Why St. Louis?

I've received a few emails today asking why the SuperLiga game against Atlas is being played in St. Louis and not in Kansas City. I've been told that there are a few reasons why the Wizards will be playing this game on the opposite side of the state.

1. The obvious reason is that Community America Ballpark is unavailable due to the T-Bones already having a home game scheduled for that date.

2. The dates for SuperLiga have been set in stone by MLS, FMF, and SUM so there is no way the date of the game can be moved.

3. Arrowhead is out due to the current renovations.

4. The site has to allow beer and liquor advertisements to be put up. This rules out all high school sites around the city including ODAC, BVAC, CBAC, and Ray-Pec.

5. The site has to be a grass facility without football lines. This rules out the home of the KC Brass, William Jewell, Rockhurst University, and MU.

6. The facility has to be wide enough, which rules out a short trip to Lawrence and KU.

I'm not overly happy about it like many of you, but it's the unfortunate situation KC is in without a soccer specific stadium.

Wizards to have SuperLiga in St. Louis

So this is a rumor that's been making the rounds for a while now. Rumor has been that the Wizards were planning on hosting one of their "home" SuperLiga games in St. Louis at Hermann Stadium on the SLU campus. Now there is confirmation of that rumor from a news source, the St. Louis Post Dispatch. Tom Timmermann says that while the deal has not been finalized, it looks like it could be confirmed as early as tomorrow. The game would take place June 21st against a yet to be determined Mexican league team. This is a different version than the last rumor on this I'd heard, which was that the game in St. Louis would be against New England, not a team from Mexico. The reason given for the move is because the T-Bones are at home that day for a league game.

As someone who has been waiting for the return of a competitive international game between the Wizards and a foreign club to return to KC, this is very disappointing. I'm greedy and selfish, I want these games to be in KC because I think the KC fans deserve to have these games in KC. The main argument against my line of thinking is that this game is only about 3 hours away for KC fans. Still how many St. Louis fans regularly come to KC for games? So how likely is it for KC fans to make the trek across the state for a SuperLiga game? I'm not happy about this idea at all, especially the idea of it being one of the Mexican league games. The rumor of it being New England didn't bother me as much because I've seen New England play plenty of times. And with guys like Taylor Twellman and Steve Ralston both from that side of the state and on New England's roster it made sense to have that game there. But to move a game against one of the Mexican league teams sucks.

Expansion Thoughts

So last week, MLS announced teams' number 17 and 18 that will join MLS in the 2011 season. Those two teams are Portland and Vancouver, who ended up beating out St. Louis and Ottawa for those two spots. While both cities have current history with teams (Portland with the Timbers and Vancouver with the Whitecaps) that can date back in one form or another to the old NASL days, I'm disappointed in these two additions. While I'm happy that Seattle is in now, and in two years they'll have ready made rivals with Portland and Vancouver joining the league, it does little to make me really care about the expansion. To put it another way, I'm apathetic about it. Which is how I'm sure fans in Portland and Vancouver are going to feel about Kansas City.

It's disappointing for me as a fan because my hope was that St. Louis would be one of the two teams to get in this round. With Kansas City's current closest rival 8-9 hours away in either Colorado, Dallas, or Chicago, there's not an easy there and back trip for Wizards fans to take. Not only that, but each of those teams have their own teams that they are rivals with (RSL, Houston, and Columbus respectively). If St. Louis were in the league, KC would not only have a team that would be about 4 hours away, but they'd also have a team to potentially build some sort of rivalry with. Sure St. Louis has Chicago envy and would push for a rivalry with them, but just based on proximity they won't be able to ignore the team on the other side of the state. I'm sure both Portland and Vancouver will have great fan support, but it would have been nice to have gotten a team in the Midwest.

Beyond the want for St. Louis to have a team for rivalry purposes, it also would have been nice for geographic reasons. With Portland and Vancouver coming in, it'll give the West 10 teams and the East 8 teams. Don Garber has said in the past that the league plans to keep conferences, so that means that some team is going to need to move to the East to balance the two conferences. One would think this wouldn't affect the Wizards much, since they are already in the East. Instead I think it could greatly affect the Wizards based on the other rivals that could move. Right now, one of the Texas teams would be figured to be the team moving East. But why would MLS move either Dallas or Houston to the East and ruin their rivalry? Instead I see the league moving both Dallas and Houston to the East to keep their rivalry around, and in their place, KC will move back to the Western confernce, yet again ruining anything the team has developed with teams in the East. It's a frustrating double punch that the Wizards could possibly take with this round of expansion.

Greetings From St. Louis

Greetings from the media room here at the MLS Draft. I'm sitting here relaxing waiting for the draft to start, but wanted to check in and let you all know that I've made it to St. Louis and am waiting for the draft to start.

For reference, the Wizards have the 8th pick in the first round, the 22nd (from Colorado) and the 23rd in the second round. The 42nd in the 3rd round (from RSL) and the 50th pick in the 4th round (from Dallas). I'll be posting with the picks or trades, when they happen.