St. Louis Wins a Major League Soccer Expansion Team
Date Posted: August 15, 2019
Posted In: News, Projects,
From St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Major League Soccer plans to announce next week that St. Louis has secured an expansion team, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the league’s expansion timeline.
Sources spoke on condition of anonymity, as the St. Louis ownership group and MLS have not publicized the announcement.
Plans have been made for an event Tuesday in St. Louis.
MLS leaders declined comment Wednesday.
The ownership group released a statement: “Major League Soccer is responsible for the timing of any announcements around League expansion, but we remain confident St. Louis has made a strong case for a team.”
League commissioner Don Garber’s praise of St. Louis has been overflowing lately, especially during the MLS All-Star Game two weeks ago in Orlando, Florida.
Garber called the ownership group’s expansion effort “amazing” after the St. Louis group’s presentation to the league’s full board of owners in Orlando.
That presentation was a condensed version of the ownership group’s meeting with the league’s expansion committee last month at league headquarters in New York City, which came after Garber and top league officials met with ownership group members in both St. Louis and New York.
The St. Louis ownership group, spearheaded by Carolyn Kindle Betz, president of Enterprise Holdings Foundation, and Jim Kavanaugh, CEO of World Wide Technology, presented a plan to the league that included a primarily privately funded downtown stadium and a majority female ownership group.
Named “MLS4TheLou,” the ownership group led by Betz, Kavanaugh and other members of Enterprise’s Taylor family revived a previous failed effort to secure an MLS team for St. Louis. The city has a rich soccer tradition that has long been on the radar of MLS, increasingly so after the Rams football team left in 2016.
The most recent soccer swing-and-miss came in April 2017. Agroup led then by Kavanaugh, an owner of St. Louis’ United Soccer League team St. Louis FC, and Boston-based investor Paul Edgerley was unable to secure $60 million in public money for a stadium plan through a business-use tax that was rejected by city voters.
The Taylor family, citing the area’s soccer tradition and a desire to see MLS help revitalize downtown, then came forward to partner with Kavanaugh, pitching a $250 million stadium that will be largely privately financed. The new ownership group has said it will cover the league’s $200 million expansion fee.