Cooper: Do I feel like we’ll get it? Yes.
Jeff Cooper has always thought he’ll get an MLS expansion team for St. Louis, so the news of Miami dropping out of the race was interesting, but didn’t change his take on the situation.
“Obviously I’ve always felt good about where we sit with this,” he said from San Francisco, where he was at WPS league meetings. “We’ve got a lot of good things going. At end of the day, do I feel like we’ll get it? Yes I do.”
Cooper said he hasn’t heard from the league lately on expansion. From news reports, the league has spent a lot of time lately working on the Miami/Barcelona situation.
“What I do know is, we don’t have the problems Miami has in terms of bids,” he said. “We have a stadium that’s revenue controlled. It’s going to be a good run for us over the next few months.”
He said the economic troubles have not altered his bid. “We stand as ready as we’ve been,” he said. “Nothing has deterred us. I feel good about our bid and where we stand. Personally I think it’s a shame Miami is out, it’s a great city, and I thought the same about Montreal and Atlanta. They need to be in the league. But the league needs to come to St. Louis first.”
Meanwhile, Ottawa is facing a choice between a CFL team and an MLS team.
Portland seems to have gotten past one hurdle, though the next is the biggie.
Wow, start printing tickets! ha ha
When will the announcement from MLS be made?
The realtiy is the MLS has been using us as a fall back position all along. Will we get a team? Chances are decent. Ottawa will pick the CFL team one would think. The hope for us is that Mr. Copper will be able to have a real solid money guy, if he does the possibilities are very good
Sadly, MLS is no longer about growing the game in the US. That soccer is such a part of the St. Louis sports scene will be used against St. Louis; MLS wishes to expand to areas where the game is a trend, not a cultural feature, to pander to its core supporters. That core is all about feigned intensity and emulating South America and Europe. The realness of St. Louis soccer will be seen as a detriment. And I am fed up with MLS.
St. Louis should get a team and even Garber admits that. Why he has stepped over us 2 times now is beyond me. I think he will pass us up this one last time and then finally give in the next go around. I don’t know if Jeff Cooper will be able to fund the expansion fee next time as it will for sure go up from the $40 million it is now. I do like that he has a stadium deal, but do question the location. Suburban St. Louis County would have been just as viable of a solution.
If St. Louis doesn’t get an expansion team, I’m through with MLS. I don’t even want to hear those three initials again, unless they are announcing that St. Louis is getting a team. If Cooper doesn’t get a team this time, he probably loses the stadium deal, which means he would have to start from scratch on that. He has already sunk a lot of time and money into the stadium/development plan. I can’t believe he would want to go through it all again.
40 million is way too much of a fee in these economic times. Garber is probably correct in his dislike with Collinsville though. While it’s only 10 minutes from downtown, it’s, what, 40 minutes at a minimum from the majority of folks who might attend the games. Factor in St Charles county and… If I was Coop, I’d look into St Charles county a lot more closely. Munis like St Peters, O’fallon, Wentzville, Lake St Louis will all start seeing revenue from all areas drying up very quickly. I’m certain he could find acreage out there at a much better price than say two years ago. The past 50 years have proven that the growth for Stl has been West. While we’re in a rough economic time right now, when things pick up, it will head West some more.