A brand new report says Main League Soccer (MLS) is seeking to transfer the Whitecaps out of Vancouver.
The Athletic printed a narrative on Monday saying MLS has advised homeowners across the league that it’s exploring relocating the group, with Las Vegas being the highest candidate for the brand new market.
The story didn’t embrace a timeline for the transfer.
Neither MLS nor the Whitecaps instantly responded to a request for remark Monday.
Vancouver’s present possession group — together with Greg Kerfoot, Steve Luczo, Jeff Mallett and former NBA star Steve Nash — introduced the group was up on the market in December 2024 and repeatedly mentioned the precedence was conserving the Whitecaps in Vancouver. The asking value was not publicly launched.
MLS’s newest growth membership, San Diego FC — which started play final season — reportedly paid a US$500 million payment to hitch the league.
Toronto paid a $10 million growth payment when it grew to become a part of the league in 2007. Vancouver reportedly paid $40 million to hitch 4 years later.
Las Vegas is at the moment house to the Las Vegas Lights, a USL Championship group owned by former Toronto Blue Jay Jose Bautista.
The report comes days after 1000’s of Whitecaps followers used indicators and chants to precise their assist for the membership.
A sold-out crowd of 27,589 folks watched the ‘Caps down the Colorado Rapids 3-1 on Saturday, packing B.C. Place for Vancouver’s closing house sport forward of this summer time’s FIFA World Cup.
Tons of of individuals marched to the stadium behind an enormous banner studying “Save the Caps.”
As soon as inside, greater than 2,000 followers held indicators with the identical “Save the Caps” message as gamers walked out onto the sector.
The paper indicators have been positioned by Vancouver’s supporters teams earlier than the sport.
Others introduced their very own visible messages of assist, together with an enormous banner studying “We are going to battle for our membership and we are going to win” subsequent to a picture of a fist.
Chants of “Save the Caps!” additionally rang out by the stadium after Ema Lake sang the American and Canadian nationwide anthems.
“We hear what’s happening, however on the finish of the day, that’s not in our management,” striker Brian White mentioned after the sport. “We love enjoying in Vancouver, we love the followers. However all that stuff is as much as powers which might be out of our management.”
The gamers are all centered on successful, not what’s taking place behind the scenes, mentioned defender Tristan Blackmon.
“We’ve identified for a short while now that the group is up on the market. However our job on the finish of the day is to get outcomes on the pitch,” he mentioned. “We don’t have that a lot of an affect on what goes on large image when it comes to the place the group goes, if it stays. All we will do as gamers is placed on good performances like we did tonight.
“Probably the most we will do as gamers is attempt to characterize the group and all people who comes out right here very well. So we’re going to maintain on attempting to try this.”
The ‘Caps at the moment sit second within the MLS standings with an 8-1-0 file and are coming off their most profitable season within the league.
Final 12 months, Vancouver was topped Western Convention champions earlier than falling to Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami within the championship sport.
Regardless of the on-field success, the Whitecaps nonetheless sat on the backside of the league in group income, trailing golf equipment in the course of the standings by US$40 million, CEO Axel Schuster mentioned in February.
“We’re actually involved that, after such a profitable season, the hole is even changing into larger, that this in some unspecified time in the future won’t be manageable for us anymore,” he mentioned.
Schuster and MLS commissioner Don Garber mentioned late final 12 months that the membership’s lease at B.C. Place Stadium was not sustainable due to restricted scheduling flexibility and restricted income from meals and beverage gross sales.
The group signed a memorandum of understanding with the Metropolis of Vancouver in December over exploring the viability of constructing a brand new stadium on town’s jap edge, then agreed to a brand new, one-year cope with the Crown company that owns and operates B.C. Place in February.
Schuster mentioned on the time that the brand new lease didn’t clear up the Whitecaps’ long-term monetary viability points.
“To be clear, I feel it wants 25 to 30 extra of those little steps, or it wants a couple of large steps to actually get into protected water and to say ‘OK, now this membership will get into extra of the world of monetary stability and viability,’” he mentioned.
Initially a North American Soccer League group, the Whitecaps have been a part of Vancouver’s sports activities material since 1974.
The membership gained the NASL title in 1979 and, when gamers returned to Vancouver, about 100,000 folks lined Robson Road to cheer them on.
Kerfoot, a Vancouver entrepreneur, purchased the membership in 2002 when it was a USL First Division group, and was joined by the remainder of the possession group in 2008 with the intention of creating the ‘Caps an MLS group.
The Whitecaps performed their first sport within the new league in March 2011.
The membership has skilled a collection of highs and lows since.
Some outstanding Canadian nationwide gamers have come up by the ‘Caps academy system through the present possession group’s tenure.
Star left-back Alphonso Davies joined the residency program as a teen and broke by in MLS in 2016 at age 15 earlier than the Whitecaps transferred him to German powerhouse Bayern Munich in 2018.
The Whitecaps weathered a scandal in 2019 when allegations emerged {that a} former coach with each the ladies’s membership group and Canada’s under-20 ladies’s program had assaulted a number of gamers. Bob Birarda was handed a two-year sentence in November 2022 after he pled responsible to 3 counts of sexual assault and one rely of sexual touching involving 4 teenagers.
FIFA vice chairman Victor Montagliani has mentioned shifting the Whitecaps could be “a bruise” on town, particularly as Vancouver prepares to host seven World Cup video games this summer time.
“To lose an MLS membership on the again of the World Cup could be a capital crime, for my part,” he mentioned at a Vancouver Board of Commerce occasion final June.