With the New Year upon is, it is time to start thinking about which two lucky cities will be granted MLS expansion franchises. While the FC Barcelona-backed Miami bid has received plenty of attention in recent weeks, it isn't the bid that makes the most sense.
The bid that remains the best of the bunch is the St. Louis expansion bid. Boasting a much stronger bid than the one that barely lost out to Philadelphia in the last round of expansion, St. Louis just makes too much sense to not be one of the two cities chosen by MLS later this month.
Jeff Cooper, the head of the St. Louis expansion bid, feels the same way and he believes the city's bid has all the necessary components to make a St. Louis expansion franchise a rousing success.
"First of all, if you look across at all the bid, you have a lot of great cities and great bids, and my hope is that every city that bids gets a team eventually so MLS is a true national coast-to-coast league," Cooper told SBI. "That being said, our bid is certainly as good or better than any other bid when you look at the scope of the project."
What is so special about the St. Louis bid? Where do you want to start?
The St. Louis includes a stadium deal that has already received approval for public funding, a city with unmatched soccer history and tradition, a city with one of the strongest youth soccer systems in the country and a diverse ownership group stronger than the one MLS had reservations about in the last round of expansion.
So how could MLS realistically pass on St. Louis yet again?
The muscle behind the Miami bid has pushed it to the front of the expansion line, leaving most to believe that the battle remains for the other slot, which would pit St. Louis against the likes of Portland and Vancouver.
The biggest, and perhaps only weakness in the city's losing bid last year was an ownership group that wasn't considered to have a strong enough financial foundation. The new bid is expected to include a handful of new investors, with St. Louis Cardinals star Albert Pujols the first of the new investors to be revealed publicly.
Will that be enough to overcome the clout of high-profile investors like Marcelo Claure in Miami or Jeff Mallett in Vancouver? Cooper doesn't believe it needs to.
"The truth is in MLS you don’t need billionaires to operate these franchises," Cooper said. "You’re limited as to what you can spend on your payroll and on your club. I think our group is substantial enough to handle MLS financials. We’re certainly stout enough to put the project together that we’ve put together."
The St. Louis group has also been able to secure public funding for a stadium, something several long-standing MLS teams have been unable to do, and none of the other current expansion candidates are as close to getting done.
The securing of the stadium funding for the 18,500-seat stadium in the St. Louis suburb of Collinsville alone should make St. Louis a strong contender to be one of the two cities chosen for a 2011 franchise. When you consider the entire St. Louis bid, it should be an easy decision to make. As exciting as Miami's bid may be, and as strong the fan support in Portland might be, neither of those bids should be standing ahead of St. Louis when it comes to selecting the 2011 expansion cities.
St. Louis has the best bid and should be awarded the MLS team it has been waiting so many years for. The league has run out of excuses for keeping that from happening.