I Officially Support Opening A Second Team In New York

For all of Don Garber’s finer points, he sure doesn’t know much about subtlety. Take expansion rumors. Does the Commish juice up the mystery, pointing fans in every which way, and keeping us guessing. Nope. He goes out and says “If we can build the stadium, we will have the 20th team in New York City.”

And there you have it; MLS wants to expand to New York. This has been a pretty dividing issue among MLS fans, and, seeing the lopsidedness of LA (sorry, Goats), many doubt that doubling franchises could work in the Big Apple. How can we expect to fill two stadia, these people reasonably argue, if the Red Bulls have only just started to get attendance at Red Bull Arena, a home that’s cozy at best? And that’s a fair argument given that, despite seeming to have all the pieces to the puzzle (soccer culture, history, money, etc.), MLS has only recently become successful in New York. It isn’t too hard to see why someone would be against having a second franchise in New York.

Too bad these people are completely wrong.

Here’s the crux of it: the New York metro area has an estimated 22 million people, but the Red Bulls barely access half of that. Their stadium in Harrison, New Jersey (note: New Jersey. Not Manhattan) is definitely a huge draw for fans all over Jersey, New York state, eastern Pennsylvania, and, yes, Manhattan, a group numbering nearly 10 million. But what about Queens, Brooklyn, and, the mother load of untapped potential, Long Island? To say that there’s soccer fans here is to say there’s fish in water; with each holding a large population of Latin Americans, young adults, and families with either kids or parents who love the game, Queens, Brooklyn, and Long Island each encompass the entire spectrum of people who would potentially be going to a match. Together these three areas hold a population nearing 10 million, but it would be pretty impractical for any of these people to get to a Red Bulls game all the way in Harrison. These fans would surely be interested in coming out for a match, but when it’s a three hour car ride each way with Saturday traffic, even the most committed fans will probably pass.

And that’s where the new team would come in. I can’t think of anything more ideal than putting a second franchise in Flushing Meadows (as has been proposed), as a stadium in that area would be just as accessible as any of the other surrounding facilities. Soccer fans in Long Island would finally have some incentive to see a match, and would undoubtedly do so in hordes. I can only imagine the crowds this team could draw (especially if under the Cosmos moniker), and I don’t see anything else that could hold them back.

Either way, I think the real person we need to thank here is Don Garber. Sure, there are tons of other, perhaps more worthy areas into which the league could expand, but the Don has handled this one really well. A second team in New York has clearly been on his mind for quite some time, but he’s been adamant that, as much as he would like a second team, he won’t allow it to happen unless the proper facilities (namely, a private soccer specific stadium) are to be built. His work with the Cosmos and the Wilpons has really done a lot to make this dream a reality, and without his work the league really wouldn’t be where it is today.

But that’s just what I think. What’s your say?

Category: MLS