01.18.2008 3:07 pm

Expansion extension?

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

At his state of the league speech before MLS Cup, MLS commissioner Don Garber said the deadline for a decision on naming the 16th team in time for the 2009 season was Jan. 31. Today, during the ESPN telecast of the draft, he said a decision on the next team — either Philadelphia or St. Louis — would come in 30 to 45 days. He said the team would probably start in 2010. Analyst John Harkes even tried a follow up on expansion after a few minutes and Garber said, “It’s going to come down to the wire, John.”

The ability to start in 2009 was one thing working in St. Louis’ favor. An additional month could give Philadelphia more chance to get the funding it needs, though if it dies in the legislature in the next few weeks, it will likely be dead for a while. Presumably, that month could also give Jeff Cooper’s St. Louis bid the time to get more ownership in line. So it looks like we might not see a decision by Jan. 31 as originally advertised, other than that there won’t be a 16th team anywhere in 2009.

By the way, Harkes’ presence on the draft broadcast may be a sign of things to come. Soccer America reported that ESPN wants to put Harkes on MLS broadcasts in place of Eric Wynalda.

(4 votes, average: 4.25 out of 5)

Loading ...

11 comments

Comments are closed.

Blog Comments: Rules of the Road

Congrats to SLU’s Brian Grazier, picked 47th by Colorado. Here’s to a long MLS career, one that ends up on the roster of the St. Louis MLS future team.

— Billiken

9:03 pm January 18th, 2008

Joe Germanese who went from SLUH to Vanderbilt to Duke went in the second round to New England (they just love St. Louis guys) and David Roth, who went from Chaminade to Northwestern, was taken by New York.

— Tom Timmermann

11:04 pm January 18th, 2008

Hopefully Wynalda will get the boot from the ESPN commentary box.

I’m praying that Tommy Smyth will be the next to go as well.

— puskas'leftboot

6:03 am January 19th, 2008

Hey Tom,
Will they still build the stadium in Collinsville for the Women’s Professional Soccer League that just launched… even if we don’t get an MLS team, or will the women play somewhere else in STL?

— Patrick

12:08 pm January 21st, 2008

The stadium would be built only for an MLS team. If that doesn’t happen, expect them to play at the Soccer Park in Fenton.

— Tom Timmermann

12:15 pm January 21st, 2008

Tom, yesterday (Thursday) I listen to you on the radio (KFNS) with Bob & Frank regarding a MLS soccer team coming to STL. What a mistake that would be. Who ever would invest in MLS for STL needs a tax write off because it is a losing proposition. Professional soccer whether it’s indoor or outdoor will not make it here. It does not matter if it’s womens or men’s soccer it will lose money.

In the 1970’s the St. Louis Stars with local talent like Pat Mc Bride could bearly get 5,000 people to Busch Staduim on a Friday night. Then there was the Steamers, for a while the people went but indoor is more for the coachs of CYC & Select teams (ages 8-14) to have a field trip with their players. The kids run around the inside of the Family Area while the coaches talk to the parents. What I’m trying to say is there might be 3-4000 people there at the Family Area and tickets were always free to those CYC/Select teams but they were not all watching soccer and at the end they could not tell you who scored etc.

Going back to the outdoor game, if it does come to STL, they will cry for corporate support to buy tickets to support the team. But in a few years it will be gone. Soccer is a great game to play but hard to watch. Support in other cities like Chicago, LA etc is easier because of all the Europeans & other nationalities that live in those communities. In STL we have the Bosnian community which loves soccer (football) but I don’t think they would support a team that was not made up of fellow country men.

So Mr. Timmerman you comment that there would be 12-15000 fans at the stadium for a MLS STL game I feel is very far fetch. I tried to call the station to address this but was unsuccessful. I hope you get your wish for a STL Team for a few years so Frank , Bob and yourself have something to talk about on the radio. Is the STL indoor team still playing? Even when they did play it got very little play on TV as well in your paper. In conclusion soccer in STL is a college, high school sport. And on a Friday night in the fall you will see 1000 people or more at a game at Soccer park. Thats the soccer STL wants to see and will pay to see.

— G. Russell

9:36 pm January 25th, 2008

If the MLS team in Kansas City can draw 9,000 people per game, I don’t see why St. Louis, which has the highest level of soccer participation in the nation — not just among kids, among everybody — won’t draw more. Comparing now to the 1970s doesn’t work. The sport is vastly more popular now than it was then, and it would not be out of the question to field a team with several local players on it that would add to the local appeal. It would get far more coverage on TV — MLS has a deal with ESPN and Fox Soccer Channel — and in the newspaper. So I beg to differ.

— Tom Timmermann

12:16 pm January 26th, 2008

The previous comment by G. Russell is completely off base. The writter sounds a little less than completely misinformed about soccer in St. Louis and soccer in general. The notion that it is not a spectator sport has been refuted in every country in the world and is now coming to pass in the USA. I for one am a huge Rams fan and love the Cardinals, but if we have a MLS team in Collinsville, soccer will get my money first (and I’m in Ballwin). I would suspect 12,000 could be the number of season tickets they could sell, nevermind attendence. This town is just begging for a legitimate soccer francise.

Tom, thanks for keeping us up to date. Please let us all know when you have more on the Cooper/MLS front.

— Nick

3:40 pm January 28th, 2008

Does this mean Philadelphia’s a done deal?

http://www.delcotimes.com/WebApp/appmanager/JRC/Daily?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pg_article&r21.pgpath=%2FDCT%2FHome&r21.content=%2FDCT%2FHome%2FContentTab_News_1498637

One paragraph toward the end says that “funding hinges on the General Assembly raising the limit on Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program spending, which has not yet happened”. So if that’s still pending can they really make an announcement? Is that contingency a slam-dunk?

*sigh*

Guess we’ll have to wait until the next round of expansion. I guess the next question is will Philly be ready for 2009 … I’m guessing not which makes me wonder if they’d want STL in 2010 which would be an odd number of teams again.

— Number2Shirt

8:46 am January 30th, 2008

I’m not surprised Philly is in line for the 16th team. It’s what the MLS wants. My question is now that Philly has their funding does this free up the MLS to announce a St. Louis team as well? Kind of a 2 for 1 deal? Or is the ownership team that big of a hang up?

— sirfallsalot_2000

10:30 am January 30th, 2008

Why can’t MLS just go with an odd number of teams. If two teams are ready to make a splash in MLS why don’t they just give both of them a bid, and add another, possibly Miami, in 2010 to even it out? Or are there contingencies on the number of teams they can add?

Although I’m sad St. Louis might not get a team as soon as we’d hoped, I think it’s awesome that there is so much buzz about Soccer in America. If we don’t get 2009, are our changes 100% of getting the 2010 bid? And once we get a team I am also going to put all my sporting event money toward soccer as well (maybe season tickets?), and that’s saying a lot coming from a pretty crazy/poor Cardinals fan. And if the games are televised, I won’t miss a match!

And when we get to the point of signing players is it too obvious to attempt to sign a Latino, or a Bosnian star to come play, in order to pull in other STL populous nationalities to the games?

— Patrick

12:52 pm January 30th, 2008