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Garber to talk expansion with Orlando officials, still eyes New York for 20th team

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USL Pro side Orlando City SC's aggressive push for an MLS expansion team continues to catch the attention of MLS commissioner Don Garber.   

Garber will be meeting with Orlando City owners, and city and county mayors on March 1 for exploratory talks about potential expansion. In a statement, Garber made it clear that while these meetings will take place, he has every intention of expanding to 20 teams with a second club in New York, a stance that he has been firm on for quite some time. 

"While New York City remains the league's focus for our 20th club, it's important to continue evaluating future options as we continue to grow the league," Garber said. "This growth has been built on a foundation of strategic expansion strategies, construction of new urban-based stadiums and a growing passionate soccer fan base across North America." 

It won't be the first time that Garber and Orlando City officials will have met. The two met in Feb., 2011, and again on a couple of reported occasions this past November. This round will also feature a town hall meeting that is open to the public at an Orlando restaurant.

What do you make of this development? Do you want to see an MLS team in Orlando? Think that it is imperative for New York to get a second team?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. Ownership and stadium plans are essential for MLS expansion bids, but Garber won’t just go out and give Tulsa a team. As much as RSL and KC have good attendances and captured the city, the real money is with national TV rights. If you win NYC and LA, you win TV rights. Not to mention, increased talent in the league is a problem for the league. And world-class stars won’t go to KC and RSL (minus Omar Bravo…if you consider him world class. But now he’s gone).

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  2. Moving Chivas to another LA location (or better yet, another Mexican-American entirely) would make Chivas more successful. Playing in the same exact stadium is foolish for MLS competition.

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  3. Part of the Cosmos appeal is the ability to get three world-class DPs. MLS has realized that star players have no desire to play outside of NY and LA. Add another NY team, add three DPs.

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  4. And if soccer players could stop, stand around, towell off and catch their breath every 30 seconds or so, and sit down for a couple minutes every 10 minutes or so, as tennis players do, your comparison would work. But that’s not the case

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  5. No to two tiered system. Owners are losing money from their product already from ticket sales, concessions etc and that’s enough repercussions already. If they want to be competitive open those wallets up.

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  6. Another misinformed wannabe. Playing soccer in the fall will be the death of soccer in the US as we know it. Competing against NFL, NCAA Football is not in the MLS interests. Playing in the summer is the best time to play for MLS when MLB is your only competition. Promotion and relagation is not going to work in this country.

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  7. Florida is a tough sports market,, BUT the Orlando Magic have SOLD OUT every game in the last 2 years. They average 102% of capacity. If you say the Magic don’t draw you must not know what 102% means. I think they draw pretty well.

    The Orlando ownership group in place has ties to the EPL (Stoke I think) with a sound business model and strong marketing. The area can easily support an MLS team and draw 18,000 to a game. Orlando is the 19th largest TV market in the US and that is crucial to TV revenue and future contracts. (Notice how the Big East Conference has added only large TV markets to their conference, regardless of the quality of the colleges programs?)

    That being said, there are 10 other cities around the country that could draw and “deserve” an MLS team

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  8. Vibor, Ottawa will participate in the NASL either next year or 2014 (depends on the stadium situtation).

    It currently has PDL & W-League affiliates participating in the USL. To the best of my knowledge, the owner of the Senators is not currently involved in the project (but that could and most likely would change if they were ever to have a real chance to move up to MLS–which is admittedly, way too early to discuss at this time)

    http://www.ottawafury.com/ottawaNASL

    http://www.nasl.com/index.php?id=3&newsid=707

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  9. I don’t know if MLS or even MLS2 would do much to halt the Scandinavian alternative. If Hammarby is willing to pay Davies $400K and we’re willing to go $200 or 250K, guess who wins? And if you look at Freddy Adu then you see the risk of MLS plonking the big money on a kid who may not actually be worth it. So until MLS salaries creep up some more, I see Scandinavia as a continuing Plan B for people who want a league they can play in for similar or slightly more money.

    Canadian fans show up so well that another team there feels interesting, though I’m not sure if the remaining cities like Edmonton and Ottawa would sustain a team in the way Montreal, Vancouver, and Toronto have. But one thing I’d say is a team in Ottawa probably has a better chance of working in practice than Orlando, Atlanta, and some of the other suggestions being bounced around.

