Both Detroit and Las Vegas have people in place that are aggressively (at least in some ways) trying to lock down stadium situations for a potential club.

In Detroit, the owners of the Silverdome recently said they could have their stadium renovated for soccer in time for the 2014 season. Their plan includes tearing the roof off the Silverdome and building a 30,000-seat facility atop a concert hall and an indoor sports facility. Yeah, their plan is crazy but it could work given the right amount of time and money.

“[BC Place] is like a mini-Silverdome,” Apostolopoulos said. “After seeing that, I have no doubt that we can pull this off.”

In a way they are right.

Over in Sin City, the city of Henderson gave approved the earliest stages of a planned $1 billion development that would potentially include a soccer stadium.

Folks the heat is starting to turn up a notch.

The thing is both potential cities aren’t exactly in the 20th club vision the league has stated here. There is little doubt that if either stadium deal were in New York that we would be talking about the 20th club today kicking off in 2013 or whatever – instead we’re left wondering the what ifs.

However, saying this is a good thing. The folks in New York need some steam behind them with other cities on their tail. For a while they had been the ‘it’ city for the league and really had no competition to deal with. If these two cities continue to turn up the heat on MLS, it is only a good thing in my mind.

So, uh, yeah. There it is folks. The Silverdome with a soccer field, concert hall and a basketball arena.

I still admit, I will have to see this to believe it but if they can pull it off, good on them. I won’t go into Detroit as a MLS market right now but it is good to see other places at least trying right now with stadiums in place and at least some kind of plan. They may not be sexy as other cities to expand to but down the road if this project gets done it may not be the worst idea.

One final thought, would the club be called Detroit FC? The image has ‘DFC’ in the stands. Very interesting.

According to MLive.com, Triple Sports & Entertainment, the new owners of the Silverdome, have plans to bring a Major League Soccer expansion team to the newly-resurrected facility.

Triple Sports and Entertainment, the owners of the Silverdome, have taken the next formal step toward acquiring an expansion team by submitting an application to MLS with the goal of fielding a team in the next few years. However, they will have to get in line as bringing a second franchise to the New York market is currently front and center according to MLS officials.

“We’re in discussions with the league, and we’ve met several times,” said Steve Apostolopoulos, the director of sports at the Silverdome. “There is a process that potential ownership has to follow and we’re very happy with how things are progressing.”

“MLS is aware of the interest from the Apostolopoulos family in securing an MLS team in Detroit,” MLS spokesperson Will Kuhns said in an e-mail. “The League maintains its current focus on New York as a possible home for the 20th team.”

The article also mentions that the league looks for four items in their expansion process: (1) Committed long-term ownership with deep pockets, (2) Approved plan to build a soccer-specific stadium where the team would control revenue streams such as parking and concessions, (3) A healthy media market and (4) A strong soccer fanbase.

Apparently this group in Detroit covers the first three just fine. The last item will be discovered a bit more tonight.

Of course this all still means that the Silverdome needs a little work done to it to become MLS-ready. At 80,000 seats, its far too large for a MLS team. The Apostolopoulos family still hope to renovate the Silverdome into a three-section facility. The soccer part of that would only host 30,000 fans. A pretty big number if you ask me.

I still believe Detroit is a solid market for MLS to look at though. They’ve always supported sports very well there and would do the same for MLS. I know it isn’t a sexy market but sometimes you can’t be sexy at these things. You have to be realistic. If they’re able to work out the stadium stuff and get the proper amount of fans on board then it certainly can work there.

It isn't a sexy option but if things line up it wouldn't be the worst one.

It is Friday, and I’ll admit, my brain is going in 20 different directions at the moment with work, FCD’s game tonight, life, and other items. But I saw this link and it got me thinking about a potential MLS market that I really haven’t touched a whole lot on in the past and that is Detroit.

I believe the few comments I’ve made over the last couple years on Detroit is, “nope”, “not anytime soon”, and “they’re kidding, right?”.

