Vancouver has scored a Major League Soccer franchise, the Whitecaps are expected to announce today.
A press release yesterday afternoon stated Premier Gordon Campbell would be joining representatives of the Whitecaps for an “important announcement that will generate new economic activity in tourism and sport in the Lower Mainland.”
In October, the Whitecaps FC, champions of the first division United Soccer Leagues, applied for one of two MLS expansion franchises for the 2011 season.
The bid group included Whitecaps owner Greg Kerfoot, former Yahoo president Jeff Mallett and two-time NBA most valuable player Steve Nash.
Six other cities, including Montreal and Ottawa, applied for the expansion franchises. As of yesterday, however, only Vancouver, Ottawa, Portland and St. Louis remained in the running.
The franchises were to be announced before the start of the 2009 MLS season, which begins tomorrow with the expansion Seattle Sounders taking on the New York Red Bulls.
The Sounders, a former USL rival of the ’Caps, were granted their expansion team in 2007. The team has more than 20,000 season ticket holders, the most in the MLS.
Toronto FC, which kicked off in 2006, capped its season tickets at 19,000 and has 13,000 people on the season ticket waiting list.
Last year, the Whitecaps and the province said that the team would move from Swangard Stadium in 2011 to play in a renovated B.C. Place Stadium, which will have a new retractable roof after the 2010 Olympics.
