Soccer
Seattle in running for MLS franchise

By José Miguel Romero
Seattle Times staff reporter

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Major League Soccer will add at least one and likely two new franchises by early July, and Seattle is among the four finalists for the second of the expansion teams.

Seattle joins Philadelphia, Salt Lake City and Houston in the running for a team. MLS, the top professional soccer league in the U.S., currently has 10 teams in two conferences.

Adrian Hanauer, the Seattle Sounders general manager who is the point man for the group seeking a franchise in Seattle, met with MLS commissioner Don Garber on Thursday at the league offices in New York City.

MLS spokesman Simon Borg said it was another in a series of meetings involving Seattle. Hanauer was in New York for a previous commitment but took time to meet with Garber.

"I can assume that Seattle is at the top of their list in terms of markets," Hanauer said. "But we need solid ownership that won't bail in a year and a half. We're actively trying to put together a proposal. ... Everybody I talk to says the demand is there (in Seattle).

"The question is whether people will put their money where their mouth is."

Hanauer believes it might be too much to ask Seattle to be ready by the 2005 season, because of all the marketing and operations work that would need to start right away.

He said that "2006 might be a little more likely. It's just going to have to do with whether I can pull together another owner in the next couple of weeks."

Hanauer, his parents and a group of Sounders co-owners are committed to owning half of the MLS franchise, he said. But Hanauer would like another major partner for the other half. He said he was "cautiously optimistic" after having talked with a few groups about prospective ownership.

"We're no closer to having a franchise," Hanauer said after the meeting with Garber. "We're trying to figure out under what structure something might be able to work."
 
The MLS hopes to expand by an additional two teams in 2006; Borg said Seattle automatically would be put on the 2006 expansion list if the city is not awarded a franchise this year.

One of the two new teams for 2005 is Chivas USA, an American extension of the popular Mexican club Chivas de Guadalajara. MLS will name either Chicago or Los Angeles as the home of Chivas in an announcement early next month, and will announce the second franchise — if it elects to further expand — by the end of June or early July.

The ownership is already in place for Chivas, and putting the club in either Chicago or Los Angeles makes sense because of the large Latino populations in both metropolitan areas. The other cities hoping to land a team must come up with a $10 million expansion franchise fee, secure an ownership group that is willing to invest long-term in a team and attract major sponsors for the team in their respective markets.

Hanauer said the ownership group must be willing to take on financial losses from operations, at least for the team's first few years. But that is a worst-case scenario, in case fan and community support isn't as abundant as expected.

"Certainly, we're expecting to lose millions annually for a while until it picks up," he said.

Seattle already has a facility in which to play its games — Seahawks Stadium — while Salt Lake City would have to play in a temporary location while building a permanent stadium for its team. Houston (Reliant Stadium) and Philadelphia (Lincoln Financial Field) already have, like Seattle, hosted major international soccer matches.

Seahawks Stadium was built with the idea that an MLS franchise could share the facility with the NFL team, and its FieldTurf surface is not an issue with MLS. The MetroStars of the greater New York City area play on a similar surface at Giants Stadium.

MLS prefers its teams play on natural grass, but FieldTurf is approved by FIFA, soccer's international governing body.

While the current A-League Sounders team would cease to exist, the Sounders' name, logo and colors would more than likely continue with the new team, since there is 30 years of Sounders history in the city. But Hanauer said there may be some benefits to starting over with a new brand because he would want to make a big first impression on the city if it gets an MLS team.

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