Back in December, amid threats by MLS to move the Vancouver Whitecaps if they didn’t get a new stadium, the city of Vancouver agreed to a memorandum of understanding to open talks on the team owners building one in exchange for getting a cut-rate price on public land. Those talks must not be going well, because MLS owners have now gone and held a committee meeting on moving the Whitecaps, then leaked word about it to The Athletic:
A special committee of Major League Soccer owners met earlier this month to discuss and evaluate the future of the Vancouver Whitecaps, including the possibility of relocation, sources briefed on the conversations told The Athletic.
A move to Las Vegas was the chief option discussed at the meeting, according to the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly. MLS has had discussions with a group looking to bring a team to the market, the sources said.
This is slightly off-brand for MLS, which in recent years has largely focused on handing out expansion teams like candy: six new teams in the last six years, 12 in the last 12. (MLS commissioner Don Garber said in 2024 that the latest new team, San Diego F.C., would be “the end of expansion for a period of time until we’re ready to expand again” but then also said “we would strongly consider expanding beyond the 30 teams that we have now” if “there’s a good market for us to expand in and that market makes sense with the right owner and the right stadium plan,” so who the hell knows what if anything he really meant there.) And this, the Athletic reports, could represent a stumbling block to moving the Whitecaps, as MLS owners would want to get a cut of any sale price in lieu of an expansion fee — likely meaning a relocation fee on top of whatever the current Whitecaps owners would get, which would cut into how much cash they would take home from a sale.
Whether a move threat is realistic, though, is almost beside the point if you just want to use it to shake down an existing host city for stadium dollars, which appears to be goal #1 here. Whether it’ll work is unclear: Some panicked Whitecaps fans are already blaming NIMBYs and local government for the team’s presumed imminent demise, while others counter, “that’s not true at all, it’s mainly down to greed.” It’s still unclear how Vancouver elected officials will respond to the Las Vegas threat, not to mention whether MLS owners would actually pull the trigger on a move to an increasingly crowded small sports market if they don’t get what they want; stay tuned.
The other “owners” want that relocation fee. The MLS Ponzi scheme always needs cash to justify itself.
There’s no interested Vancouver ownership groups because MLS is a scam, a price is going to be grossly inflated because the “league” has to justify its insane expansion fees over the past decade. The current Whitecaps can’t make the money other clubs are making because they have a kinda crappy lease at BC Palace and there’s really no scenario where building a new stadium makes any sense for the various government entities, the current “owners” or the hypothetical future “owners”.
So I guess the big question is: Could a hypothetical Vegas owner get a hypothetical Vegas lease at a hypothetical Vegas stadium that would be lucrative enough to increase revenues while still paying off a hypothetical Vegas purchase price plus relocation fee?
Hypothetically.
This can easily be read as MLS hedging against the possibility that there are no more suckers coming to pump up its pyramid scheme even further, and wanting to introduce a “stalking horse” (or even just the appearance of one) to try and scare the existing MLS markets into building them newer, shinier venues.
That these mostly 20-25k capacity stadiums have little utility beyond soccer, and are, at best, cannibalizing events from other venues in their cities/metros, is beside the point. If they can get just one other city to claim that it’s interested in building one, that can keep the grift going for years and years.
The only hypothetical Vegas stadium in the short term would be Allegiant and the Raiders likely want nothing to do with that unless Davis is the hypothetical owner.
The funny move here would be a hypothetical owner who builds a hypothetical 25,000 dome-ish stadium that directly competes with the A’s stadium for all the hypothetical events Fisher is promising.
Thing is… Even if they move to Las Vegas, where would they play while they get a new stadium built? Allegiant would have the problems of availability during the Raiders season in the fall and although there’s a kajillion entertainment venues in Las Vegas, some acts like it for the size alone. It’s where they will be, of course, but what about Open Cup and League games where demand is miniscule?
Sam Boyd? Condemned.
Cashman? Don’t make me laugh.
