As MLS closes in on adding Las Vegas, Sacramento Republic faces long wait to move up
As Las Vegas solidifies as the location for the MLS’ next expansion team, Sacramento’s hopes have found little traction after lead investor Ron Burkle backed out of a deal last February that would have built a new soccer stadium in the Railyards just north of downtown.
According to two sources with knowledge of the situation, the city and Sacramento Republic FC are still searching for an investor to take on the roughly $600 million endeavor covering stadium costs and the expansion fee to join MLS. But no deal is close and the team faces a long wait to ever move up to the premier soccer league in the United States.
Las Vegas is expected to become the 30th team to join the MLS, commissioner Don Garber said this week, after expansion teams in St. Louis and Charlotte join the league in 2022 and 2023, respectively. The league has grown from 10 teams in 2004 to 27 clubs.
The 29th spot was Sacramento’s place. In the fall of 2019, the league held a big announcement at The Bank in downtown Sacramento, with Garber working the crowd and Burkle on stage grinning. The team’s logo was added to the MLS website.
When Burkle backed out, Republic FC and current owner Kegin Nagle were essentially sent back to square one. Finding a billionaire investor is the top priority and biggest impediment towards Sacramento joining the North America’s top soccer league.
Sacramento was vetted by the league and is appealing because of the “turnkey” nature of the stadium plan. There’s also been support from civic leaders, including Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, and strong commercial partnerships ready to support a team once an investor is in place.
“All of the elements it takes to get this done (with the exception of having a principal investor) have been negotiated and agreed to,” Steinberg said in the spring.
Turnkey stadium deal
The entitlements to build a stadium and the environmental review have been completed. The City Council voted 7-0 to approve a term sheet with Sacramento Republic FC that would have provided $33 million fee waivers, tax rebates, advertising rights and infrastructure at the Railyards site.
With many key details sorted, the team and Steinberg were initially hopeful they could quickly move back into MLS’ good graces. At a spring news conference to celebrate the renaming of Sacramento Republic’s existing stadium at Cal Expo, Steinberg riled the crowd up by inferring the team would again be headed to MLS by the end of the year.
“As I look at the year ahead, I hope and I am hopeful that today will be the second-biggest soccer announcement we make in this city,” he said.
That hope has not been met by results.
Sacramento Republic made noise in late August when it hired former state Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez to help the club find a new lead investor.
“Every day, we’re continuing down the path, moving closer by connecting with potential investors, engaging with the Commissioner’s Office, and coordinating with our partners at the city and beyond. This city, its fans, and our plan remain unmatched and ready to go – and with the right investor, we’ll be an essential element in the growth of MLS and soccer in America,” Nagle said in an August news release.
Burkle, who bought Michael Jackson’s Neverland ranch for $22 million shortly before backing out of the deal, faces a pair of lawsuits related to the Railyards stadium, as contractors spent money to prepare the area for the venue.
Future MLS expansion
Sacramento Republic’s hope of joining MLS might not die if Las Vegas is added as the 30th team. The NBA, NHL and NFL all have 32 teams, after all. And Garber said in 2019, “32 teams will happen at some point but it is not happening any time soon.”
Garber, speaking at a yearly state-of-the-league address on Tuesday, indicated MLS expansion beyond 30 teams isn’t on the horizon, but he didn’t rule it out Sacramento eventually getting in the league. But if not now, it could be a long wait.
“We don’t have any plans to expand beyond the 30 teams at this point,” Garber said. “But like everything else, life is a long time. I don’t know what professional soccer is going to look like 10 years from now or 20 years from now and how many divisions there will be and what our league will look like or what the other leagues will look like. ... What I will say is we’re very bullish about the professional game and I think there’s lots of opportunity for us all.”
Las Vegas, despite being about the same size as the Sacramento area and a smaller media market, has boomed with professional sports teams because of its huge tourism industry and a willingness to pay for new stadiums with public funding.
Since 2017, Las Vegas has joined the NHL (Golden Knights), WNBA (Aces) and the NFL, with the Raiders’ move from Oakland before the 2020 season. The Athletics of Major League Baseball have flirted with the idea of moving to Las Vegas if they cannot build a new stadium at Howard Terminal near downtown Oakland. The team last week bought a parcel of land in Las Vegas to possibly build a stadium there.
Sacramento, meanwhile, hosts the Sacramento Kings and the Triple-A River Cats of the Pacific Coast League, the top farm affiliate to the San Francisco Giants. Sacramento doesn’t have as many businesses that generate the type of wealth it would take to take to own an MLS team, making it more difficult to find an investor. It’s also a problem for teams trying to sell sky boxes to wealthy corporations and sponsorship deals. Any new team in the Sacramento area threatens a business ecosystem that’s small relative to other comparable metro areas.
Those obstacles existed before Burkle backed out. Now Sacramento Republic must thread the needle again, but the clock is ticking and Las Vegas appears ready to bump the team back to the waiting list yet again.
This story was originally published December 12, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
