Quote: pandamonium " Wolfpack have done the hard yards and taken ridiculous amounts of stick (*cough this forum for one cough*).'"
Wrong.
Toronto have done nothing....ARGYLE and his other money men have given away shed loads of tickets, run beer festivals and totally given up on the idea of developing players in exchange for piggy-backing on the Union set up.......
.....I'll repeat this until it sinks in. The London Monarchs averaged 40k in year one, delivered not a lot else and vanished up their own 'arrises pretty quickly....the only difference is that they were owned by the sport and the sport soon tired of investing.
Argyle won't get 2 mill next year from SKY, will not pay to fly wigan/leeds et al out to Toronto, won't get the 8 "home" games on the trot at the seasons start.....SL owners will expect a TV deal and US TV execs won't pay to film a 9k attended beer festival....Argyle pays for the TV coverage now and that ain't going to change, even with NYC/Hamilton/Boston/Florida etc.......
....look at the history of soccer in the USA. The 2 main things that have got it to where it is now are a/ The hispanic audience making USA 94 a success and b/ Mums not wanting their kids to play contact sports.....Rugby League/Rugby Union....both are doomed to fail in North America because neither are TV friendly or soccer mom friendly.
I would love London, Toronto, Toulouse, Belgrade......or any other pin-drop location to be in SL, but the only way it'll happen is if the broadcast partner pays for it.....like Melbourne Storm.