{"id":11282,"date":"2017-11-29T18:41:10","date_gmt":"2017-11-29T23:41:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lwosonsoccer.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/?p=11282"},"modified":"2017-11-29T18:41:10","modified_gmt":"2017-11-29T23:41:10","slug":"finalists-mls-expansion-announced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/2017\/11\/29\/finalists-mls-expansion-announced\/","title":{"rendered":"2017 MLS Expansion Finalists Announced"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>New York, NY. (November 29, 2017)<\/strong> &#8211; Four locations have been named MLS expansion finalists. Cincinnati, Detroit, Nashville, and Sacramento are the finalists for the next two expansion spots.<\/p>\n<h2>2017 MLS Expansion Finalists Announced<\/h2>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Four finalists have been named for the next two MLS expansion teams.<\/p>\n<p>Owners and Officials representing Cincinnati, Detroit, Nashville and Sacramento will meet with the MLS Expansion Committee on Dec. 6. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/ceM7PThPse\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/ceM7PThPse<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/en6Jcsxf0y\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/en6Jcsxf0y<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Major League Soccer (@MLS) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MLS\/status\/935877011968577538?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">November 29, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The final four is as follows: <\/p>\n<p><strong>Cincinnati: Carl H. Lindner III<\/strong> \u2013 Co-CEO of American Financial Group and Owner, Chairman and CEO of FC Cincinnati; <strong>Scott Farmer<\/strong> &#8211; CEO of Cintas Corporation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Detroit: Dan Gilbert<\/strong> \u2013 Owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers and Founder and Chairman of Quicken Loans, Inc.; <strong>Tom Gores<\/strong> \u2013 Owner of the Detroit Pistons and Founder, Chairman and CEO of Platinum Equity.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Nashville: John Ingram<\/strong> \u2013 Chairman of Ingram Industries Inc. and CEO Nashville Soccer Holdings;          Wilf Family \u2013 owners of the Minnesota Vikings; <strong>Turner Family<\/strong> \u2013 Managing Partners of MarketStreet Enterprises.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sacramento: Kevin Nagle<\/strong> \u2013 Managing Partner of Sac Soccer &#038; Entertainment Holdings and Minority Owner of the Sacramento Kings. <strong>Jed York<\/strong> \u2013 CEO of the San Francisco Forty-Niners. <strong>Mark Friedman<\/strong> \u2013 President of Fulcrum Property Group and Minority Owner of the Sacramento Kings, and other limited partners.<\/p>\n<p>The four groups will present their cases for expansion on December 6th in New York City. The MLS Board of Governors will meet on December 14th to discuss the previous meeting. A decision is expected by the end of the season. MLS added that the other eight markets that applied- Charlotte, Indianapolis, Phoenix, Raleigh\/Durham, St. Louis, San Antonio, San Diego and Tampa\/St. Petersburg- are not out of the running for a future expansion spot.<br \/>\nNashville and Sacramento appear to be the frontrunners for the opportunity to join the league.<\/p>\n<p>Detroit&#8217;s bid to use the Detroit Lions\u2019 home, Ford Field, wasn&#8217;t a thrilling idea for the league. Even though Cincinnati finally got approval for funds from city council, it&#8217;s still unclear which of their three possible sites they&#8217;ll choose. However, Nashville and Sacramento already have solid stadium plans in place with the Sacramento group already preparing their location for construction.<\/p>\n<p>Next season Los Angeles FC will become the 23rd team in the league and expansion talks continue with David Beckham and his investment group about a team joining MLS in Miami. The league is continuing with their plans to expand to 28 teams in the coming year.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"L7dyZwALSKN2wjOPDs53eQ\" class=\"gie-single\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/824345928\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'L7dyZwALSKN2wjOPDs53eQ',sig:'lnZUEb3dBOia3RnIWRXiDmGyOfL1k6R2gUkOON2Hflc=',w:'594px',h:'296px',items:'824345928',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New York, NY. (November 29, 2017) &#8211; Four locations have been named MLS expansion finalists. Cincinnati, Detroit, Nashville, and Sacramento are the finalists for the next two expansion spots. 2017 MLS Expansion Finalists Announced Four finalists have been named for the next two MLS expansion teams. Owners and Officials representing Cincinnati, Detroit, Nashville and Sacramento [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2165,"featured_media":11302,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,119,68,3,26],"tags":[636,594,57,51,879,922],"class_list":["post-11282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-mls","category-mls-expansion","category-news","category-usl","tag-cincinnati","tag-detroit","tag-mls","tag-mls-expansion","tag-nashville","tag-sacramento"],"modified_by":"Matt Pollard","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11282\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}