During the MLS Cup I saw a banner that said “NY Cosmos 2002”. Is the MLS planning to add a second NY franchise in '02? Hopefully not, but does anyone know of any other Major League Soccer expansion franchises?
The Cosmos AGAIN? Didn’t they die over a decade ago?
Oh my God, when will the message get through? Most Americans do NOT like soccer, no matter what other countries think. Don’t bother telling us that it’s the most popular sport in the world, that a 0-0 tie match is exciting, etc. Pro soccer has failed before, and is in the process of doing so now. MLS will fold within 3 years, most likely. (Remember in the 1970s, when soccer was going to be the “next big thing”? Didn’t happen. Won’t happen.) So, getting back to the post, bring on another soccer franchise for New York; it’s just another flop waiting to happen.
As I’ve mentioned in the past, www.bigsoccer.com has some great message boards. I can’t recall the url, but a user on that site also created a website devoted entirely to promoting the idea of naming the New York expansion team the “Cosmos”.
There will surely be an expansion team in New York. Garber has mentioned this several times and the city can definitely support two teams. Most likely, the Metrostars will become the “New Jersey Metrostars”; creating a New York-New Jersey rivalry of sorts.
Rochester, Philly, Seattle, and San Diego are other frontrunners for an expansion team.
The owners of the MetroStars have the option of owning a second franchise in the NY metro area. They plan to put one on Long Island where it too can have attendance problems like the MetroStars.
The Metrostars actually averaged 17,621 fans at their home games, which is plenty good enough to support a team. Could they do a lot better? I think so. It would help if they had a better stadium deal instead of having to play at Giants Stadium, where they get very little if any of the parking or concession money.
Sure, nineiron, and GOLF is an exciting sport.
To answer the question, I found the following on MLSNet from the league commish:
“Expansion is a real priority for the league. We believe the soccer talent is out there, the market interest exists, and the expanded platform will help us with media coverage, fan interest and television ratings. We have been in active discussions for 2002 in New York, which is likely to expand to a second team somewhere in the Tri-State area, as well as in Philadelphia and in Atlanta. Additional markets we’ve been in active discussions with, in no particular order, are Seattle, Sacramento, Rochester, Milwaukee, Houston and Winston-Salem just to name a few.”
So NY will be getting a second team (I’ve heard in the Long Island area as well – and I think Atlanta is in the lead for the other expansion spot), and from other posts it seems like the locals want to call it the Cosmos. Wouldn’t be all that bad, they’d be able to use the same logo, marketing, etc., and would probably save some cash that way. Besides, the way nostalgia’s going nowaday with retro unis in different sports, it’d probably work well.
As for attendance questions, the league averaged almost 14,000 per game this past season, down about 300 per game from 1999. Could be better, but it could also be worse – it could be the Montreal Expos. Seriously, though, there are a couple of cities that just don’t seem to be able to support soccer – sadly enough, the MLS champion Kansas City Wizards are in one of them. We’ll see if the thrill of winning is enough to bring them in. It sure brought Lamar Hunt in. He was one of 40,000 people at the MLS Cup in DC (yes, where my DC United sadly tanked this year). Hunt, owner of the Wizards, skipped the KC-Oakland football game to be there. Says a lot for his dedication to the game, and when you have billionaires like he decidated to the game, I’m not placing bets against it.
We will see what happens. The problem with the NASL is that it tried to expand too fast and let anyone be an owner. Despite it’s failure, the NASL used to draw crowds of 70,000 at Giants Stadium with Pele and the old Cosmos.
This time around you have people like Lamar Hunt involved (Kansas City Chiefs owner) who are dedicated to soccer and are able to absorb the financial losses. Also, when neccessary MLS controls player tranfers and assignments so there is parity between the teams.
In addition, the owner of the Miami Fusion committed $ to revamp Lockhart Stadium; and the city of Columbus built America’s major league soccer only stadium. That is such a bigger commitment than the NASL ever had.
I will agree that MLS may never be considered on a par with the Big 4 sports, but unlike the NASL, I don’t think the league is trying to be. It has a loyal core audience and I think this go around will be a success.
MLS has done a good job marketing as well.
By the way a low scoring match can be exciting. Even though the final score of MLS Cup was 1-0, I really enjoyed watching Chicago take over 15 shots trying to tie the game. It was very exciting to watch and the game had a lot of drama. Unfortunately Americans are used to high scoring games like basketball and football and can’t seem to grasp a game that is so much more than just scoring.
I seem to remember that at one point the MLS toyed with the idea of renaming the Metrostars the Cosmos on the theory that this might help flagging attendances.
This was one of Doug Logan’s ideas, which may help explain why he’s no longer employed by MLS.
ruadh, who’s just happy to see another DC United fan here 
Put me down as another DC United fan. This past season was painful.
To the uninitiated, Major League Soccer started up five years ago and has teams in 12 cities. It just finished up its season on Sunday with Kansas City beating Chicago in the MLS Cup. No team has yet folded or moved.
Soccer has always had hurdles here in the US, and MLS is no different. There are fans like nineiron who are actively hostile to the sport (although 18 million people play it). Also, despite its callow age, there are plenty of soccer fans here in the states who see that MLS hasn’t helped the US win the World Cup yet, and thus must be worthless. (My brother is one of them. Argh. It’s five years old, people.)
