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January 03, 2007
Psst... Did you hear about San Jose?
ESPN's Ives Galarcep takes out the old crystal ball for a look at the coming year in American soccer. Near the end of the story, he addresses a question that's important to all of us here in the Bay Area: What city is next for MLS?
The story continues:
Atlanta, Cleveland, Milwaukee, New York, Philadelphia, Rochester, San Diego, San Jose, Seattle and St. Louis are the 10 markets most frequently linked to a potential MLS franchise. Who are the front-runners? Cleveland and Philadelphia are strong while Seattle is the best candidate among the West Coast cities. One market that shouldn't be counted out is San Jose, which lost the Earthquakes a year ago but appears to have life again.
Not exactly a ringing endorsement of what's happening behind the doors of Earthquakes Soccer, LLC, but Galarcep still becomes the first East Coast writer to notice that the wheels are in motion here. Is that the beginning of a buzz that we're hearing right now?
Posted by Jay at January 3, 2007 08:17 AM
Comments
Yeah, but he also correctly goes on to pretty much say that whoever gets an venue commitment will get the MLS (short for "Many Little Stadiums"?) franchise to fill it.
I just can't figure how Houston got our Quakes.....College Stadium, no local owners, etc Personal opinion: We were made an example. Anyone who wants to keep their team, give us free land and tax dollars or it's gone.
Anyone dis-agree?
Posted by: Len Kruwel at January 3, 2007 01:11 PM
Hi Len --
Making SJ an example may have played a tiny role in the move but it was way down the list of reasons. If the Sharks had decided to pull the trigger, AEG would have gladly sold. Without an owner here, though, they took the team to a market they had been admiring from afar for some time--and to be honest, Houston has shown itself to be a solid market for MLS. AEG faces a lot of the same challenges there they did here--they need to build a stadium and sell the team--but they will likely have an easier time of it there since land is a lot cheaper in Texas than it is in the Bay Area. Mostly, the decision to move the team came down to dollars and cents.
In any case, I don't think I'm the only one on SSV's board of directors who thinks that we're better off with Lew Wolff and co. at the helm than we would have been with either AEG or the Sharks running things. It would have been best to keep the team here, of course, but we're optimistic about the road back.
Posted by: Jay Hipps, SSV at January 6, 2007 08:08 AM