John Smallwood: Plenty of planning under way for new MLS franchise

May 22, 2008
(Page 3 of 3)

There are now millions of Americans from all economic levels who have grown up with the game and are willing to use their entertainment dollars on a professional domestic soccer league.

"It's not rocket science when you study the dynamics," Veit said. "What we're seeing is that the majority of our season ticketholders will not be season ticketholders to any other sports team in the city. They might go to a game here or there, but they are devoted to soccer. The soccer community really is a unique group."

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The founders of MLS in 1993 - and Sakiewicz was one of the original executives - understood that, which allowed them to withstand the early growing pains and wait for soccer fans to go from young adults to mature adults with established careers and lives.

"It's almost becoming the perfect storm of positives for us," Veit said. "You've got all those kids who have grown up with the league and playing soccer.

"We've got them in boardrooms and we'll have them in our stadium. We already know this will work, as long as we don't mess it up."

And that's why having 2 years will not be taken for granted.

"We've always wanted to just do it right," Sakiewicz said. "We have the time and the venue now to do it right.

"We just want to make sure everything we do going forward is along that vein. Are we going to make mistakes? Of course we are, because everybody makes mistakes. But we have the time to correct them and hopefully we won't make any big mistakes." *

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