The race to become MLS's 20th team was already pretty hot, with Las Vegas, Minnesota and Orlando already formally expressing interest in an attempt to convince the league to go somewhere other than New York. Go ahead and add Detroit to list of possible MLS expansion cities, as the owners of the Silverdome are apparently treating Tuesday's United States-Canada Gold Cup match as a preview of what could be.
MLS Expansion: Detroit Latest City To Throw Hat Into Ring
The efforts to secure a team are built around the idea of repurposing the Silverdome into a 30,000-seat outdoor soccer-specific stadium. The field would essentially be the top floor of a larger facility that would also include a convention center.
As a fan of the league, Detroit is also a relatively untested soccer market. No top division team has played their since 1980 when the Detroit Express of the original NASL last played there and national team attendance is not exactly a great indicator of longer term support of club soccer.
Give the Apostolopoulos family an "A" for creativity on this, but it's still pretty hard to see how Detroit could muscle their way to the front of the line. MLS officials have not exactly been hiding their desire to add a second team in New York, and it's hard not to see their soft courting of these other cities as a way to simply drive up the expansion fee, rumored to be approaching $100 million.
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