A Week of MLS Developments in Bite-Sized Nuggets

By: Sean | March 10th, 2009

As the anticipated date for the 2011 MLS expansion announcement draws near, there has been no shortage of developments regarding the Rose City. Here are some of the highlights, packaged in bite-size nuggets…

1. Miami bows out of the expansion race, citing “adverse market conditions.” This leaves four candidate cities for two expansion franchises: Ottawa; Vancouver B.C.; St. Louis; and Portland.

2. Last Friday, negotiations between the City and Timbers owner Merritt Paulson appeared to hit a snag. According to Commissioner Randy Leonard, Paulson “stormed out” of meetings when it was suggested that he personally cover any cost overruns. Or maybe he didn’t storm out. The following day, Paulson appeared on KGW’s “Straight Talk” program and dismissed the incident. Click here for KGW’s link to the broadcast.

3. Also Saturday, the Oregonian’s Ryan White covered the topic in his column, “The Tailgate.” Essentially, he said there was risk involved. And that after the vote on Wednesday (if there is a vote), there will be more to argue about. And that “soccer fans are nothing if not passionate and, based on e-mails, literate.” We’re literate. Sweet!

4. Late Monday, Commissioner Fritz indicated she was voting against the plan.

5. But wait, there’s more! Weekend negotiations appeared to have smoothed out the issue of cost overruns. A deal has been reportedly been struck. Again from KGW: “In the deal, the Paulson family has reportedly agreed to personally guarantee to pay any cost overruns the city may accrue to convert PGE Park into a Major League Soccer stadium.” Scrolling down through the posted comments on the topic, I see that opposition to the proposal appears to fall into one of three main categories:

A. I don’t like soccer. Fair enough. I noted on a news site somewhere that someone thought soccer was a “sissy girl sport”, which is an unfair characterization, to say the least.
B. I’m concerned about the economy and the cost impact to the city and taxpayers. Also legitimate concerns.
C. Paranoid, racist rants about the multi-cultural appeal and passion for the sport. I’m not even going to touch this drivel…

When I went to other local news websites to try and confirm these sentiments, I just found a lot of stories about the bear attack at Wildlife Safari. In all fairness, people do like to read about bear attacks.