MLS Expanding Expansion Talks With Sacramento Bid
Source: Sacramento Business Journal, Ben van der Meer
Photo: Looking southwest, this rendering shows a planned soccer stadium against a developed Railyards area, with downtown Sacramento and West Sacramento farther in the background. (HNTB)
Sacramento again appears to be on the precipice of joining Major League Soccer with an expansion team.
MLS announced Thursday the league would expand to 30 teams, and requested formal presentations by bids from Sacramento and St. Louis toward that end.
The announcement, stemming from the league’s Board of Governors meeting Thursday in Los Angeles, specified the league has not formally awarded expansion teams to either city, however.
“Expansion during the last 15 years has been enormously successful and a key driver behind the league’s continued rise, and we are pleased that some of the top business and community leaders representing great markets in North America are aggressively pursuing MLS expansion clubs,” MLS Commissioner Don Garber said in the league announcement.
In a statement issued by local bid group Sacramento Soccer & Entertainment Holdings LLC, the group welcomed the news.
“Today is a monumental step in the process and we are closer than ever to reaching our goal of bringing Major League Soccer to Sacramento,” the statement reads. “There isn’t a better fit for MLS than our city, and today’s announcement is a testament to the strength of Sacramento’s bid and most importantly, to the faith and devotion of Republic FC fans.”
Both city leaders and SSEH representatives have expressed strong confidence about getting the MLS nod in recent weeks, particularly after the City Council approved a new term sheet for a stadium in the Railyards development. Also, the local bid got a boost early in the year when billionaire Ron Burkle and business partner Matt Alvarez joined the ownership group. That shored up a league concern about not enough money being behind the Sacramento bid.
Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, speaking at city hall after news broke, said he was overjoyed.
“This will be a victory that’s well earned by the community,” he said, noting MLS has passed over Sacramento before in picking new expansion cities. “There were a lot of moments on this journey, even since I became mayor two years ago, where it would’ve been easy to just walk away. We stuck with it.”
In addition to the formal presentations before the expansion committee, Garber will advance discussions with Sacramento and St. Louis’ expansion groups about their bids to join the league, according to the announcement. Steinberg said he’d heard the league wants to finalize its decision by July 31, but he wasn’t concerned about another wrinkle emerging to sideline Sacramento’s chances.
“This is the way major transactions go,” he said. “I expect there’s going to be a lot of details to go through before they make a major announcement.”
The league also set an expansion fee of $200 million for both the 28th and 29th teams to join the league, which currently has 27 teams playing or planned to begin play in upcoming years. That would mean Sacramento’s bid, if it’s one of those clubs, would be committed to nearly $500 million in startup costs, between the expansion fee, stadium construction and other operations.
A 30th team would pay an undetermined expansion fee. Though no specific cities are named as possible contenders for that slot, Detroit, Phoenix, San Antonio, San Diego and others have expressed strong interest in the past.