Soccer in Seattle | Stakeholders project first-class image

If Major League Soccer and the new owners of the Seattle franchise wanted to make a strong first impression, they certainly did.

Tuesday's news conference announcing that MLS will field a team in Seattle in 2009 took place in a room high up in the Columbia Center, with a grand view of Elliott Bay and the downtown skyline outside and the jerseys of every other MLS team flanking the owners and league commissioner Don Garber.

Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire, a self-professed soccer mom, was also there for the announcement and welcomed the arrival of the team. The scene spoke first class, exactly what the league and owners were trying to convey in getting Seattle excited about its newest big-time pro sports team.

"The world's game is coming to Seattle, and more importantly, Seattle is going to represent this great city and region in the world's game," said Seahawks CEO Tod Leiweke, representing Paul Allen and Vulcan Sports & Entertainment. The company is a minority partner in the MLS team's ownership group.

Any team that features a celebrity — Drew Carey — in its ownership group and the promise that its membership program will allow fans to have a say in who runs the team, plus the concept of a marching band, is bound to create a buzz.

"I said, 'I'll take you in if you come up and paint your face and play the trumpet with the marching band,' " majority owner Joe Roth said of Carey's involvement.

But questions remain about the new franchise and what kind of support it will get. Will it be able to profit in a league that has a history of financial losses? What will become of the current soccer team in Seattle, the United Soccer Leagues First Division Sounders?

"We obviously think there's a good market here," Leiweke said. "The future has never been brighter for soccer in the U.S."

Roth said he feels confident the team will get enough season-ticket holders to make it profitable. As for the Sounders, their longterm future is either somewhere else in the region or folding after the 2008 season.

The Sounders will stay in Seattle in 2008. After that, Adrian Hanauer, a current Sounders ownership partner who will be the new franchise's general manager and a minority partner, will look at taking players from the Sounders and transferring them to the MLS team.

The MLS competition committee is going to allow the new team to protect some of the players currently on the Sounders roster, "which will hopefully help us move into MLS with a few of those really key players," Hanauer said.

The team's name is undecided, but fans are encouraged to submit name suggestions on the franchise Web site, www.mlsinseattle.com. Tickets are on sale now at that site.

Hanauer said the name will reflect both soccer and Seattle, and that the roster will be multiculturally diverse in keeping with Seattle's international flavor. Current Sounders coach Brian Schmetzer is high on what will be a list of coaching candidates, but a search is expected.

The team will play at Qwest Field, with 24,500 seats in the stadium's lower bowl serving as its MLS capacity. Average attendance for MLS games in 2007 was 16,500, and the average per-game ticket cost was about $20. The franchise hopes to use the Starfire sports complex in Tukwila as its training facility.

Seattle will be the 15th MLS franchise, with the league expanding to San Jose next year, then Seattle and another city in 2009 (probably Philadelphia or St. Louis) and the hope that two more teams will join by 2011.

"It will be an attacking team," Hanauer said. "We will absolutely play an attacking style of soccer. It's entertaining. It's what people want to see. It's what players want to play."

The MLS was blessed with a new rule this season that brought English star David Beckham into the league. With a salary cap of $2 million for an 18-man roster and 10 developmental players, each club can make an exception for a "designated player," which doesn't count toward its cap.

Hanauer said the new team anticipates going after such a player. One possibility could be Washington native Kasey Keller, a goalkeeper for Fulham in the English Premier League.

"If [Brazil's] Ronaldinho becomes available, he'll be the star of the new Disney movie called 'Ronaldinho,' " joked Roth, a movie studio executive.

The team wants a relationship with the Washington State Youth Soccer Association to try to build a developmental program for the MLS and U.S. National teams.

José Miguel Romero: 206-464-2409 or jromero@seattletimes.com