Aug 28 2007
Is Portland Making a Case for an MLS Club?
Most fans of American soccer missed this, but Tom at Pitch Invasion didn’t. The Portland Timbers, a USL First Division club, drew 15,833 fans to PGE Park for a regular season match against the Charleston Battery last Thursday, topping the stadium record of 15,376 for a Timbers v. Sunderland friendly two years ago.
That’s a huge turnout for a USL-1 match. This is a league which had an average attendance of 4,667 for regular season games last year. Wigan can’t get 15,000 paying customers on a weeknight. Only two first-round Carling Cup matches had five-digit attendance; predictably, those were home games for Sheffield United and West Bromwich Albion, two Coca-Cola Championship clubs. That league drew an average of 18,221 paying customers last season.
However, Portland still fell well short of the USL attendance record of 25,515, set by the Seattle Sounders at Qwest Field in 2002. PGE Park only holds about 20,000 for sporting events, so it can’t top Seattle’s record.
Obviously, Portland and Seattle are natural rivals here, and that also applies to their hopes of landing an MLS expansion club. Given the buzz that Seattle got from MLS watchers after drawing a mere 6,619 for a U.S. Open Cup match, you would think that Portland’s buzz would be even bigger now. On the other hand, MLS will be up to 14 franchises in 2008, and it’s only planning on expanding to 16. With Philadelphia and St. Louis also launching strong bids as expansion cities, it seems very likely that either Portland or Seattle (or both) could be left out.
My prediction — if the Open Cup semifinal match between the Sounders and FC Dallas pulls more than 10,000 people, Seattle has to win out over Portland. They’re a bigger media market with a much bigger stadium, and Seattle has a better-quality pedigree when it comes to major sports.
That’s not a knock on the supporters in Portland, though. The Timbers Army deserves its props for backing its local club so well. If MLS bypasses Portland, it won’t be because there aren’t any soccer fans there.
(Photo by Allison Andrews of SoccerCityUSA.com.)
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There’s practically zero political interest in bringing a team to Portland and there really hasn’t been an ownership group dedicated to doing so. Seattle will likely get an MLS team first but that won’t be a result of USL attendance or superior soccer support. The Timbers have outdrawn the Sounders every year they have been in the league. The 25,000 the Sounders got for the game against Vancouver was because it was the first event ever held at Seahawks Stadium.
Seattle will likely win out because it has more corporations, a larger population and a few different potential owners. Portland will simply continue to support its team regardless of the league it is in.
Attendance in USL has NOTHING to do with MLS expansion. It is all about investor / operators joining the MLS business scheme. This is why Seattle are well ahead of PDX right now: they have a billionaire who wants a team (Joe Roth) and a stadium they can start in right away (Qwest). Chances are looking good that the Sounders will draw around 10k for the FC Dallas match, but it will have no bearing on MLS expansion.
[...] Football Blog: Is Portland Making a Case for an MLS Club?: That’s a huge turnout for a USL-1 match. This is a league which had an average attendance of [...]
poor guy. .. dead at 22
Puerta is dead
Next time MLS wants to expand, they should just promote the top USL-1 team (and USL should promote a USL-2 team to take their place). Wouldn’t that make things a lot cheaper for MLS in the long run, seeing as how they wouldn’t have to deal with the annoyance of starting a whole new franchise?
Jeff: Won’t happen. The ownership structures in MLS and USL are too different, and once you introduce promotion, people will ask when you’ll also include relegation, which terrifies MLS ownership.
While MLS is trying to avoid the fate of the overexpanding NASL, don’t believe for a second that they are going to actually stop at 16. More like pause and jack up the expansion fees because 16 is a number they can live with for a while.
Montreal has had exemplary ownership, won 2-3 cups in the past decade and overstuff a small track field which is supposed to fit 10,000 into 12-13,000 and wasnt well situated
The team will get next year a new stadium right next to a subway line that will seat 15,000 with expansion capabilities for another 4-5,000.
The U20 World Cup games there his summer saw the Olympic stadium filled up with crowds of between 42 an 45 thousand and 1 0r 2 games in the 50,000 range.
Throw in the city next to Portland and its not even a choice if it comes to a new MLS team.
Dave: isnt it the job of the national federation to decide relegations and such?
I know we dont have a concept of national federations since most of our sports dont have one and the ones like basketball or hockey live in a parrallel universe but it seems to me that the relegation system is a must have.
The closed league system produces no possibilities for organizations that have shown commitment to succeed further and instead keeps a status quo of bottom feederswhich consistently linger.
Terry: A pro/rel system won’t work in American sports for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the possibility that New York and L.A. could get relegated, and that would ruin national TV contracts. That’s just one reason why owners fear relegation.