Guess Who's Back

Now that my biterness has completely worn off, I'm back and ready to start blogging again (if only a few times a week). I realized at some point that no matter how angry I was at AEG (and even MLS) for moving the Earthquakes to Houston, I love the sport, the league, and the players way too much to stop caring. As much as I didn't want to watch MLS on opening day, I was inexplicably drawn to every match I could lay my eyes on. I also contemplated changing the name of the blog (which originally was a tongue-in-cheek reference to the Earthquakes' tenuous status as a franchise), but decided that the franchise actually is still in limbo.

Now onto the news:

According to Brad Rock of the Deseret News, LA is the most profitable team in the league followed perhaps surprisingly by Bob Kraft's New England Revolution. Of course, this naturally devolved into a debate over whether SSS really helped make teams profitable over at the typically volatile Bigsoccer. As some posters there alluded to (smartly), Garber never mentioned that other teams like Columbus and Dallas weren't being profitable, but in not mentioning them, we can only imply that they haven't quite neared profitability yet. No one should be taking this as a sign that Soccer Specific Stadia aren't essential for the profitability of MLS.

A day after some Bigsoccer fans freaked out after Don Garber failed to mention Cleveland in a list of expansion candidates, the Salt Lake Tribune reports that either Cleveland or St. Louis (!) will be granted an expansion franchise in 2008. This raises some important questions. First, does it imply that Toronto will be the only expansion franchise in 2007? Garber had this to say about St. Louis in his Q & A with fans from Monday:

"St. Louis: Another great soccer market ... we continue to have discussions with a few potential owners for an expansion team in St. Louis, and each prospective owner realizes that a soccer-specific stadium is needed to bring an MLS team to the area."

So the natural question is: Are these potential owners working on a soccer-specific stadium behind the scenes? Or is this a smoke-and-mirrors job from Garber?

What is clear though is that this statement from Garber is a very clear acknowledgment that Cleveland is indeed a very serious expansion candidate. So for all of you freaking out over the Q & A session, rest assured, Cleveland is still very much on Don Garber's mind.

In other "news," Beckham says that he'd like to end his career in the United States (Soccernet, BBC). If I had a take on this I'd let you know, but since I'm so tired of these "X player would like to come to MLS" stories after this Ronaldo affair that this story doesn't interest me in the slightest.

Coming soon:

MLS Power Rankings
Weekly Predictions