urbanSTL

Vancouver today. Rumors are Portland on Friday.



It's good for the Northwest. They will become a soccer hotbed with the Portland, Seattle, Vancouver rivalry ... the only league in which those 3 closely connected cities compete. Throw in San Jose, and the two LA franchises and the West Coast has a good thing going on.



Where we stand now I guess is anyone's guess. Cooper has mentioned in the past that USL-1 was an option and now that he has the soccer park, he can probably get one of those teams if he wants, do a few improvements at the Soccer Park and make a go of that. He still has the women's team, and I assume they will start playing at the Soccer Park as soon as the commitments to SIUE are finished.



Alternatively, he can keep screwing around with MLS, I guess. If I remember the plan was to get to 20, so there should still be 2 spots left. I am sure one of these teams will fail sooner rather than later, so he can always buy a team and move it here. The expansion fee is going to go up again I am sure, and if Cooper had trouble meeting it this time, it is probably going to be an even bigger detriment next time. Plus, the competition is not going to stop, especially if 20 is seen as the cap. Miami, Atlanta, Montreal, New York 2, etc. will probably make a run at it again.



Also, you would think the ownership group he had formed won't stick together. It's hard seeing Pujols and the other secret ownership folks continuing to stick with this bid after, what, the 4th failure?



Personally, if I were Cooper, I would just hang it up and be done with it. Some group is going to be put together to own the Rams, and he can probably get a small piece of that.



Like I said before, this has been the most frustrating process. Saint Louis, soccer's best friend in the United States, has been treated like dirt in my opinion, being passed over for sexier cities like Philly and Seattle, even though their stadium situations and potential fan base were never as firm as what Saint Louis had going for it. I get that Cooper is not the richest man in the world, but really how rich do we need to be here? Paul Allen rich? Whatever. The guy had passion, work ethic, business sense, connections, and enough money to get it done. I really feel badly for him.

You're missing reality here. Many professional sports franchises take many years to come to fruition. By no means should Cooper or St. Louis give up on getting an MLS team. However, I wouldn't be surprised if someone other than Cooper eventually makes it happen.

Well, according to the talk on BigSoccer, MLS has announced it wants 2 more in addition to Portland (not final yet) and Vancouver (total of 20) on the field by 2012.



So, the expansion game will continue. How it continues I guess we will have a couple more years to debate.



Of course, what this really signals is that the ONLY positive revenue stream in MLS right now is expansion fees and that the league will collapse without the $80-100 million in expansion fees every 2 years.



This is nonsense. I am more and more convinced that MLS will not survive. How they are going to find 2 more cities willing to pay $50 million in expansion fees is beyond me after Montreal, Atlanta and Miami already dropped out. Maybe the positive news here is that MLS is getting desperate and if no other bidders come forth soon, they may have no choice but to accept the Saint Louis bid. Subsequently, though, the league may collapse without the expansion revenue.

Money is the issue, according to Timmerman.



"We are pretty strong and have enough money for the expansion fee and the operating expenses," [Cooper] said. "We need someone in the extreme high net worth area. It's more a balance sheet issue than an inability to pay issue."



I guess I just don't get why MLS would care all that much whether the owner's net worth is $100 million, $500 million, $ 1 billion, $5 billion ... at what point is it meaningless?



If Cooper can pay the fees to buy it and has plenty of money to operate it ... what in the hell is MLS concerned about? I guess the only assumption here can be that MLS fully expects and intends for its clubs to lose money and needs the deep pockets to sustain the losses. Normally in the business ventures I have been a part of, if Cooper has enough to buy it and run it, one would expect that he would have MORE money at the end of the process? That's pretty much the point.



Again, if MLS is admitting it is a revenue negative operation heavily reliant on expansion fees into the foreseeable future, why in God's name would anyone want any of these teams? Blessing in disguise for Cooper. I know he is passionate and would probably find a way to make a profit off this, but if MLS is openly admitting that it doesn't foresee itself as profitable anytime soon, no wonder he is having trouble convincing people with deep pockets to sign on.



Forget it, I say. It is a shame though, I would have liked to see a SSS on the east side of the river to give people a legitimate reason to cross in the other direction.

Crap.

Friday, March 20, 2009, 10:35am CDT | Modified: Friday, March 20, 2009, 11:42am

St. Louis shut out for 2011 pro soccer team

St. Louis Business Journal - by Kelsey Volkmann

It looks like St. Louis won’t score a soccer team for 2011.



Major League Soccer said Friday it will award a franchise to Portland, Ore., in 2011 and said earlier this week that it will expand to Vancouver the same year.



Attorney Jeff Cooper and his group, St. Louis Soccer United, have been pushing to land a professional soccer team for the St. Louis area for 2011 or 2012.



To bolster those efforts, Anheuser-Busch said last week that it plans to transfer the ownership of a Fenton soccer park to St. Louis Soccer United.



The news about Vancouver and Portland landing teams "does not slow our momentum or work behind the scenes," said Jim Woodcock, a spokesman for Cooper. "The league has no firm date in mind to announce the process involved in the next round, but two additional teams could be announced and start play as early as 2012."





kvolkmann@bizjournals.com

Source: http://stlouis.bizjournals.com/stlouis/ ... rround=lfn



Here's to 2012.