Ironically, we may see other cities used as bartering chips like Greensboro but Las Vegas has become the new Los Angeles as the threat destination.
Selfishly, I’d love for the Whitecaps to be sold and move to Indianapolis as I’m personally tired of Ersal Ozdemir treating the city like his own fiefdom and putting on a below average squad every year that barely misses the playoffs (which would then result in MLS doing an about-face and being forced to put *another* team in Vancouver), but then we’d be back to square one with the “jilted ex-lover” quarrel only they have the backing of the entire Indiana Republican Party on their side.
Cashman Field works as a soccer stadium as the home of the Las Vegas Lights!
Um… the Lights are leaving Cashman at the end of the season. The city wants to redevelop the property into housing, and even then, it wasn’t exactly a great pitch (remember the XFL’s Vegas Vipers?), which means as soon as the season’s over, developers are going to be chomping at the bit in turning the old ballpark into apartments.
https://lvsportsbiz.com/2026/01/21/las-vegas-city-council-wedneday-changes-use-of-cashman-site-to-residential-to-allow-lennar-to-build-home-development/
Sam Boyd Stadium is closed, but it hasn’t been torn down yet. Maybe the Lights can use it for a season or two until they find a more permanent home?
Only if they call themselves the Las Vegas Posse
I know this is mostly about Vancouver, but I don’t think enough is being said about how Las Vegas is becoming completely oversaturated as a pro sports market.
Even two teams in the present might be pushing it a little bit, considering the small population size (roughly the same as Nashville) and the comparatively poor economy (lowest median income among the 50 largest metro areas in the US). Potentially adding two more “major” teams, and an MLS franchise on top of that, is going to take the city well beyond its carrying capacity.
And yes, tourism is an argument that so many people turn to when it comes to Las Vegas… just like it is here in Orlando, another city sustained almost entirely on tourism — and which comes in at 49th out of 50 in the above-referenced ranking of US median incomes — yet where regular-season NBA and MLS games are routinely played to crowds below capacity. The idea that entire “major” sports franchises can be propped up by ticket sales to largely visiting fans (or just tourists, period) is not supported by any semblance of history or track record, even in cities that are built on that industry.
I did say “increasingly crowded small sports market.” In the year 2026, five words is the equivalent of an entire investigative series last century!
(But I do want to look at Vegas oversaturation at some point. Maybe Global Sport Matters would be interested in … whoops, never mind: http://globalsportmatters.com/)
In terms of attendance, we have a decent sample size for what the Vegas market is. Locals attend the Golden Knights games, now the team has been good to great for its entire existence but ownership has valued winning, in the long term they will have earned some goodwill when the team is bad.
The Raiders play in Vegas but their attendance is driven by a season ticket base in California and tourists. This works because there’s not that many games.
We don’t have any idea what attendance will be like for an A’s team that might be competitive but with a cheap owner. Vegas residents haven’t become Raiders fans just because they play down the road. Vegas has a lot of baseball fans but they’re already following the Dodgers, Padres, Yankees, Giants etc. local Tv revenue will be minuscule because the market is so small (and poor). It’s unlikely anyone is changing loyalties, especially for a loser owner like Fisher when the Dodgers (the clear #1 team in Clark County) are at the apex of their success as a franchise.
An NBA expansion team probably does ok. Will definitely need some star power. The NBA is popular in Vegas although fan loyalties are strong with the Lakers and to a lesser degree the Warriors. The NBA now is just printing cash with their national tv deals, so local broadcasts don’t really mean anything. I think seats will be filled in a similar way to the Knights if the team has a likable star and engaged ownership.
When you throw in all the other sports options- yes Vegas will be oversaturated with all those A’s games and an NBA team. That being said there’s a lot of evidence that it won’t really affect the bottom lines of the knights, raiders or the hypothetical NBA team. The A’s will be the ones suffering.
Vegas is oversaturated and about to become even more oversaturated because these leagues are running out of places to overexpand.
Mission Accomplished!
They should become the Hartford Whalers