The End of San Jose?

[Rover]

I guess this was inevitable. MLS sure was quick to get the MLS Houston page up.

This does give MLS another big market and San Jose gets to keep the Quakes name/colors/trophies for their possible expansion team. Someone thought this out and actually had a plan.

And I'm sure the players are thrilled about all those summertime games in balmy Houston. This will make Dallas look like San Diego and San Jose look like Siberia.

Sure would like to see Houston pick a tradtional soccer name and not take us back to the bad old days of early MLS. But whatever they call the team, it will be good one. Houston is getting the Supporters Shield holders--not exactly an expansion team.

[Deuce]

Team Name: Starting soon, fans will have the opportunity to vote for the team name by visiting www.MLSinHouston06.com.

[Rover]

OBTW, AEG now has soccer teams in the four largest cities in the country.

[Deuce]

Originally Posted by Rover

OBTW, AEG now has soccer teams in the four largest cities in the country.

Good for them!

I hope they can sell off the remainder of their teams so we don't have to do all this again when another team starts having problems with a stadium deal.

Just for the record what are the 4 cities?
New York, Houston, LA and ???

[SoccerPrime]

Chicago

[rslfutbolfan]

Looks like San Jose is gone. DJ goin to Houston?? Heres the press release (sorry cant find the link)

Earthquakes set to move to Houston

By Jason Halpin / MLSnet.com Staff

MLS press release >

Unable to come to an agreement on financing for a new soccer-specific stadium in San Jose or find a new Bay Area owner for the club, AEG announced Thursday that the San Jose Earthquakes are moving to Houston, effective immediately.

All players and coaches currently under contract with the club will follow the organization to Houston, and full details of the move will be announced during a press conference Friday at 10 a.m. CT at Houston's City Hall. The move is not the end of Major League Soccer in the Bay Area, though, as the league and the City of San Jose have signed a Letter of Intent to bring an expansion team to town as early as 2007.

"It is with great regret that we were unable to find a solution to our facility issues in San Jose," said AEG President and CEO Timothy J. Leiweke in a written statement. "It was not for lack of effort and financial investment made by AEG, providing a lifeline to this team for three years, to turn around a difficult situation. Unfortunately, despite efforts by the City of San Jose, there was never a solution to the facility issue. We thank the fans for their support and are hopeful that a team will be back in this marketplace in the near future."

In Houston, AEG and the league feel they have found a market that will quickly get behind an MLS team. The league and its marketing arm, Soccer United Marketing, have had great success hosting international friendlies and the Mexican InterLiga tournament in Houston, the nation's fourth largest city. MLS Commissioner Don Garber said that enthusiasm leads the league to believe a new investor can be found and a soccer-specific stadium can be built in Houston.

"There's been a willingness to develop public-private partnerships, and there has been some progress in discussions on a soccer-specific stadium (for Houston)," Garber said. "There's lots and lots of reasons why we think this market can be successful. But again, it's going to be a market (where) we must make progress on a soccer-specific stadium in order for it to achieve everything we need it to achieve."

The Earthquakes had been in limbo for nearly their entire 10-year history. Originally a league-run club, the team was taken over by Kraft Sports Group -- the investor-operator of the New England Revolution -- in 1999. Silicon Valley Sports & Entertainment, the owners of the NHL's San Jose Sharks, then became the club's operator in 2001, with AEG joining the mix a year later.

The arrangement through which AEG ran the club was always meant to be temporary, and for the past three years, the company has looked for a new investor to buy the team. Tied in to the search for a new investor has been the search for a place to build a soccer-specific stadium. The club's lease at Spartan Stadium has been deemed by AEG to be unsatisfactory, particularly in the amount of concessions and parking revenue given to the Earthquakes. Leiweke has been quoted as saying AEG has lost $20 million on the Quakes.

Negotiations with the City of San Jose and potential investors -- including SVS&E -- had heated up in the past month, after Garber announced on Nov. 15 that MLS had given AEG permission to move the club if a deal was not struck within 30 days. A deal crafted behind closed doors last week reportedly fell apart abruptly Monday night.

"Though we all worked hard and thought a deal can get done, a deal for a stadium and local ownership couldn't get finalized in time for us to prepare for the 2006 season," Garber said. "The city worked hard to try to keep the team in the market for '06. We ran out of time and had to make a decision that was in the best interest overall of Major League Soccer. But that doesn't take away their interest in having an MLS team there. They've been working hard with us over the last 24 hours to finalize this Letter of Intent.

"We believe that professional soccer can be very successful and will return to the Bay Area. This will be a major priority of mine and the rest of the league office over the next year."

Garber said Thursday the league has had productive meetings with Oakland A's owner Lewis Wolff about becoming the investor-operator of the new Earthquakes and that discussions with Wolff and others will continue after Jan. 1, 2006. The commissioner noted that with some extra time to sort out the Bay Area's MLS future, a deal that will benefit both the city and the league can be ironed out. It will also help to put an end to the revolving door ownership of the team.

"We need to start anew," Garber said. "It's just not the way to properly manage a very high-potential market ... What we need to do is take a deep breath. We need to rally behind the scenes. We need to get this done right with a local owner in a long-term facility. If we can do that -- and we're confident we can -- then we layer over the fact that we believe so much in the market."

Garber also believes that the public can get behind stadium financing when a plan is ultimately put to the voters.

"We know that any expenditure will require public support ... We had public referendums in Dallas and public referendums in Denver, and it's going to be our view that this facility -- with the other benefits that it's going to provide to the market -- will be something that the public could support."

The Letter of Intent the league and City of San Jose signed provides a framework for an assortment of elements that will allow the league to put an expansion team back in the city as soon as possible. Those elements include a stadium financing plan; the Letter of Intent will be voted on at a future San Jose City Council meeting.

In anticipation of the return of the Quakes, the league is retaining the club's name, colors and competition records to be restored when San Jose is granted an expansion team. An identical situation existed when the NFL's Cleveland Browns moved to Baltimore in 1996; the Browns returned to the league as an expansion team in 1999.

[SokkerNut]

Local reports on the press conference this morning. Please ignore our mayor and his goofy cowboy hat. :ow:

http://houstonchronicle.com/sports/

[SoccerPrime]

So how are you feeling about this SokkerNut?
Are you leaving us? 😉

[prk166]

Poor San Jose fans 🙁

[Deuce]

Originally Posted by SokkerNut

Local reports on the press conference this morning. Please ignore our mayor and his goofy cowboy hat. :ow:

http://houstonchronicle.com/sports/

i don't mind the silly hat but I am a stickler for the proper spelling of football!
I know it is texas and they tend to speak there own language but give me a break... IT is Major League Soccer NOT Major League Futbol! 😛

:banpoop: