Don Garber: MLS To Expand Beyond 24 Teams, Shun Promotion, Relegtion

NEW YORK — Having committed to reach 24 teams by the end of the decade, Major League Soccer intends to develop additional expansion plans within six months.

MLS launched with 12 teams in 1996 and cut to 10 in 2002. There are 20 this year following the additions of New York City and Orlando, and the league already has announced Atlanta and a second Los Angeles team will start play in 2017, Minneapolis will join in 2018 and David Beckham will own a Miami team whose start date is uncertain.

“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,” MLS Commissioner Don Garber said Friday during a meeting with the Associated Press Sports Editors. “We will expand this league beyond 24 teams. It’s not an if, it’s a when.”

MLS says cities expressing interest included Austin, Texas; Sacramento, Calif.; St. Louis; and San Antonio; and to a lesser extent El Paso, Texas; Indianapolis; and Las Vegas.

Most first divisions around the world are 18 or 20 teams, and most have promotion and relegation from the lower leagues. Garber says the league is different because “our teams are not clubs, they’re local businesses.”

“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.”

While MLS announced a deal with Beckham for a Miami team in January 2014, no timetable has been set because of the lack of a stadium location.

“Miami will be in Major League Soccer by the end of the decade,” is all Garber would specify.

Thumbnail photo via Twitter/@si_soccer