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nouseforaname
Über-VIP Member
Posts: 21306
Location: Toronto, Canada
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Posted: Thu, 17th Nov 2005 19:29 Post subject: Toronto to get MLS (Major League Soccer) Team ... |
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I wonder how this will work out ...
Quote: | MLS approves Toronto expansion franchise
CBC Sports Online | Last updated Nov. 12, 2005
On Nov.12 the board of governors of Major League Soccer, the top professional soccer league in the United States, formally approved Toronto's application for an expansion franchise to begin play in 2007.
The deal is still pending finalizing terms of an agreement, but league commissioner Donald Garber said the remaining details would be ironed out in short order. When they are, Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment Ltd., which also owns the NHL's Maple Leafs and the NBA's Raptors, will be confirmed as the owners of the league's 13th team.
"[The board] formally approved their application for expansion," Garber said. "There's still some things left that they need to do in Toronto on the stadium front before … we can announce a deal.
"[MLSE is] really an impressive group," he added. "(They) are going to be terrific partners."
Larry Tannenbaum, the chairman of the board of MLSE, was introduced to the league's board of governors, which was slated to vote on whether to admit as many as two new expansion franchise for the 2007 MLS season.
Toronto's MLS team will play its home games at a new 20,000-seat soccer-specific stadium to be built at Exhibition Place. Construction is slated to begin in January.
Last month Toronto's city council voted 25-13 to approve $9.8 million in funding for the construction of the $62.8-million stadium. Ottawa will contribute $27 million, while Queen's Park will chip in another $8 million. MLSE will commit $8 million and naming rights are expected to account for another $10 million.
The new stadium was the key to Toronto gaining admittance into MLS.
The league and MLSE had been negotiating terms but the talks hit snags when plans to build a soccer-specific stadium in the city fell apart in the last year.
In an attempt to bring a conclusive end to the proceedings, Garber gave MLSE an Oct. 31 deadline to finalize plans for the construction of a new stadium soccer – otherwise the league would give an expansion club to another city. The city council vote sealed MLSE's fate, helping to bring MLS to Toronto.
Toronto will become the first Canadian club in the MLS history. The league has indicated further expansion in Canada is an option sometime down the road.
The Toronto Lynx, Vancouver Whitecaps and Montreal Impact currently compete in the United Soccer League (formerly known as the A-League), which is the soccer equivalent of hockey's American Hockey League.
Major League Soccer was formed in 1993 in fulfillment of U.S. Soccer's promise to FIFA, soccer's world governing body, to establish a pro league in exchange for staging the 1994 World Cup on American soil.
The league kicked off in 1996 with 10 teams and boasted surprisingly strong attendance the first season. Numbers declined slightly after that, but stabilized in subsequent years thanks to the league's TV deal with ABC and ESPN.
The league expanded to 12 teams in 1998, adding the Chicago Fire and Miami Fusion. However, following the 2001 season, both Miami and the Tampa Bay Mutiny folded and the league contracted back to 10 clubs.
Following the 2004 campaign, the league expanded again, adding Real Salt Lake, located in Utah and Chivas USA, which plays its homes games in Carson, Calif.
Those expansion franchises cost $10 million US apiece, but MLS said the expansion price tag this time around would be slightly higher.
Commissioner Garber has promised Toronto the 2008 MLS All-Star Game and an MLS Cup (the league's championship game) by 2012. |
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So, is there room in Toronto for another professional sports franchise? I'm not sure myself ... neither is this dude ...
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Quote: | Counterpoint: MLS will fail in Toronto: Toronto soccer fans will only support a world class team, not an MLS club
John F. Molinaro, CBC Sports Online | Last updated Nov. 9, 2005
Toronto, like a lot of cities in North America, is a sophisticated and fickle sports market – fans in Canada's largest city only support a top-quality product.
Though all of Toronto's pro sports franchises enjoy varying degrees of success, it can safely be said the NHL, NBA and CFL, on top of having a history of success in the city, deliver first-class sports entertainment.
Sadly, Major League Soccer cannot make a similar claim, and that's the main reason why a soccer franchise in Toronto is doomed to fail.
If Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment Ltd., the operators of Canada's future MLS franchise, is so confident soccer can succeed in Toronto, then surely it would finance the construction of its new stadium itself, as it did with the Air Canada Centre.
Instead, MLSE is hedging its bets and relying on the City of Toronto, Ottawa and Queen's Park to pick up the majority of the tab. It's one thing to put your money where your mouth is on a sure thing. Quite another on a long shot.
And make no mistake about it: we're talking long odds here because the record of pro soccer teams in Toronto is a poor one.
In the last 25 years, no less than four incarnations of the Toronto Blizzard have failed, a few indoor soccer clubs have folded, and the Toronto Lynx of the North American United Soccer League have consistently played to anaemic crowds since its first season in 1997.
What makes MLSE think it can do any better?
The public funding of the stadium should anger taxpayers, but MLSE is not the bad guy here. That label belongs to Toronto's city council and both the federal and provincial governments, which agreed to cover more than two-thirds of the estimated $62.8-million in construction costs.
The fact MLSE isn't backing up its words with its own money, however, speaks volumes and should tell you all you need to know about MLS's chances in Toronto.
That's not to say soccer can't succeed in Toronto.
Every two years during the World Cup and Euro, Toronto comes alive as thousands of members of the city's diverse ethnic communities fill bars and restaurants to watch soccer on TV and then pour out onto the streets, flags and drums in hand, to celebrate their country's victory.
Italians from all over southern Ontario converged on St. Clair Avenue in numbers that surpassed even the Blue Jays' World Series celebrations when the Azzurri won the 1982 World Cup. Danforth Avenue was awash in a sea of blue and white and the souvlaki spits turned all night when Greece shocked the world and won Euro 2004.
So there is massive interest in soccer in Toronto, but this enthusiasm for the game should not be misinterpreted, nor should MLS count on the legions of soccer fans in Toronto for support.
Consider the following:
Last summer, fans packed the Skydome (now Rogers Centre) for a pair of exhibition matches involving top European clubs. The 50,168 that saw Italian side AS Roma defeat Scottish giants Glasgow Celtic was the largest audience to witness a sporting event last year in the building that Major League Baseball's Blue Jays and the CFL's Argonauts call home.
And yet, where were these same soccer fans two days later when the Lynx played in a virtually empty Centennial Stadium? Where, in fact, have they been for the last nine years as the club has struggled to draw respectable crowds?
The point is clear: soccer fans in Toronto will support a quality product.
No matter how much MLS has improved since its first season in 1996 – and there's no question its on-field product has improved drastically over the last decade – MLS will always be a second-rate product in the hearts and minds of Toronto soccer fans who grew up watching Juventus, Manchester United, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich in their native homelands.
Those are the clubs that are needed, even if it's in the occasional exhibition match, to satisfy Toronto's voracious appetite for soccer. Not the Columbus Crews, Chicago Fires or the San Jose Earthquakes.
That's a fact that not even the fine folks at MLSE, the masters of slick promotion they clearly are, will be able to change.
And when Toronto's MLS team does struggle and eventually goes under – like two expansion franchises already have – you can bet Bob McCown and every other media pundit who loathes the beautiful game will be waiting to stick it to soccer fans with an obnoxious, "I told you so." |
http://www.cbc.ca/sports/indepth/mls_toronto/
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Posted: Thu, 17th Nov 2005 19:47 Post subject: |
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North America isn't a huge soccer place although it does have it's following...I think it'll be hard for Toronto to support another franchise,especially this one just because it's hard market to crack on this continent.
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