News filtered through this week
that David
Beckham has selected Miami as his venue of choice for a new MLS franchise. The
as-yet-unnamed team seems set to become the third visible expansion team after
the Manchester City and New York Yankees’ joint venture, New York City FC and
the record-setting
Iron Lions of Orlando.
Really, selecting Miami was a
no-brainer. The appeal of
the city to athletes is notorious, and although one MLS franchise has already
failed in South Florida, the times have changed in MLS such that Beckham and
his co-investors are making this decision based on expected
strong crowd support. While this hasn’t always been the case in South
Florida – especially during
particularly unsuccessful sporting summers – the city is a major market
with a passionate soccer fan base.
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| (c) Author's own collection |
Scanning the list of major US and
Canadian cities without MLS franchises, Miami is the most populated unrepresented
city and has been targeted
by the league as a possible location for some time. Other options it was
believed Beckham was looking at were San Diego, Orlando and … wait for it … Montreal.
Commissioner Don Garber is on
record plugging the merits of a twenty-four team league with a presence in Florida,
Atlanta (please let this potential franchise keep their NASL nickname, The
Silverbacks) and another SoCal team. That he has now leveraged three global
brands into associations with MLS means smaller,
more … optimistic parties should begin doubting their immediate chances.
As the business plans for each
nascent franchise gain clarity, so does the picture of MLS’s mid-term future. Fittingly,
David Beckham is front and center for this new era.
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