NBA or MLS? Louisville sees opportunity with MLS franchise

Louisville has spoken with a professional sports league about bringing a franchise to the Derby City. But, at least in the short term, it’s not the one you might think.

Mayor Greg Fischer’s officials have been in regular contact with Major League Soccer for “a while” to see what Louisville needs to do to position itself as an expansion candidate, according to Jeff Mosley, the city’s general counsel and former deputy chief for Louisville Forward, the city’s economic development arm.

Mosley said the city sees an opportunity with MLS because the league has publicly indicated its intention to expand. He added the talks are in the “discovery phase,” but said MLS has been “very responsive and very interested” in Louisville.

MLS spokesman Dan Courtemanche did not confirm a specific interest in Louisville, but told the Courier Journal that “many cities have contacted MLS during the last year regarding future expansion.”

The majority of those conversations, he said, were with cities that formally submitted bids for expansion in early 2017, a 12-city list that did not include Louisville.

Courtemanche previously said the MLS has been impressed with the city’s “passionate support for Louisville City FC.”

Read this: Despite owner comments, Louisville City FC ‘not prepared’ to bid for MLS

Mosley said he’s not aware if Louisville has had conversations with any other sports leagues. That includes the NBA, where there is a local grassroots effort led by basketball Hall of Famer Dan Issel pushing for a Louisville franchise.

“My understanding about the NBA is expansion is not on the table. Expansion is on the table in the MLS,” Mosley said.

See also: Louisville City FC roster tracker: Who’s leaving? Who’s coming back?

About the MLS opportunity

MLS has indicated it intends to expand to 28 teams in the next few years. The league sits at 23 teams and will grow to 26 by 2020 with franchises in Miami, Nashville and Cincinnati.

It remains unclear exactly how many more franchises will be added to the league roster, and Courtemanche said MLS “does not have a set timeline regarding the next expansion club announcement.”

“As it has been for the last 15 years, expansion will be an item on the agenda at the MLS Board of Governors meeting in New York on Dec. 13,” he said.

Louisville is not waiting on answers to every question before raising its hand, though.

Louisville City FC is a member of the United Soccer League — one step below MLS — and was founded in 2014 by Wayne Estopinal, who died in a plane crash Friday.

More: Here’s everything we know about the Southern Indiana plane crash

The franchise he envisioned now hasn’t ruled out a move to the higher ranks. LouCity representatives said last month the team has not been involved in talks with MLS, but it would be open to a move to the MLS, “if the opportunity presents itself.”

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MLS is undoubtedly keeping watch on what the local USL team is up to. Louisville City FC has won back-to-back USL championships. More critical to the expansion conversation, though, is the franchise’s 11,300-seat stadium project in the Butchertown neighborhood, set to open in March 2020.

The city is partially funding the Butchertown stadium project through a $30 million bond, which will mature to $42 million, the Courier Journal previously reported. The city paid $24.1 million for land for the development and will use the leftover bond money for infrastructure improvements.

Team spokesman Scott Stewart said the team is focused on that development, as well as “competing for a third-consecutive USL Cup.”

“There are a lot of viable markets for MLS, and this is completely dependent on the timeline,” Stewart said. “Without being in the heads of MLS executives, we don’t have the knowledge to say who they are targeting and when.”

Check out: Louisville native, ex-baseball player trades cleats for paintbrushes

Why does Louisville need an MLS team?

Mosley compared the difference between the USL and MLS to the difference between the Cincinnati Reds and the Louisville Bats, the Reds’ Triple-A affiliate.

“It’s just a different level of interest, a different level of marketing. It’s just all on a larger scale that we think we’re ready for, and we think fits a city of our stature,” Mosley said.

Louisville is among the largest cities in the United States without a franchise in the five major professional sports leagues — MLS, NBA, NFL, NHL and MLB.

Mosley said despite Louisville’s lower-than-expected TV market rating — 48th in the latest Nielsen rating — the city is trending up in a number of economic factors.

The Courier Journal previously reported the city’s GDP and jobless rates are trending positively but still trail peer cities such as Cincinnati, Nashville, Indianapolis and Columbus, all of which have professional teams.