It should be pointed out that MLS is funded by people who a) are big fans of soccer, b) are REALLY rich–like billionaire-type, not just millionaire, and c) are probably a lot smarter than nineiron. And my brother. I’ve heard that each team is losing about $1.8 million a season, which given the net worth of the people behind MLS means the league is doomed sometime around, oh, the year 2734.
Pardon my venting. Now to the question. The OP obviously spotted a bedsheet painted with “NY COSMOS 2002” during the MLS Cup. As BobT pointed out, the owners of the Metrostars, John Kluge and Stuart Subotnick, do have an option to own a second team, and will most likely put it in Long Island. Since about 80% of the fans at a Metrostars game, held in New Jersey, are from New Jersey, it’s very unlikely that a team on Long Island will poach a lot of fans. It is hoped that having two teams in New York will create a competitive synergy that one team can’t create. It’s like the story about the lawyer who moved to a small town and struggled mightily until a second lawyer moved there.
There’s no word on how successful the campaign will be to name the Long Island team the Cosmos; as I understand it, the name is owned by a soccer camp in upstate New York. For details on the campaign go check out http://www.soccernova.com.
And as far as renaming the Metrostars, I don’t know a thing about that, but this last year the San Jose team was renamed the Earthquakes. It helped attendance at the beginning of the season, but then fans noticed the team REALLY SUCKED. But I’m not bitter about that at all.
Good points on all fronts, Blair. I actually heard quite a few people predict (correctly as it turned out) the horrible performance at the 1998 World Cup. The theory was that the league would be weaker to start with, and so the US players would be used to playing against and with weaker players, therefore weakening the national team as a whole. However, having the US players there in the league would work towards strengthening the league, which no doubt we’ve seen as of late – the league and the ability is as strong as ever! So the young players growing up in this league and by far better than the young players from 1998 and prior, which increases the ability of today’s World Cup team. In effect, US Soccer had to sacrifice performance in the 1998 World Cup in order to build up the league to the point where it would be helpful in FUTURE World Cups. While I won’t live and die by the “Finals by 2010” prediction some are making, I think we WILL be markedly better in Korea/Japan. I just have to start saving money to get over there for my third straight cup. 
By what rationalization is 17,000 people in a 60,000 seat stadium “plenty good enough”? I’d be willing to bet that the Rangers have a higher average attendance than 17,000.
Because salaries are significantly lower than most other sports. The working grunt of the MLS makes around $25k.
I am not sure whether you mean the New York Rangers or the Texas Rangers, but the Utah Starzz would kill for 17,000. As would most non-Grand Slam tennis tournaments. While the top few soccer clubs in Europe regularly draw 50k+ fans, an average attendance of 20k is fairly common for teams in the top leagues.
“Hostile”? Nah. Soccer is fine for young kids to play in the park; I have nothing against it. I’m merely pointing out that very few people are interested in paying money to go see soccer. Am I interested only in “high scoring” sports? Nah. Nothing’s better to me than a 2-1 baseball game, but hey, some people find that boring too. The difference is that baseball stadiums actually fill up.
In the future, it might be advisable to actually research the topic of discussion. That way, you wouldn’t make statements that are absolutely untrue.
You might want to refer to http://www.football.sportsites.co.uk/attn/00/totchl.htm before you post on this thread again. Note that 70,000 people on average attended Barcelona’s games. In addition, many of the clubs listed(Manchester) are expanding their stadi by tens of thousands of seats. You see, most games are absolutely sold out.
Has soccer caught on yet in this country? No. I’ll be the first to admit that. However MLS is exactly where NASCAR or the NHL were twenty years ago. A little patience is all it’ll take.
I was, of course, referring to America, not Europe. I know that soccer is quite popular in Europe. So is the metric system; this is fine, but I am merely saying that America is different from Europe, whether you agree or not.
Now, before you rail against me by praising the benefits of soccer and/or the metric system, remember, it was only an analogy. In America in the 1970’s, two things were touted as being the next huge change in America: soccer and the metric system. Neither has exactly panned out here.
No need to get “hostile.”
Jeez, nineiron, given the tone of your first post, maybe it’s you who shouldn’t be so hostile. If you don’t like soccer, don’t watch it.
I actually don’t blame Nineiron for his skepticism. Soccer has an incredible credibility problem in America. The NASL. MISL. ASL. On and on . . . .
I do feel that MLS will be a success, but also concede soccer will never be considered one of the Big 4 sports, unless someone like a Pele, Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky or Mark McGuire comes along. When I say MLS will be successful, it will be if the owners conced that their following will be a small, loyal hardcore group of fans, and not a mainstream following.
In addition, at first glance, soccer isn’t as fast paced as hockey; not as high scoring as basketball; not as physical as football, and lacks the tradition of baseball.
It is importnant to keep in mind that while basketball and football are gaining popularity in Europe, soccer is still the #1 sport there, because of the tradition involved.
I like soccer. When I first heard Columbus was getting a team, I was a little excited(I was only 11 so there were other things that I cared about more than sports). I used to live about 20 miles from the city. Finally a professional team in Columbus! The Crew was good until this year. Now they stink.
I E-mailed MLS a while back asking about expansion and there were several cities un the list: A second team for NY, Milwaukee, Rochester, Seattle, Philidelphia, Atlanta, Houston, Sacremento and others. MLS has expanded once already. It started with ten teams, but now there are twelve. It expanded into Chicago and Miami one or two years after it started.