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MLS expansion fees doubled in three years; Sacramento and St. Louis bids position the league for a 2020 media auction with 28-team scale.
29
to a league that fielded
10
clubs two decades ago
$200 million
expansion fee paid by Nashville SC in December 2017
$100 million
Minnesota United paid in 2015
Major League Soccer confirmed Thursday it will accept formal expansion applications from Sacramento and St. Louis, the final moves in a process that will add teams 28 and 29 to a league that fielded 10 clubs two decades ago. Commissioner Don Garber named both markets as the current frontrunners, with expansion committee presentations expected in coming months.
The announcement follows a $200 million expansion fee paid by Nashville SC in December 2017, double the $100 million Minnesota United paid in 2015. MLS has not yet disclosed the ask for Sacramento or St. Louis, but the trajectory suggests $250 million or higher. Miami's franchise, awarded to David Beckham in 2014 under a discounted $25 million option from his playing contract, remains the league's structural anomaly. The gap between Beckham's price and current bids now exceeds $175 million, a spread that tells the story of North American soccer's last ten years in one number.
Sacramento's bid is led by billionaire investor Ron Burkle, whose portfolio includes stakes in the Pittsburgh Penguins and a prior attempt to buy an MLS franchise in 2009. The city has operated a USL Championship side, Sacramento Republic FC, since 2014. Average attendance last season was 11,569, higher than four current MLS clubs. St. Louis brings a different asset: a downtown stadium plan already cleared by local government, with site prep underway. The stadium is budgeted at $250 million, privately financed, and designed for immediate MLS occupancy. The ownership group includes the Taylor family, founders of Enterprise Holdings, and Kavanaugh family members tied to World Wide Technology.
For MLS, the expansion math has shifted from proving the sport works in America to extracting maximum value from scarcity. The league has stated 28 teams as its near-term ceiling, though Garber has left open the possibility of 30 or 32 in the long term. Each new franchise dilutes future expansion revenue but adds a share of the league's central media deals, which currently run through 2022. The next media cycle is the real event. A 28-team league with clubs in St. Louis and Sacramento—markets ranked 21st and 20th by metro GDP respectively—gives negotiators two more time zones and two more local ad inventories to sell against Apple, Amazon, and ESPN's streaming ambitions.
The immediate effect is financial pressure on the remaining bid cities. Phoenix, Detroit, Tampa, and San Diego have all expressed interest. None has Burkle's capital or St. Louis's stadium timeline. The league is expected to finalize Sacramento and St. Louis by mid-2019, leaving one or two expansion slots for a later phase. Franchise resale values will reflect the new floor: Minnesota United, purchased for $100 million in 2015, is now estimated by sports bankers at $300 million to $350 million, though no MLS team has sold at that level yet. Atlanta United, operational since 2017, is quietly valued north of $500 million by investors who have seen the club average over 50,000 attendance.
What to watch: Sacramento's formal presentation to the expansion committee is expected in Q1 2019, with St. Louis likely following in Q2. MLS has historically bundled expansion announcements in pairs to avoid the appearance of a single city setting the price. The next media rights auction begins in late 2020, and the league will want both clubs operational—or at least ceremonially launched—before that process starts. Burkle's other sports holdings make him a probable board-level operator, which matters in a league where owners vote on major decisions, including further expansion.
The fee is the headline. The timeline is the tell. MLS wants both clubs playing by 2022, the year the current TV deal expires and the year the North American World Cup bid decision lands. The league that once begged cities to take teams now has billionaires lining up to write nine-figure checks. The people who said it would never work are no longer in the meetings.
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