The City of Indianapolis announced Thursday that it will “put in a bid” for a MLS expansion team, “potentially placing in jeopardy the plans that are underway to develop Eleven Park,” a more than $1B mixed-use development anchored by USL Championship Indy Eleven soccer stadium, according to Burris & Haenchen of the INDIANAPOLIS STAR. Mayor Joe Hogsett’s staff has submitted to the Metropolitan Development Commission a proposal for the “creation of a new professional sports development area to bring a soccer stadium to Downtown Indianapolis.” The proposal also “includes a prospective ownership group and mechanism for public funding.” Officials “declined to share” who might own the proposed team or estimate how much money it would take to field the team but San Diego FC, which will become the 30th MLS team when it debuts in 2025, paid a $500M expansion fee. Hogsett said that he flew to N.Y. City on Monday to speak with MLS Commissioner Don Garber “about the prospect of a club coming to Indianapolis.” Indy Eleven submitted a bid to join MLS in January 2017, but it “failed to make the cut.” It is “not clear” what the city's attempts to bring MLS soccer here will mean for the Indy Eleven, or for the Eleven Park development. Plans for Eleven Park “call for it be anchored by a 20,000-seat multipurpose stadium that would become the new home to the Indy Eleven soccer team.” The plans call for Eleven Park to be “financed through a public-private partnership” (INDIANAPOLIS STAR, 4/25).
LONG WAY TO GO: THE ATHLETIC’s Felipe Cardenas cited sources that said expansion beyond 30 teams “has not yet been discussed” by MLS BOG. According to sources, Tom Glick who most recently served as Chelsea’s President of Business, is the exec who Hogsett referred to. Glick was previously President of Tepper Sports & Entertainment (THE ATHLETIC, 4/25). In Indianapolis, Brian Haenchen wrote it is “a long, expensive process with no guarantees of success” in bidding for MLS expansion. Garber said in the past he does not think “any plan in the near future to go beyond 30 teams.” Haenchen notes 32 is the “magic number for the NFL and NHL” and Hogsett came away from his meeting with Garber earlier this week “confident enough to submit a proposal for the creation of a new professional sports development area.” The city is “very marketable to corporate sponsors” and has strong support from government officials. Then for the geography, an Indianapolis MLS team would have “four built-in regional rivals upon entering the league with St. Louis to the west, Chicago to the north, Cincinnati to the east and Nashville to the south" (INDIANPOLIS STAR, 4/26).