    I’ve already said a couple times on other threads what I think needs to happen, each MLS team is given a minor league affiliate, stocks it at least in part with its reserve players, and the players develop in the minors at reserve salaries — not vastly different than minor league pay anyway — while the cost of development is at least part-defrayed by selling tickets to games, merchandise, etc. At minimum, I think MLS should consider letting MLS teams opt out of the reserves and do this instead. You can call it MLS2 or whatever, if enough critical mass signs up.

    If you look at the EPL, it’s 20 teams, a lot of leagues are that size, I think that’s an intelligent upper limit for MLS. I think we’ve reached the present limit in terms of easy, quality expansion, and that’s with 19 teams. I don’t like expanding to expand, and I think it would be very expensive for minor league teams to set up their own youth apparatus, etc., to prove their bona fides. I think they’re better off being stocked by MLS teams.

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  10. I go to Red Bull games from Queens but I’m the exception, not the rule. I haven’t seen all these Red Bull fans in NYC that you seem to think exist on every corner.

    Also, the Giants example is a bad one because they played in NY for about 50 years before they moved to New Jersey and there is no NYC option for NFL football.

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  11. It will go up….probably. As long as they field a decent team, NYRB will probably benefit from the increased local media attention to the league.

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  12. You make a point, but if the league made bigger inroads into the southern US, that could allow for creative scheduling — it might even allow for going over to the Euro seasons, but it would be valuable even if that didn’t happen. As long as you have some balance between northern and southern tier teams, you can work the schedule to take advantage of the climate.

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  13. Well…first off, I’m sure you’ve hugely overstated the number of youth memberships — it can’t be “thousands”. Second, if season tickets would be included in the membership, that’s not a big boon to the club. MIght fill some seats, though, and that can’t be bad, since there might be spillover effects.

    I think Orlando is a promising place for a soccer team — but, more so because it’s such a tourist destination. NBA tickets are too dang expensive to begin with, and the sport’s appeal is limited. Soccer, on the other hand, reaches into all communities and might even bring in international visitors. I’m sure that’s what the league has in mind. Can it work? Possibly. If they ever get rid of that moron/crook they elected Governor and get to building that high-speed rail line, the city could be attractive to soccer fans from all across south Florida. That would be something.

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  14. Not really. New York is a media market, if there ever was one. Unlike almost every other city, in New York almost everyone reads a newspaper, whether it’s the Times. Daily News or Post. Readers of the latter two are usually big sports fans. If there’s a Cosmos side playing in the city, the sport will move beyond internet columns (Times) and sidebar-type pieces in the other papers. This will also lead to highlight time on the evening news. That will make a huge difference in the league’s profile, and will benefit the Red Bulls in addition to what it will do for the new team.

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  15. “coming from east manhattan” implies you don’t own a car, so you have to take the subway and transfer to the PATH (which is the NJ transit subway that ny-folk never take except to get to Hoboken for st patty’s day).

    And re the giants/yankees/rangers vs mets/jets/islanders breakdown…yes that’s generally true.

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  16. Going all the way back to the Jacksonville Tea Men and beyond, the state of Florida has been a utter failure in top level soccer many, many times. Why should it be any different now?

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  17. There were rumblings in the Canadian press a few years back that ottawa was working on a bid for an expansion side. The owner of the Senators was behind it, and there was talk of Landsdowne Park getting a refit to be both Soccer and CFL compatable.

    While a smaller population base, there is literally no sports presence in Ottawa during the summer. It would be the only game in town, in a city where pretty much every kid plays organized soccer.

    I doubt they will get spot number 20, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see Ottawa as a candidate if the league moves to 22 teams at some point.

    Personally, I’d like to see the creation of an MLS2 once the league goes to 20. I think North American soccer would be greatly served by a stronger second division that has the clout of MLS behind it. If you bring in all of the good NASL and USL teams to start, you’d have a great base to encourage more second level expansion. I have a feeling an affiliated second tier would prove more alluring than currently, and we’d see fewer players not ready for MLS moving to Norway and Finland, etc.

    I’d suggest against pro/rel for all the obvious reasons, but encourage any further MLS expansion to come through MLS2 when teams have built the appropriate stadium, have a youth academy, etc.

