The Taylor family and MLS commissioner Don Garber
Update August 19: MLS has confirmed that Major League Soccer commissioner Don Garber will be visiting St. Louis for the August 20 press conference. MLS4TheLou will be live streaming the 11:30 a.m. announcement.
It could soon be official: After years of anticipation, Major League Soccer might just be coming to St. Louis.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch is reporting that the league will announce next week that MLS4TheLou, the ownership group working on the bid to bring the Division I club to St. Louis, has succeeded. "Sources spoke on condition of anonymity, as the St. Louis ownership group and MLS have not yet publicized the announcement," Post sports columnist Ben Frederickson first reported.
KMOX's Tom Ackerman also reported that a source confirmed the news.
In a statement to SLM, MLS4TheLou said, "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."
MLS4TheLou later issued a press release noting that it does plan to make a special announcement Tuesday morning. It said the ownership group would be joined by Mayor Lyda Krewson, Aldermanic President Lewis Reed, and other special guests.
In late July, Sports Illustrated wrote, "Multiple sources connected to the expansion process, as well as commissioner Don Garber, suggested that St. Louis is the furthest along." The article noted that Garber characterized the league’s conversations with St. Louis as the "most optimistic."
St. Louis' club would become one of the only majority female-owned professional sports team in the nation. Carolyn Kindle Betz, the president of Enterprise Holdings Foundation, spearheaded the most recent bid to win the soccer team, alongside World Wide Technology CEO Jim Kavanaugh, the owner of Division II team Saint Louis FC and recent recipient of SLM's inaugural A-List Visionary Award.
Slated to be built near the forthcoming St. Louis Aquarium, the proposed 22,5000-capacity soccer stadium was first depicted in renderings released this April. Soon thereafter, the league decided to expand to 30 teams, with St. Louis and Sacramento appearing to lead the pack.
Scoring an MLS team for St. Louis has been a goal years in the making. Although MLS officials announced in 2015 that the league planned to expand to 28 teams, St. Louis’ interest wasn’t piqued until early 2016, when a group of nine prominent business executives started exploring the idea. Dubbed MLS2STL, the group included Kavanaugh, Cardinals president Bill DeWitt III, and Blues president and CEO of business operations Chris Zimmerman, among others. In April 2017, however, city voters narrowly rejected a proposal to spend $60 million of public money on a stadium. It appeared that St. Louis’ hopes for a team were over.
Enter the Taylor family. In October 2018, several members of the family partnered with Kavanaugh to launch a new bid. By that time, MLS had confirmed plans to establish teams in Nashville, Miami, and Austin. At the time, there was only one spot left—and Sacramento was proving to be a serious competitor.
Over the winter, the new St. Louis ownership group put together its plan. When MLS decides whether to approve a city for a team, the league typically considers three major factors: the market, the stadium plans, and the owners. The coalition knew that it would have to prove that St. Louis could provide all three.
The Taylors and Kavanaugh presented their plan to MLS commissioner Don Garber on March 11. Several potential corporate sponsors joined the meeting as well. Afterward, Garber said he was impressed with the plan and the leadership of the Taylors, who demonstrated that St. Louis could be a viable market for MLS and that their ownership would help a team thrive. The MLS4TheLou team also showed early-stage plans for a stadium.
Then, on April 18, MLS voted to expand the league to 30 teams, leaving room for Sacramento and St. Louis, as well as one new city, to join the league. Days after the announcement, the MLS4TheLou group released the renderings of the stadium plan to the public for the first time.
COURTESY OF MLS4THELOU, HOK, AND SNOW KREILICH ARCHITECTS
Artistic renderings of the proposed stadium were released to the public on April 20.
Then, on July 15, the ownership group gave a formal presentation to the MLS expansion committee at the league’s headquarters in New York City. The group was also present for the MLS Board of Governors meeting in Orlando on July 31.
"During the Board of Governors meeting, we discussed the stadium plan, community and sponsorship support, and, of course, the amazing St. Louis sports fans," Kindle Betz said in a statement to SLM last week, noting that the group was "very excited" with how the meetings have gone.
Although Garber had at one time mentioned that the announcement would come around the time of the MLS All-Star Game, on July 31, fans didn't have a concrete timeline and were left eagerly awaiting any information.
That time could finally come next week.
