Vancouver Whitecaps for sale

[Mightygoose]

Vancouver Whitecaps owners announce initiation of process to sell club | TSN

The owners of the Vancouver Whitecaps - Greg Kerfoot, Steve Luczo, Jeff Mallett and Steve Nash - announced Friday that they have initiated the process to sell the club.

www.tsn.ca

Part owner Greg Kerfoot owned the team before their MLS days.

Click to read more...

 

[Takuto Maruki]

The people who seriously believe the team is going to be moved are morons of the highest order. There's simply no reason for MLS to accept lower prices for relocation when they've consistently gotten $500 mil plus for straight up expansion bids. Especially considering the cities like Sacramento, Phoenix and Detroit all had their expansion bids collapse due to lack of desire to build a SSS.

And really...the waterfront SSS that gets bandied about by Caps fans as a potential savior of the franchise is something I never really thought was that smart to begin with. The city politics of downtown Vancouver are screwed up enough as it is no matter who's running it, and considering that PavCo are a crown corp...why would they ever allow a SSS to be built within downtown Vancouver? Forgetting that the only way that a SSS is even semi-viable is if the BC Lions are in on it as tenants much like TFC and the Argos at BMO Field, otherwise it's insanely wasteful to have two open air stadiums in the 20 to 40k range within the downtown core.

Ultimately, I don't think this is the doom scenario that a lot of people believe it to be. Especially considering what people consider to be 'better options' in terms of real estate opportunities are pie in the sky ideas, or wasteful considering the demos of Vancouver. BC Place absolutely has never been the problem with the Whitecaps, and their position as the second team within the GVRD behind the Canucks has been effectively unchallenged, even with them being the definition of mediocre, since the mid 2010's.

 

[LadyStanley]

Vancouver Whitecaps ownership group announces intent to sell club

The future of the Vancouver Whitecaps is officially up in the air, as the club's current ownership group has announced their intent to sell. The current ownership formed in 2008 and helped bring MLS ...

sports.yahoo.com

Yahoo Sports story

 

[blueandgoldguy]

There were always be concerns over the future of the White Caps given their extremely limited revenue streams at BC Place. They typically are last or next to last in revenues in MLS every season and lose significant money each year. It seems like a prudent move by the owners to divest themselves of the White Caps as the team is likely experiencing a short term peak in value mainly due to the bump in attendance thanks to the Messi effect...and of course, there is little to no hope for a heavily publicly subsidized soccer-specific stadium that would improve their revenue streams.

 

[MMC]

Hope they don’t move as I’d hate for there to ever be a scenario where the steaming hot pile of ass known as the Canadian Premier League is the only league with Canadian soccer teams

 

[jetsmooseice]

Sounds to me like the Caps are stuck in that awkward space where there is no business case to be made for team owners to build their own venue (with all the revenue streams that would entail), and there is no political case to be made for having government build one for them. In other words, the Halifax CFL conundrum. Just how bad is the status quo in this case, though?

At least in this case, regardless of what ends up happening, the current owners are going to get their payday.

Hope they don’t move as I’d hate for there to ever be a scenario where the steaming hot pile of ass known as the Canadian Premier League is the only league with Canadian soccer teams

Well in fairness the CPL is basically a "steaming hot pile of ass" because a US based league scooped up the three biggest and most lucrative markets in the country.

Which is certainly the MLS' prerogative from a business standpoint, but it was a pretty good way to negatively affect the development of soccer in Canada.

 

[gattaca]

Anyone who says CPL is "steaming hot pile of ass" is way over the top. Maybe has an agenda?

CPL is doing okay. Not great but doing bad either. They likely wanted a couple more teams at this point especially in Quebec. 1 team has folded. And a couple of teams have little engagement but at least one of them is on a turnaround path. Broadcast situation is uncertain as Mediapro has left the building.

New national team manager has emphasized the importance of the CPL. League has gotten some transfer fees from moving players to Europe. Quality of play has incremetally improved. And a few ex CPL players have gotten caps with the national team. A couple of teams have defeated MLS teams and held their own vs Liga MX clubs.