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  18. It’s much more than just the kids. It was just one big example of why the market is there and why they already have a way to be involved in the community that the Magic can’t. No matter how you slice it, thats 3-5 thousand immediate season ticket holders on top of whats already there.

    It’s not a matter of having most of the fans being kids, that isn’t the case at all from going to games. It’s a matter of having the market there and capitalizing on it

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  19. I know Don Garber’s best interest include developing the game of soccer in the US. But I don’t think adding another team in the MLS is any way going to harm developing better youth players in the US. Nor would I expect Garber to be at the forefront of that anyhow, he’s commissioner of the MLS, not the head of youth development for US Soccer.

    It’s not like the $50M or so that would go to a franchise fee would somehow be used for youth development instead.

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  20. Just what we need Don. Now we will have 18 bad teams.

    How about finding some money to develop players from ages 6-17? Soccer has the potential to become a more popular sport but not until we produce good players.

    Obviously the plan we have in place now is not working and for those who think it is, denial is a wonderful thing.

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  21. The problem with Red Bull arena is that, even with being next to the Path, it’s still kind of a pain to get to, even for someone like me who lives less than 10 minutes from a Path station

    1. When you get out at the Harrison station, it’s about a 10-15 minute walk to the stadium, the way the roads are blocked off, it’s a real pain to walk over

    2. Getting back is a nightmare. The Harrison station is not built to handle the sheer number of people that head back to the city after the game. I’ve found it to be faster to walk back to Newark-Penn (About a 20-25 minute walk) then to wait for enough trains to come through to take me back to NYC.

    What should be a 45 minute trip ends up being closer to 75 minutes to get home. I’m not sure how it could have been done, but it didn’t seem like there was any thought given to how to link up the stadium to the train station, and I’m guessing the money simply isn’t there to expand the station.

    I like going to Red Bull stadium, but the experience of getting there and getting back is a real turn-off.

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  22. If you drive, you almost have to count on 20 minutes (sometimes a lot more) to get through the tunnel at least near rush hour, add 10 minutes (or a bit more) from each end of the tunnel and 45 minutes is far from ridiculous! Trains could work, Red Bull Arena is within sight of the northeast corridor tracks. I do not know how hard it is to get to the arena from the Harrison stop; the PATH trains run every 10-15 minutes and the ride is about 20 minutes from the World Trade Center. The subway in NYC will get you there in less than half an hour from most points. So again 45 minutes is not silly, it might even be fairly optimistic for the train. BTW, I live in NJ and there is never no traffic, sometimes there is a bit less traffic than rush-hour in downtown Springfield, Il, but not much less.

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  23. That and Galaxy and Chivas play in the same stadium, thereby drawing from the exact same geographic distribution for seats in the seats. I’ve been in LA, it can be a feat to get from one side to the other; even though Californians may be immune to traffic, travel does limit who will actually show up at games.

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  24. Red Bull arena is fairly close to Manhattan. Staten Island is ok and parts of Brooklyn, but really the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, all of Long Island are all not easy trips. I don’t think a team playing on Long Island or even in Brooklyn or the Bronx would have a major impact on the Red Bull’s attendance.

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  25. It should. The US certainly has the population to support much more than 20 MLS teams. Of course there is already USL, etc. There should be some form of promotion relegation that would allow for a greater number of teams to get a shot at the top league based upon the quality of the soccer they can put on the field (that is not unrelated to how well they can garner a following and fill the stands). Instead what we get is Garber wheeling and dealing to line up his choice of just which teams will end up making the final 20. Garber is not a total soccer barbarian, but I don’t like the idea of a single person, or small group, declaring they know best and the rest of us must just abide whatever these soccer management geniuses dictate.

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  26. I agree, but not for that reason, instead weather related. It is already too hot on most July and August days in NY for players to go anywhere near ability for 90 minutes. Anything in Florida would stretch the too-hot season from June through Sept. (at least). Houston is probably a counter-point, but … There is a reason most leagues do not play in the summer. If the MLS went to a schedule that had a bigger fraction of the games when it makes sense from the point of view of weather (no January-February games in Montreal, Toronto, NY, Philly Chicago, Denver… no July -August games in Houston, Dallas, Florida …) It is indeed a big issue in a country the size of the USA.