Previously: Fans gather to celebrate Louisville City FC’s ‘season to remember’

How does Louisville stack up?

In his conversations with MLS, Mosley said the league indicated three key criteria it considers for prospective expansion: a successful team, a walkable downtown stadium and a majority investor.

He said Louisville has already met one of those criteria and is on track for another.

Louisville City FC has advanced to the USL’s Eastern Conference Final in each of the four seasons since it began play in 2015, and last month became the first team to win back-to-back USL Cups.

Louisville City FC averaged 7,890 fans at its primary home venue, Louisville Slugger Field, in 2018 in 20 regular-season and playoff games, according to announced attendance figures. That dipped 6.5 percent from last year’s average of 8,442 in 20 games. The 2018 total ranked fifth out of 33 teams in the USL, according to Soccer Stadium Digest.

As for the stadium, Mosley called the Butchertown site a “home run” because of its proximity to Waterfront Park, the Big Four Bridge, and restaurant-and-bar-filled neighborhoods such as NuLu.

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“It’s really the last tracts of land that are in Central Business District that were unused,” Mosley said, adding that the city is going to use the stadium to push to host international friendlies with professional European teams, as well as U.S. men’s and women’s soccer scrimmages.

He said the stadium gives Louisville a “competitive advantage” over other potential cities.

“I think it’s a great setting for soccer and for potentially an MLS team,” Mosley said.

One holdup is that MLS wants teams to have a minimum 22,000-seat stadium, Mosley said. The smallest stadium is San Jose Earthquakes’ Avaya Stadium, which seats 18,000.

According to Mosley, the Butchertown stadium is being built expansion-ready.

“In other words, we can add 10,000 seats pretty quickly within a year, 18 months, so we can meet that criteria should it become an issue,” he said.

The last of the criteria is the biggest. Louisville would need a “whale,” or “the really rich man or woman that can basically become the face of franchise,” Mosley said.

That owner would take over the stadium and would be responsible for the costs of expansion, Mosley said. When MLS added its last two teams — Cincinnati and Nashville — the two franchises were on the hook for $150 million.

Mosley said it would be great if that person came from the community, but “we’d be pretty crazy to limit ourselves to that.”

“If somebody wants to come in from outside that we vet and we really think is good for Louisville, we would certainly entertain that,” he said.

Read more: Louisville City FC coach gives us his 3 favorite moments from this season

What about the NBA?

The NBA has not publicly addressed expansion but, according to published reports, “it may not happen until 2025 at the earliest.”

The Dan Issel-led group, dubbed NBA2Lou, has been raising interest — and money — for an NBA franchise. It’s ramped up those efforts over the last year and has indicated it has raised $750,000 for startup costs and NBA league fees and has commitments of up to $3 million, if necessary.

For the first time ever, every NBA team was worth at least $1 billion, according to Forbes magazine’s 2018 analysis, with an average value of $1.65 billion.

In September, NBA2Lou held a rally, where it sold Kentucky Colonels gear and gave an update on their efforts. At that meeting, Issel said he doesn’t think the city would have trouble finding a majority investor to supplement local investors.

In November, he continued to dub it a “grassroots effort.”

“We just continue to do the things we said we’re going to do,” Issel said. “There’s no sense of urgency right now with no timetable on expansion. When the NBA says they’re going to expand, our goal has always been to be NBA-ready and continue to work toward that.”

Issel said he agrees that it makes sense for the city to focus on MLS in the short term — especially considering the soccer league has given a “go-forward statement” on expansion. He expects that when the NBA does that, it will have the city’s support.

You may like: An NBA team in Louisville? Not until the supply meets the demand

“When the time comes, they’re going to be very supportive,” Issel said. “It’s hard to get entities to do that when there is no timetable.”

Mosley agreed, saying, “if an opportunity comes up with the NBA, we’ll be focused on that.”

“I know there’s a really big push for an NBA team. We support all those efforts. We just think right now the MLS is an opportunity,” he said.

Previously: Despite owner comments, Louisville City FC ‘not prepared’ to bid for MLS

Justin Sayers: 502-582-4252; [email protected]; Twitter: @_JustinSayers. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courier-journal.com/justins.