Major League Soccer (MLS) commissioner Don Garber has said further expansion plans for the North American competition will be developed within the next six months, although promotion and relegation will not feature.
MLS currently stands at 20 teams following the entry of New York City and Orlando for the 2015 season, with a commitment to increase this number to 24 by the end of the current decade.
A team from Atlanta and a second Los Angeles franchise will kick-off 2017 a year ahead of Minneapolis’ entry, while former England captain and Los Angeles Galaxy star David Beckham is fronting a Miami franchise whose start date is yet to be determined. Despite these ambitious plans, Garber believes moving beyond a 24-team league is inevitable.
"In the next six months, we've got to come together and develop a plan with our ownership to determine when we go further, because we will," Garber told the Associated Press news agency. "We will expand this league beyond 24 teams. It's not an if, it's a when."
According to the AP report, cities interested in entering MLS include Austin, Texas; Sacramento, California; St. Louis; and San Antonio. There is also tentative interest from El Paso, Texas; Indianapolis and Las Vegas.
Top division football leagues in Europe feature 18 or 20 teams and include promotion and relegation as a key part of their appeal, although Garber maintains this is not a concept applicable to the US model.
"I believe that we can expand and manage a league far larger than we are today without having to contemplate promotion and relegation," he said. "I will certainly tell you in the near term, and that near term is a long time from now, there's not going to be promotion and relegation. It makes absolutely no sense. There is not a developed secondary division. We have union agreements. We have national television deals. We have investors that have put in billions of dollars. It is not going to be something that could be managed in anytime soon."
The Beckham franchise was confirmed by the MLS in January last year although there is still no timetable in place for a Miami team due to failed attempts to secure a stadium location. Nevertheless, Garber remains committed to the project.
"Miami will be in Major League Soccer by the end of the decade," he said. “We had two mayors push us to waterfront locations, and then we were not able to finalise a deal on those sites. Now we've got to say, are there other downtown urban locations that make might sense for us? And we believe there are several, and that's what we've been working on."
New York City is currently playing at Yankee Stadium, home of MLB baseball team New York Yankees which co-owns the franchise alongside English Premier League champion Manchester City. Garber told AP that plans to move New York into a soccer specific stadium are likely to be more protracted than initially thought, but he is happy with the current arrangement.
"There hasn't been too much buzz about playing in Yankee Stadium or a baseball stadium yet," he said. "That will happen soon, after somebody trips on a divot perhaps and perhaps misses a ground ball, but we hope that doesn't happen."
MLS continues to grow in terms of media profile and revenue and has a new eight-year domestic television contract with ESPN, Fox and Univision. Nevertheless, Garber insists further growth is required and that media revenue must usurp ticket and stadium revenue.
He added: "Where we need to be financially is to have a more valuable television product and be no different than the other leagues, whether it's the Premier League or the other American-based leagues, and have media be our primary revenue stream. Today our primary revenue is tickets, our secondary revenue is our stadium income and our third revenue is media. That needs to shift literally and be turned upside down."
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