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  27. If/When (probably if) Chivas suddenly becomes an intelligent organization, and realizes they need to move to a city that will build a stadium. I’d guess San Diego at 25% (Phoenix, San Antonio, Atlanta).

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  28. haha. last time i was at a quakes game (to support my revs) i had to turn around and kindly request that the man behind me keep his collection of 8 year olds under control.

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  29. I agree with the notion that supporters group/’American soccer’ fans(not American ‘soccer fans’, difference)/MLS blogger-types are already RBNY fans, I think a large portion of the NY2 appeal is its potential to unlock some of the non-MLS soccer fans in a way RBNY maybe couldn’t.

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  30. When India gets a new MLS type league but guessing because of the horrible meeting between the Indian Federation and Indian Clubs, I think you are going to have to wait a while.

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  31. Just like when the New York Giants won the Super Bowl it was really New Jersey that won and not New York.

    NYRB is a New York/New Jersey team. Deal with it. Also I wonder who you talk to in New York because all the New Yorkers I know love NYRB.

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  32. I hate being at soccer games when there’s a whole bunch of little kids, exactly why I stopped going to San Jose Earthquakes game.

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  33. I’ve never been to NY before but east Manhattan can’t be more than 8 or 9 miles from RBA can it? If I’m right that 45 minute travel time is ridiculous! I thought Houston rush-hour traffic was terrible. Do you drive or take the train/subway to the games?

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  34. this looks good to Garber too, thats why he said what he said. oh wait, i dont see any reference to Cosmos. maybe thats why he keeps ringing my phone.

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  35. hey yeah, when mls gets better then mexican league in 5-7 years mex-americans will switch like putting the car from one gear to the next.just like that. dude, what are you smoking? there’s tradition that people follow. their uncles and pops supported certain teams, and now their sons and daughters who moved to US still find a way to watch/follow teams from back home, and not mls.

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  36. Orlando City is one of the few, if not the only fully tiered soccer organization in the country. This means that this is a club that when kids first start playing, they have an opportunity start at the youth academy level, move up into travel league, into the U23/PDL side, and potentially onto the pro side.

    Not only is this big on building community support, but season tickets are likely included in all youth memberships. You’re looking at a few thousand tickets right away. Add in parents who will buy in to go with their kids (conservatively 1 adult ticket for every 3 kids) you’ve got another load taken care of.

    Now take the average attendance from last year which I believe was around 6,000 plus or minus a few hundred, and add in numbers from the new youth side (not all of them of course, as you assume some were already ticket holders). You have multiple, growing supporters clubs, a great deal of businesses and potential fans in the area becoming more aware of a new championship club, and would of course influx of fans that would immediately come in with moving up from a minor league team into a major league team. There are, of course, more sources of fans and income, but this post has gotten long enough already.

    In no way does that seal a deal, but a “courtesy” doesn’t do justice to potential that someone higher up in MLS would have to be blind not to see

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  37. Most soccer-loving New Yorkers that I know who wold stoop to MLS, are Red Bulls fans. Don’t be mistaken. The bigger issue is elitists not supporting a league that isn’t world class. RBNY is NYC metro area’s team; don’t take that away from the loyal fans from all corners of the metro area.

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  38. My two cents: San Diego, San Antonio, Phoenix. Maybe Rochester if you thought they’d attend MLS Rhinos like they used to show up before the bankruptcies and such. Maybe Puerto Rico for cultural kicks (but not because we thought people would show up like MLS numbers).

    In terms of the current minor league cities besides Rochester, we got all the remaining low hanging fruit as of Montreal. You’re talking teams that can’t fill 4-figure size stadia. I don’t see them scaling up. This includes Atlanta and all the other SE teams. I don’t see 5-figures showing up even if they buy MLS quality players.

    I don’t see the point in NY2 because I think it would be a dud, like re-creating the Metros. You finally get NY solid, then split the support? Unwise. It’s not LA.

    Orlando is a smaller city than Miami or Tampa, which were contracted. The idea is the flavor of the month but the mere fact of a decent team and motivated ownership should not overcome good sense. I also don’t buy the idea of working the tourists, who probably have higher priorities. Same basic thought on Vegas, which gets tossed around every so often. Only locals can buy season tickets…..

    How about Miami and Havana if the embargo ever blows over?

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