No such pessimism from Real Salt Lake owner Dave Checketts, who is understandably buoyant in a week when his club opened its soccer specific stadium in the Salt Lake suburb of Sandy. He is also forecasting a bright future for Major League Soccer, and told John Mantia that in five to 10 years he expects to see “a very strong league with 15, 16 soccer-specific stadiums in major markets.”
He described the idea of a New York team in Flushing, Queens as “very interesting, because I love New York and New York loves soccer.” Overall, he said he expects 20-24 teams in a decade’s time, “and franchises worth a couple hundred million dollars.” At the same time, when he next sits down with his league partners “we need to talk about expansion: not to expand too fast, but expand appropriate to the level of interest. I think all of the owners want to be really careful that we welcome very strong franchises capable of carrying their own weight.”
Top of the agenda at that discussion for Checketts, however, will be the schedule, which he said is “always a difficult issues because of international play. It will be especially difficult in the run-up to the 2010 World Cup. When some teams lose 5 or 6 players, crucial players, playing scheduled games is very tough. I know the commissioner [Don Garber] is thinking about that, and I certainly am as well.” He added that player compensation and the Designated Player rules will also need to be addressed in the offseason.