Vancouver's new-look executive begins one-year countdown to entry into the MLS big league
By Bruce Constantineau
Even with the organization looking toward its future entry into Major League Soccer in 2011 the Vancouver Whitecaps will still be focused on player development and winning a championship in its final season of division 2 level soccer.
Even with the organization looking toward its future entry into Major League Soccer in 2011 the Vancouver Whitecaps will still be focused on player development and winning a championship in its final season of division 2 level soccer. Photograph by: Vic Bonderoff, Vancouver Sun, Vancouver Sun
The Major League Soccerbound Vancouver Whitecaps and Portland Timbers have a major league Seattle fixation this week.
More than 35,000 fans will pack Qwest Field tonight when the second-year MLS Sounders host the expansion Philadelphia Union to start the 2010 MLS season.
Whitecaps and Timbers players will watch the game in person before playing each other Friday in a pre-season friendly in Seattle.
Whitecaps executives will see the match at a viewing party for season ticket holders in Vancouver and the team will hold a rally this morning with guests such as MLS president Mark Abbott, B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell and Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson.
For the 'Caps and Timbers, the Sounders game marks the one-year countdown to their own MLS debut and both organizations say everything is on track for a successful transition to the big league.
Whitecaps president Bob Lenarduzzi said the club has clearly been proactive in hiring the right people for MLS -notably former D.C. United coach Tom Soehn as director of soccer operations and former Tottenham Hotspur executive director Paul Barber as chief executive officer.
Soehn has lived out of a suitcase for much of the past two months in a global search for talented young players while Barber arrived from England three weeks ago to help lead the organization to the next level.
The team sold 5,000 season ticket deposits in less than 48 hours last year after announcing it would join MLS in 2011 and the one-year countdown means it's time to rev up the marketing machine.
"We want people to know it's not that far way and we have a series of checkpoints along the way to add to that season ticket base number," Lenarduzzi said.
The unveiling of a new-look Whitecaps logo and jersey will likely coincide with the onset of World Cup soccer fever that will grip the city when the world's ultimate tournament begins in June. That will surely drive ticket sales as the club targets a first-year MLS season ticket base of 16,500.
Several companies are still interested in a sponsorship deal -potentially worth millions of dollars a year -that would splash their corporate logo on the front of the Whitecaps new jersey.
The Whitecaps signed seven new players in the off-season, some with MLS experience, and the club expects several current 'Caps will make the transition next year from USSF D-2 Pro League to MLS.
Head coach Teitur Thordarson, with extensive international coaching experience, remains a strong candidate to lead the team next year but the club might not make that decision until this fall.
The Whitecaps are working hard now to find a new location for a state-of-the-art training centre after a deal to build a $31-million facility in Delta collapsed in January. Four Metro Vancouver municipalities and the University of B.C. are interested in the proposal and the team expects to make a decision soon, although a new facility won't be ready for the start of MLS play next year.
The Whitecaps begin play next year in a temporary 27,500-seat stadium on the old Empire Stadium site before moving to a semi-permanent home in a renovated BC Place.
The team won't say how long it is committed to playing in BC Place, although earlier reports indicated it was for five years and an option for five more. But the Whitecaps website still extols the virtues of one day playing in its own soccer-specific stadium near the SeaBus terminal along the downtown Vancouver waterfront.
MLS commissioner Don Garber said this week he's not concerned about Vancouver having to play in two different home venues next year. The new Philadelphia franchise is doing a similar thing this year and the team will essentially be road warriors for the first half of the season, playing 13 of its 15 home games in the last four months of the season after the new stadium is finished.
"It's part of the story and part of the intrigue but I'm not worried about it," Garber said in a media conference call.
"You'd always like to start with a hard opening [at the start of the season] but you're not always able to do that."
Portland Timbers owner Merritt Paulson said a $31-million renovation of PGE Park will be completed by the time the 2011 MLS season starts next March. The project will add 4,000 seats to increase the stadium's soccer capacity to 20,000, with the opportunity to add 4,000 more seats for big events.
"It's a big step to move to major league but we're in terrific shape," Paulson said. "Like Vancouver, we have the advantage of coming in with an existing staff, which was also a real positive for Seattle."
The Timbers have sold more than 5,000 MLS season tickets so far and the club will also unveil a new playing kit and jersey sponsor later this year. Paulson said the jersey deal is "unquestionably" worth more than $1 million a year.
"The prospects for Vancouver and Portland are unusually good [for sponsorship deals]," he said. "We're on a real hotbed of soccer and I think this Pacific Northwest region will be the real epicentre for the sport in North America."
Paulson said his club has brought in several "high-risk, high-reward" type of players this year and the 2010 season gives team officials the luxury of seeing how they work out.
"But what we and Vancouver have to manage is making sure players aren't looking at 2010 as an individual tryout," he said. "This is still about team and this is still about winning."
bconstantineau@vancouversun.com © Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
