Via telephone conference call yesterday, MLS Commissioner Don Garber gave his annual "State of the League Address" in which he covered all manner of issues related to Major League Soccer and took questions from some of North America's most prominent soccer journalists. Some of what The Don said was worth comment, and some of it was typical Commish-speak; following is the important bits related to expansion, with my thoughts where applicable. Subsequent posts should be forthcoming addressing Garber's statements on other issues (parity, CCL, stadiums). My previous post on the CBA is here.
Philadelphia enters MLS in 2010, and Portland and Vancouver are to follow in 2011. After adding several other teams over the past few years, Major League Soccer is now on track to a be an eighteen team league by 2011. Long acknowledging that their goal is to get to twenty teams, Garber faces question on expansion fairly regularly now.
"Today, we believe we are going to be a twenty team league. What we think in 2020 or 2025, I can't answer and won't be around to have to address. This is a big country, it's the size of a continent, and along with Canada, it gets even bigger. We're covering 300+ million, which is far bigger than any other country where you have the eighteen or twenty team leagues in Europe or other parts of the world. We don't have promotion and relegation, so the size of the league is less relevant than a league that might have a second and third division.
Twenty teams works for several reasons, but perhaps most importantly for a balanced schedule. Beyond twenty, and with other competitions being in play for the top clubs, the number of league matches gets unwieldy. That's not to say that stopping at twenty should be the end of things, and even Garber notes that MLS could, and legitimately so, be much larger down the road.
My concern is that if MLS does choose to expand beyond twenty, it needs to go far enough that "conferences" actually make sense again, allowing for a balanced schedule within the conferences. Splitting further into divisions doesn't make sense to me; not everything can go "traditional" the way some would hope, but there does needs to be a balance between an American-style league and what most of the greater soccer world uses.
Twenty is the best number for those "traditional" elements, so I'm fine with getting there and holding; we'll leave the discussions of talent pools and over-extending for another day. I did find it a little interesting that Garber stated flatly that he wouldn't be around in 2020 or 2025 to face the issue; I guess this means American soccer won't have it's own Pete Rozelle or David Stern.
As for the nineteenth team, which would obviously have to be added before the league can worry about twenty, it's a repeat of what we've already heard:
"We've had productive conversations with Montreal to be our 19th team. We have not put a timetable as to when that team would join the league if we're able to reach agreement with them. We do not have any active discussions going on of note for the 20th team and certainly don't have any timetable for the 20th team."
Montreal for nineteen. That eventuality has been out there for quite some time, and I would imagine that "discussions" would boil down to what Saputo needs to pay to get into MLS. It was the issue from the beginning, and isn't like to have gone away simply because the sniping has quieted down. Saputo wants into MLS, that much is clear; if he gets provincial money to upgrade Stade Saputo that will offset his expansion fee expense, things will move fairly quickly, I assume.
Meanwhile, I'm actually doubtful that some type of timetable hasn't been discussed for number twenty. Garber and the MLS board probably have a short list of possible cities with potential ownership groups identified, with their favorite candidates and cities highlighted with little smiley faces next to them. I don't know that anything has been discussed seriously, or if it's just a matter of occasional contact and "Hi, how's your wife?", but something has been done. An outside target date, even if it's five years down the road, has been mentioned by someone at MLS HQ, they're just not going to tell us.
Garber also responded to a question regarding Detroit, where it's being reported that a Canadian real estate firm hopes to put an MLS team in the Silverdome (which they just purchased for around $600,000). Garber shot it down, stating that the league hadn't had any discussions about Detroit for some time.
Nothing groundbreaking from the Commish on expansion, but since it's always top of mind for fans of an expanding league, his words are worth reviewing.
What do you make of Garber's expansion-related statements?
