Arsenal majority owner Stan Kroenke may have done MLS the biggest favor when he gave a big middle finger to loyal St Louis NFL fans when he made the change of moving the St Louis Rams back to Los Angeles where they left in 1994. As the owner of the Colorado Rapids he may have helped kick start another push to get an MLS team in the Gateway City.
On more than one occasion St Louis has been a candidate for expansion for MLS, most recently in 2008, but for one reason and another it never came about. Now with major sports dollars available perhaps MLS can find the right expansion idea to work in a city with just about more soccer history than any other in the United States.
Lets examine some of the pros and cons to a team in St Louis.
Location: Close proximity to both Chicago and Kansas City via ground and air which has allowed for easy travel for opposing fans in baseball and hockey to cheer their teams respectively. The away fan contingent has gradually become more and more of a thing but with the vast travel distances it can be hard to have large amount of traveling fans. In the 2015 US Open Cup 4th round match against Sporting Kansas City and USL Pro side St Louis FC was played in front of a capacity crowd at Sporting Park a couple hundred fans made the journey across Missouri for the match and made the atmosphere more electric than any 4th round match to date at Sporting Park.
Existing animosity: In hockey the Chicago Blackhawks and ST Louis Blues have always been heated rivals. A ticket at Scottrade Center in downtown ST Louis against the Blackhawks is the hardest ticket to acquire over the course of the NHL season. In baseball the Kansas City Royals defeated the St Louis Cardinals in the 1985 World Series, the first competitive matchup until the creation of interleague play in 1997 wherein these two play each other home and away every year. Within their own division the Chicago Cubs and the Cardinals are the biggest of rivals due in part to their playing in the same league since 1892. This rivalry was added only recently as they faced each other in the 2015 playoffs for the first time.
History: One needs only go back to the 1950 US national team and find that in the starting lineup there was 5 players all from St Louis. In the recent 2015 state high school tournaments three of the four were won by high school teams from the St Louis area. At youth tournaments hosted at the recently built locations in the Kansas City area the STL teams excel at both boys and girls levels. Current Sporting Kansas City midfielder is from ST Louis and even played for Division 1 St Louis University where the program has won a total of 10 NCAA championships and produced current professionals Jack Jewsbury and STL native Tim Ream along with Bosnian international and one time resident of St Louis Vedad Ibisevic.
Empty Venue: Having been recently renovated, not to the standards of Stan Kroenke, there is a very large stadium that has needs, the Edward Jones Dome will be paid off in 2021. Should a soccer specific stadium be in the works a temporary solution is an existing stadium which will need an anchor tenant. Is the dome a viable option long term? Not without $35-50 million worth of renovations to conform the facility for MLS needs. It is way too big and we all remember what MLS games looked like in NFL sized stadiums. Plus there was a reason why the six international and club friendlies and World Cup Qualifiers were all played at a baseball facility in Busch Stadium
Why it Hasn’t Arrived Yet: Philadelphia showed up with a soccer specific stadium. Portland with a renovated stadium that would be fully soccer minded. They also had deeper pockets. Philly is a monster of a city with plenty of financial strength. Portland had only the Trail Blazers and with the economic growth of the city it was a great option with an existing culture which provided a great spring board. Only now is St Louis a better candidate now that the financial sports dollars that were taken up by the Rams are freed up. This was also when the Rams were not good for years and years and even natives from St Louis would laugh when asked about the team.
In conclusion Don Garber has mentioned the possible expansion to ST Louis but has cautioned that it could be until 2020 when that could actually come to fruition. But the huge shift in the NFL could pay dividends for MLS. San Diego is too close to Tijuana whose Liga MX team has been very successful and with Sacramento bidding the Oakland market will look east. This is the time where ST Louis steps up
