First off, it was nice to meet the members of the Eads Brigade that came down to the convention center on Thursday. I hope a good time was held by all.

About an hour before the draft began, I sat down with MLS Commissioner Don Garber in the middle of an otherwise empty ballroom down the hall from where the draft was being held. Not surprisingly, we talked about expansion. Here’s a slightly edited transcript of our conversation.

Me: Where do you stand in the expansion process:
Garber: We’re still on track to select two of the applicants by start of the season (March 19). That would be teams 17 and 18, in 2011. We’ve got a lot of work to do and continue to be very engaged in the process with municipalities and city leaders to make sure we have community support and with investors. The soccer community, the corporate community, to assure that every bid is as strong as it can be.

We’re spending a lot of with Jeff to insure that his bid is as good as it can be. That he’s secured corporate support, his facility plan is right, that most importantly can round out his investor group. With the economic crisis, the strength of the investor group becomes even more important in the years to come.

Me: Has the downturn effected the quality of the bids?
Garber: The downturn has effected every business, and sports is not immune from that. In MLS, we’ll see a softening of our corporate sponsorship revenues, though we’re less reliant than most leagues on just one source of revenue. We’ve got ticketing revenue, facility revenue, other revenues that come in through Soccer United Marketing. It has not yet had an effect on our expansion process. Those that had put together strong investor groups have been able to stay in place. Those who have not been able to round out their groups have had more of a challenge to secure the right capital structure to insure that we have an ownership group that’s going to be around for the long term.

Me: As it stands now, Jeff Cooper’s ownership group …
Garber: Not yet finalized.

We really want to be in St. Louis, but in order to be here, we have to continue sure to insure that every aspect of Jeff Cooper’s bid is solid and one of the weaknesses it has today is it that Jeff has not yet been able to secure an investor who has very deep pockets. And that’s not just to satisfy the league’s needs, more importantly that’s to assure that the team will be successful in St. Louis, that it can make the right investments in the community, that it can make the right investments in player development, fan development, marketing, promotion, invest properly in administrative support, both on and off field staff. Those are the things. Lastly should there be economic challenges for the league, we need to know that that group can have a couple rocky years. Right now, we’re not yet secure that his group can satisfy all the objectives so the team will be successful. Now, other bids have other weaknesses. Every bid has got different aspects that needed to be rounded out. Myself and Mark Abbott are spending time with all the prospect to insure that they can be as successful as possible.

No deal’s perfect. One of the requirements is a strong investor group. You can invest in stadium challenges to solve those issues or you can spend against some of the issues that might exist in a market that might not be as strong as another but unless you have the right capital structure, not just in Major League Soccer, but throughout professional sports, you have challenges, and those challenges can be the difference between success and failure.

Me: As it stands now, absent more investors, they wouldn’t be one of your top two choices?
Garber: I wouldn’t want to say that, but you can form your own conclusions.

Me: Where does the expansion process go after these two teams? Have you finally said this is where we’re going to stop for a while?
Garber: We’re an evolving league and an evolving business and if we’re not in the first phase of our development, we’re in the early phase of the league’s lifespan, so it doesn’t make sense for us to look beyond the next round. But that’s some thing that could change over time. It could be a short period of time. We haven’t come to that conclusion yet.

Me: So teams 19 and 20 could join the league in the short term?
Garber: (Shrugs)

Me: You want to be in St. Louis. What can you do to help?
Garber: We’re working hard with Jeff and have done this for the past six months to help him round out his group. We’ve met with investors, pushed investors to him, worked with him on developing his plan, taking him to investments bankers that could help him secure investors and we’ll continue to work with Jeff on that front. I spent a couple hours with him this morning and I speak to him regularly and I’ll reiterate that I believe in this market. Not many cities have the level of soccer knowledge, history, tradition and potential that St. Louis has. We also knew in Philadelphia since the league was founded that it would be a great place for an MLS team and it took us from 1996 to 2008 before we were able to secure the right package of investor, stadium and market support. You need to have three legs on that stool in order to be successful.

Me: Do think at some point Cooper says he’s had enough?
Garber: He’s launched a WPS team, he’s actively engaged in getting into the business. That’s a positive. We’re big supporters of that league and our Soccer United Marketing represents their commercial rights. I think that’s a start but I know Jeff’s aspirations and the city’s aspirations are to have an MLS team.

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A short while later, I called up Cooper, who was over at the Missouri Athletic Club, in his team’s “war room,” preparing for Friday’s WPS draft. I don’t remember many of the questions, but the answers weren’t that different anyway. Here are Cooper’s answers:

“What we’re doing is continuing to work, as we always have been. We’ve got a gigantic project which requires a big ownership group. Like we’ve been doing for the past nine months, we’re trying to strengthen our group.”

“I don’t perceive it as being that big a hurdle. I think we are close. We think we’re extremely close.

“As we have been, for six or so months, we’re looking for folks to add to group. I think we’ll be successful. I fully believe get one of the next expansion teams.”

What did you talk about in your meeting this morning with Garber?

“We discussed all aspects of our bid, we talked about each one of the bids, the state of the league, where the league was today, where they expect to be. It was a nice breakfast.”

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The WPS draft is Friday morning in Room 276 at America’s Center at 10 a.m.