LaGrandeOrange

1 minute ago, McCall said:

It's the major league in soccer in the U.S. And arguably the greatest player of all-time IS playing here, so...

I'm aware this is not a legitimate argument, but this can get into slippery slope territory, at any given time there are a few NPB players who are among the ~100 or so best baseball players in the world, same for the KHL. Euroleague basketball doesn't have quite the same pull, but there are certainly at least a whole teams' worth of NBA level salary cap casualties or young guys who will eventually come over.

At this point it seems like sports have so thoroughly balkanised that this idea is sort of quaint. The NFL (NHL in Canada) rules everything, with the NBA somewhere below but above everyone else, and then every other league has a varied sized fiefdom. Add in international sports (Premier League/Champions League/F1) and it gets even choppier. MLS is probably the last in to the traditional idea if you even consider them part of a big 5.

Replacing Hartford with San Antonio

Columbus and Hartford

Yeah really great concept, no real reason the Nats couldn't look like that.

Jays, though it seems like that one is probably DOA already.

Columbus

Nashville

He doesn't quite count because while the A-League was the top flight of US Soccer at the time, it was never at the level of even MLS, but Steve Nash's brother Martin had a lengthy and successful career at the A-League/USL level (along with the English First Division, now Championship).

Rush

Hogs

1 minute ago, raysox said:

not your fault, but I think we've reached the point where cities like OKC, Omaha, Portland, and Louisville are way too small scale for the NFL to target for expansion. People in Oklahoma still likely tune in to NFL games on sunday rooting on whoever they've chosen because they're general football fans.

The league is absolutely massive. I think if the NFL ever wants to expand, its to a place where pro football has no footprint and they can have a much bigger foothold in a market. I know London was included, but I think the NFL stands to make tons more money with a team in Paris, Mexico City, Madrid, or Sao Paulo compared to a mid sized city in a smaller importance state if that makes sense

Parc des Princes in Paris is allegedly going to be without a tenant (if you believe the president of PSG, which you probably shouldn't), great opportunity for the NFL to swoop in!

I'll tie it up, Chicago.

It's not that St. Joseph's isn't a recognisable building and doesn't have the nice parallel with Washington, but I'm not sure it's quite an iconic enough building to qualify for logo silhouette level.

I guess I'm choosing between Toronto and Foxborough, not to speak ill of any of the nations who will make the tournament but with the expanded field I'm wondering if we're going to end up with a decent amount of matches with limited neutral appeal.

Austin

SLC feels like an...unsexy? threat location. I know "welcoming ownership" is the most important thing at this point, but it's hard to imagine SLC provides much more upside than, say, Québec, who have had welcoming ownership for a decade.

Utah getting an MLB and NHL team in quick succession feels like it'd be too many for such a small market. A lot of these current wave of "Major" league cities feel like they'll reach their tipping points fast.

13 minutes ago, The_Admiral said:

Are you saying that crime and antisocial behavior have not skyrocketed in American cities over the past four years?

I wasn't saying that, I was providing some colour to the press releases about theft.

The FBI is saying that though, fwiw- https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATEST/webapp/#/pages/explorer/crime/crime-trend

If you go down to the rate of property crime, it was 2130.6 per 100,000 people in 2019, and in 2022 (the last year for which they have data) it's 1954.4, which is lower than the 2019 number.

All violent crimes did in fact spike in 2020, but the rates for 2019 (380.8 per 100,000) and 2022 (380.7 per 100,000) are functionally identical, and if you scale the chart back to the earliest data they have (1985), the recent years are basically a flat line, since in the early 90's it was in the 700s!

This is obviously not what the thread is about though, and I would recommend we not dwell on the idea that Oakland is crime ridden in a thread about baseball in a forum with rules against politics threads.

https://web.archive.org/web/20231211112611/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/08/business/organized-shoplifting-retail-crime-theft-retraction.html

https://popular.info/p/target-says-its-closing-9-stores?utm_source=digg

Worth noting, when you hear reporting of crime waves- much of the reporting that you hear in the papers/tv comes directly from press releases in order to create an atmosphere of fear, that conveniently get retracted after local election season.

I'll throw one out for Detroit.

Miami

Truly ridiculous- that's some definition of insanity stuff, what makes us think Atlanta will work a third time?

Just now, Digby said:

There's a long thing on MLSsoccer.com explaining the formulas of putting the groups together but I couldn't make any sense of it. Sure, why not.

Yeah I was JUST going through it- I like the nominal "hub" city concept for the Liga MX teams but it's still sorta baffling. I didn't hate watching these matches necessarily but it feels like such an unnecessary competition.

Orlando and San Luís feels like a manageable group, although I thought that last year too.

"Lady luck" knew what she was doing throwing Chivas into a group with SJ and the Galaxy and Tijuana with LAFC.

Wild format that Miami doesn't get rewarded for winning the trophy last year too but Columbus (and América) do for winning separate competitions.

Hard to truly take it seriously until there are games in Mexico.