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NCFC MLS bid/General Soccer Bizzo

I may have to actually try making it to the USA v Mexico tilt next month. How is the Mexican women's team? Will this even be a game?

It ain't the same quality as their mens team that's for sure. They have a fair number of decent individual players but have struggled to achieve cohesive team performances for most of the last decade. As PW noted, they did reach up and spank the US in qualifying in 2010, but that was an epically flat US performance during a time when Pia Sundhage was really struggling with a generational transition in her roster pool.
 
It was not a game , the women beat Mexico 6-0. and the next 2 teams are weaker than Mexico , Panama and Trinidad and Tobago. They will probably play some younger players in those 2 games.
 
It appears that the Save the Crew campaign has worked. A consortium of buyers, including the Haslams who own the Cleveland Browns and local buyers, has started negotiations with Columbus Crew owner Anthony Precourt. MLS will transfer Precourt’s equity rights in MLS to Austin.

If that’s the case, and MLS is transferring his rights, it appears that MLS expansion is down to 1 spot. Nashville and Cincinnati are already in, Austin would be the 27th team.

http://www.espn.com/soccer/major-le...negotiations-with-mls-to-buy-columbus-crew-sc

I’m not sure how we missed this, but MLS Commish Don Garber said the league is done expanding in the southeast once Nashville joins.

https://www.prosoccerusa.com/mls/expansion/mls-commissioner-don-garber-southeast/
 
It appears that the Save the Crew campaign has worked. A consortium of buyers, including the Haslams who own the Cleveland Browns and local buyers, has started negotiations with Columbus Crew owner Anthony Precourt. MLS will transfer Precourt’s equity rights in MLS to Austin.

If that’s the case, and MLS is transferring his rights, it appears that MLS expansion is down to 1 spot. Nashville and Cincinnati are already in, Austin would be the 27th team.

http://www.espn.com/soccer/major-le...negotiations-with-mls-to-buy-columbus-crew-sc

I’m not sure how we missed this, but MLS Commish Don Garber said the league is done expanding in the southeast once Nashville joins.

https://www.prosoccerusa.com/mls/expansion/mls-commissioner-don-garber-southeast/

Austin/Columbus is apparently not a done deal, but it would allow the league to get their cake and eat it too. They add PSV to the ownership group, a thing they were willing to bend forty kinds of moral and ethical guidelines for, AND they get to tell the people of Columbus (and the other markets that rallied around them) hey ... we care about you as fans. Truth is, they don't ... but whatever. MLS is still a joke as a professional organization, but at least they're now a better financed joke.

Oh ... and Raleigh has been dead as an expansion market ever since Tedder bought the Panthers. It's just that nobody ever told poor Malek ... or he was too stubborn to listen ... or both.
 
maybe Calgary soccer has an opening :smilielol5:

they have a new team starting up next year

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/cavalry-calgary-soccer-1.4668247

They have a long way to go yet. FIFA has to approve it as a Tier I league, which is unlikely, considering there are 3 Canadian teams playing in Tier I MLS. There is also a team in Ottawa playing in the Tier II USL with NCFC. The article says there are 4 teams spread across the country, in Port City, BC, Halifax and York Region, ON. But the Wikipedia page for the Canadian Premier League lists 7 teams; Calgary, Edmonton, Hamilton, Halifax, Langford, BC, Winnipeg and York Region, ON. Edmonton had a club in the old NASL but folded when the league went under and didn't move to the USL.
 
They have a long way to go yet. FIFA has to approve it as a Tier I league, which is unlikely, considering there are 3 Canadian teams playing in Tier I MLS. There is also a team in Ottawa playing in the Tier II USL with NCFC. The article says there are 4 teams spread across the country, in Port City, BC, Halifax and York Region, ON. But the Wikipedia page for the Canadian Premier League lists 7 teams; Calgary, Edmonton, Hamilton, Halifax, Langford, BC, Winnipeg and York Region, ON. Edmonton had a club in the old NASL but folded when the league went under and didn't move to the USL.

And there's no Federation money for ANY of that expansion. I'd call the Canadian Premiere League the longest of long shots until such time as they find some looneys to fund all this ambition.
 
The Wake County Board of Commissioners authorized the County Manager to work with the Raleigh City Manager on joint feasibility study of the “Downtown South” soccer stadium. The Raleigh City Council will vote on their side on Tuesday. It doesn’t mean that they’ll get the funding from the hotel/meal tax, just that they approved a study.

Steve Malik and John Kane are asking for $13 million per year for 20-25 years to fund the stadium. The rest of the complex will be privately developed. In the meantime, Malik’s longshot bid for an MLS team got even longer. St.Louis was approved as the 28th team, Sacramento Nd Charlotte are frontrunners for 29 and 30. Even if Sacramento doesn’t get an offer, adding Charlotte, with David Tepper’s funding and ready build stadium, closes out Malik.

Any money allocated to the stadium would take money away from other projects, including upgrades to PNC Arena. Neither the men or women are coming close to selling out WakeMed. They average about 50% capacity. Even the women’s International Champions Cup tournament final only drew about 8.200 last night. I don’t see the function of a 20,000 seat stadium.

 
I thought I read yesterday that PNC Arena was approved by Wake County for $9 million in money for improvements every year through 2034 and the potential Soccer stadium was competing for other money with things like Marbles?


The N&O article is fleshed out better than the news article I linked last night. They changed the funding formula so PNC will get the upgrade money. But at some point before 2034, they’ll probably have to build a new arena, it will be a 35 year old building. There is only so much that upgrades can do. So do they wait until the bond is paid off or do they build before then? A lot will depend on the length and terms of the lease extension.

None of that changes the fact that, absent a MLS team, a 20,000 seat stadium is a white elephant, IMO.
 
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