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St. Louis Major League Soccer team
A group of investors announced Tuesday they are making a bid to bring a Major League Soccer team to St. Louis.
There’s been a lot of buzz in the past month about Major League Soccer coming to St. Louis, and on Friday, the full St. Louis Board of Alderman passed a resolution 26-2 that showed support for the ownership group's plan for a stadium. Here are five things St. Louisans should know about the initiative as it moves forward.
1. On Wednesday, the Housing, Urban Development, and Zoning aldermen sub-committee passed a resolution 8-0 to bring a Major League Soccer stadium to the city after three hours of nuanced deliberation. On Friday, the full St. Louis Board of Alderman passed it 26-2. President Lewis Reed voted yes to the plan, which will set the foundation for incentives and financial plans going forward. "This Resolution brings us one step closer to our goal and helps demonstrate that America’s original soccer capital, St. Louis, is at the top of the table for an MLS expansion team," the ownership group said in a statement on Friday.
2. The organization backing the effort is #MLS4TheLou. The Taylor family of Enterprise Holdings and the Kavanaugh family of World Wide Technology will mostly privately finance the plan. The ownership of the team would be the first female-majority in North American MLS.
3. The stadium would be installed downtown in a state-owned space near Market Street and I-64. MLS has not yet announced when it will select a new franchise, though it is currently at 26 teams with plans to have 28.
4. This is not the first time St. Louis has come close to building a stadium. On April 4, 2017, St. Louis voters defeated Proposition 2, which would have raised taxes to create a stadium for hosting soccer, concerts, and other events. That November, MLS cut St. Louis from the list of potential expansions and instead opted for new franchises in Nashville and Cincinnati.
5. NBC Sports writer Joe Prince-Wright wrote in May 2018 that St. Louis was ninth out of the 11 cities aiming to host the next franchise. He told KSDK recently that if he could update the rankings now, he would place St. Louis much higher because of all the recent efforts of #MLS4TheLou. MLS considers the owners’ level of commitment, approved stadium plans, and size of the local fan base and metropolitan area when selecting where to place teams.