Most of that remains the same as right now the Motor City has no potential ownership group stepping out to claim that they are interested in a MLS team. Sure the group that bought the Silverdome a couple years ago said they wanted a MLS team there but I highly doubt they’ll have the big league cash to get it done without brining in other investors.

Then the stadium issue is still there, do we really want to see games at a half-empty (or mostly empty) Silverdome? I know I don’t want that. Maybe if they can configure the Silverdome into a smaller venue the way BC Place is getting renovated up in Vancouver then I’ll be more on board with it. They don’t need a retractable roof like Vancouver but they definitely need something smaller to attract better attention from Don Garber and the rest of the league.

The thing is, I will agree with the article in the fact that Detroit is a good sports market. Even with tough times in the Motor City, fans still support their teams. I do believe MLS would be no different there as well. If you have ever been to Detroit or know people from that area, you’ll know well enough that they love all sports. So the whole, competing for attention in that town doesn’t worry me nearly as much as it does in other potential markets.

Another positive thing going for the area is the youth soccer movement. The Michigan Bucks of the PDL have done very well over the last couple years and in the college ranks the University of Michigan is starting to put together a top flight program. So developing an academy system there shouldn’t be a problem as there are plenty of quality soccer players coming out of Michigan these days.

Last and certainly not least is the rivalry factor. A Detroit team is perfectly located to be a natural rival to Columbus, Chicago, and Toronto. The first two teams need more natural rivals while you know Toronto would bring fans to their games in Detroit.

Is Detroit a perfect city for MLS? Not right now, but it is certainly looking more appealing than I thought it initially would. I know it isn’t a “sexy” choice for an expansion team but put some biased opinions of Detroit aside and look at some of the facts brought up in that article, you may be surprised. Fans will want a team in the Southeast before a team in Detroit and I get that, and for the most part I agree with that thought. But you can’t tell me if a big investor came in and said they’d pony up the cash for an expansion team and make the right improvement to the Silverdome that the league wouldn’t jump all over it the same day.

Garber sees growth in MLS. (Getty Images)

I’ve spent a good portion of the day collecting my thoughts on a couple subjects and then it happen to be the same day that MLS commish Don Garber had his State of the League address. Yeah, let’s just say some of his comments just made my head go nuts (and your’s too judging by some emails).

For a full rundown of comments made by Garber head over to the Soccer Insider blog for lots of good quotes. Anytime The Don speaks we seem to listen and then discuss at length.

One big item that got a lot of people going loco today was the comment made about a single table format. Basically Garber bluntly told people to it’s not gonna happen next year so shut up. While I think the idea of single table is the right step for the league down the road I totally agree with not doing it next year.

The only thing I do disagree is not going to a single table format for the playoffs. What I mean by that is the league should restructure the current format to include the top eight clubs no matter the conference and get rid of the eastern and western conferences for playoff purposes. Keep the conferences for schedules and what not but let’s get rid of them for the playoffs. Basically I am tired like some of you of seeing a team from New York win the western conference and a team from Salt Lake win the eastern conference. What is this Major League Baseball 1992?

Garber also had a nice mention of future expansion to Montreal. That’s news we already knew right?

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Houston Stadium Update

Link

Cross your fingers folks because things in Houston surrounding their stadium is getting dicey because of the Mayor race. One is for the stadium issue and one is (almost without saying it) against it from the way I read things. For all of the league we gotta hope this deal goes through and the Dynamo are in a new stadium in a couple seasons.

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Detroit Stadium Sold…Soccer Team On The Way?

Link

We know MLS doesn’t know where the 20th club will be located in a couple years but don’t count on Detroit. While this news speculates a new soccer team is part of the deal to by the Silverdome don’t jump on the MLS bandwagon just yet. Seriously, don’t do it.

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Wynalda Regreats MLS Time?

Link

So he wasn’t happy about his time with Major League Soccer. Should we be shocked by this comment by Eric Wynalda? I don’t think so because he typically has these foot-in-mouth moments.

Evening Links and Thoughts appear on WVHooligan typically each day (Monday – Friday). We try to cover topics that surround MLS, the US national team and other items that are of interest. If you have a link for the ELT send them in!