain to what I have been say about MLS and Canadians abroad for long while now :

"That may or may not fit with that question, but it's important that we're coming out now to start saying it. I don't quite get the intrigue with "Americans Abroad." I don't understand why people are so infatuated with the fact there are American players playing overseas. If they were playing at the highest level, similar to what's happening with Mexicans playing for Arsenal and Manchester United, when we get to that point I think it would be great for everything that we need to achieve with American soccer. We need a player playing at the highest level and being a star internationally. Until that happens, for me as the commissioner it hurts when a player leaves Major League Soccer and goes to play in another league. And while most people would disagree with this statement, I'm not even convinced it's better for their development.

SI.com: Really? Why?

Garber: There's no doubt they make more money, but there's still a question as to whether or not a player who is not playing full-time on a team in Scandinavia is going to develop his game better than he could develop it in MLS. I think it should be a priority for us to get some of the star Americans who are playing overseas to come back and play in MLS, the same as we did in 1996. At some point our clubs will start looking at that. I don't believe it will happen while there's still a fairly large disparity between what we can pay those players and what they're able to earn overseas. But we clearly need to get to the point where that decision is less about money and more about what they believe is best for their career and their own development"

Granted, there is a downside to having players at only the super clubs in terms of fixture congestion and fatigue.

[Gordon]

A quote from Garber that's music to my ears and is a refrain to what I have been say about MLS and Canadians abroad for long while now :

"That may or may not fit with that question, but it's important that we're coming out now to start saying it. I don't quite get the intrigue with "Americans Abroad." I don't understand why people are so infatuated with the fact there are American players playing overseas. If they were playing at the highest level, similar to what's happening with Mexicans playing for Arsenal and Manchester United, when we get to that point I think it would be great for everything that we need to achieve with American soccer. We need a player playing at the highest level and being a star internationally. Until that happens, for me as the commissioner it hurts when a player leaves Major League Soccer and goes to play in another league . And while most people would disagree with this statement, I'm not even convinced it's better for their development.

SI.com: Really? Why?

Garber: There's no doubt they make more money , but there's still a question as to whether or not a player who is not playing full-time on a team in Scandinavia is going to develop his game better than he could develop it in MLS. I think it should be a priority for us to get some of the star Americans who are playing overseas to come back and play in MLS, the same as we did in 1996. At some point our clubs will start looking at that. I don't believe it will happen while there's still a fairly large disparity between what we can pay those players and what they're able to earn overseas. But we clearly need to get to the point where that decision is less about money and more about what they believe is best for their career and their own development"

Granted, there is a downside to having players at only the super clubs in terms of fixture congestion and fatigue.

I don't doubt that Garber, as commissioner of a second tier league, would like his players to stay, however, the "music" you are hearing is pretty much the response those of us who have challenged this sort of thinking has offered.

1) Garber admits to a "fairly large disparity" in wages

2) Garber own faith in MLS as a development vehicle is lacking. Note his choice of identifying player "not playing full time" in the Scandinavian Leagues (among the weakest in Europe). Instructive is it not that he lacked enough conviction to include full-time players?

Here is the bottom line, players have to make a living. MLS wages are poor for all but a handful, the quality of coaching in MLS is not strong and the off-season development and academies still need considerable work. UNtil that happens, player will head off to Europe and it will be in their best interests to do so. If you want to change that, (keep) use(ing) your influence as a fan of TFC, and a member of a supporters group to keep pushing TFC to get better. Push them to get rid of the disciminatory player quotas that work against developing Canadians. When that sor tof thing starts to occur at a decent enough level, people might cease to be enamoured with Canadians/Americans abroad.

[Free kick]

@ Gordon,

Consider this: For the first time ever, we have seen now two canadian clubs teams in the past three years go into Honduras ( San pedro sula and Tegucigalpa) in the exact same hostile environment faced by our national team and they got the result that they needed against Honduras ( not only the away match but the home match as well):

1) TFC had 5 starters who were Canadian. Montreal also had a strong Canadian content side but not as many as the regulars on the MNT.

2) "Both" Honduran sides that they faced ( Olimpia and Motagua) each contained a very sizable contingent of their regular MNT players. Some such as Georgie Welcome and Hendry thomas (Olimpia) have gone to Europe or are on their way to bigger clubs than where our current MNT players ply their trade. Combined, the Honduran clubs sides contained a far greater MNT influence on their two club teams than the Impact and TFC.

Comparatively, our MNT (Made up of a majority of Euro based talent) has made two similar trips into Honduras in the last two qualifying cycle and did not come close to achieving the desired results. In fact, from what I recalled, was fairly outplayed and the results were pretty decisive.

What does that tell you about our Euro based players? It tells me that Garber is spot on.

[Macksam]

A quote from Garber that's music to my ears and is a refrain to what I have been say about MLS and Canadians abroad for long while now :

"That may or may not fit with that question, but it's important that we're coming out now to start saying it. I don't quite get the intrigue with "Americans Abroad." I don't understand why people are so infatuated with the fact there are American players playing overseas. If they were playing at the highest level, similar to what's happening with Mexicans playing for Arsenal and Manchester United, when we get to that point I think it would be great for everything that we need to achieve with American soccer. We need a player playing at the highest level and being a star internationally. Until that happens, for me as the commissioner it hurts when a player leaves Major League Soccer and goes to play in another league. And while most people would disagree with this statement, I'm not even convinced it's better for their development.

SI.com: Really? Why?

Garber: There's no doubt they make more money, but there's still a question as to whether or not a player who is not playing full-time on a team in Scandinavia is going to develop his game better than he could develop it in MLS. I think it should be a priority for us to get some of the star Americans who are playing overseas to come back and play in MLS, the same as we did in 1996. At some point our clubs will start looking at that. I don't believe it will happen while there's still a fairly large disparity between what we can pay those players and what they're able to earn overseas. But we clearly need to get to the point where that decision is less about money and more about what they believe is best for their career and their own development"

Granted, there is a downside to having players at only the super clubs in terms of fixture congestion and fatigue.

I agree with what he says. F*ck Scandanavia.

[CanadianSoccerFan]

Consider this: For the first time ever, we have seen now two canadian clubs teams in the past three years go into Honduras ( San pedro sula and Tegucigalpa) in the exact same hostile environment faced by our national team and they got the result that they needed against Honduras ( not only the away match but the home match as well):

Not really. 6,000 isn't the same as 50,000

[An Observer]

@ Gordon,

Consider this: For the first time ever, we have seen now two canadian clubs teams in the past three years go into Honduras ( San pedro sula and Tegucigalpa) in the exact same hostile environment faced by our national team and they got the result that they needed against Honduras ( not only the away match but the home match as well):

It could also mean our national side is not prepared to the same extent and has (or had) inferior coaching