Pro soccer coming to Detroit?
UPDATE of UPDATE:
Soccer Stadium on Failed Wayne County Jail Site Proposal is back in Play.
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UPDATE: Soccer Stadium at stalled county jail site dead?
Wayne County moves forward with Detroit jail project
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Preliminary agreement reached to bring a USL Pro [[3rd tier) team to Detroit. They would build a 5,000 seat stadium. Maybe Corktown? Cass Corridor? Near Motor City Casino? Exciting news and maybe one step closer to potential MLS expansion.
http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...vision-league#
I'm a huge soccer fan BUT.....
Don't mean to put a damper on this idea, but Detroit is way down on the list of MLS expansion. It would take a miracle to add a team in the next 5-10 years. Minnesota, Atlanta, LA and Miami are getting a team for sure. Even Sacramento and San Antonio are ahead of us when it comes to having actual ownership and stadium plan. St. Louis after losing the Rams are also in the mix by trying to use part of the tax money for the proposed NFL stadium to go towards a new soccer stadium.
St. Louis at one time being considered the hub of US soccer
https://lafc.com/stadium/
http://www.newstpaulstadium.com/
http://www.builtforsacramento.com/
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/loca...e68064887.html
http://www.sacurrent.com/Blogs/archi...on-to-28-teams
If it's gonna happen, first we would need a USL team [[which is division 3) and prove that we can support a pro soccer team. Detroit City FC has some good support, but they're basically an amateur team playing in the NPSL Great Lakes Conference against teams from Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo. Most of these teams play in high school football stadiums. Moving to another high school stadium in Hamtramck won't help their cause. Our only hope is to build an expandable 5,000 seat stadium for a USL team with ownership that has deep pockets and is truly committed to landing an MLS team down the road. DCFC ownership have already stated that they are not interest in that. They basically wanna continue as a semi-pro community team like FC United of Manchester, a club which was started by former Man United fans who were opposed to American ownership taking over their club.