The Big Chill - you can buy Whitecaps season tickets for $400. That is INSANELY good value for that product. I'm going to make it out there 2-3 times this year - such good value and such great fun.
MLS is only getting bigger and bigger, and it's gaining alot of credibility around the soccer world. Beckham, Keane, Boyd, Donovan, Henry... their presence attests to this.
As for the stadium, I'm not sure you need to spend copious amounts of money for a decent soccer facility at this time (although you would for a stadium to include a football team franchise). Here's my logic:
My firm is currently designing the new Calgary Soccer Centre, and it's value is apprx. $9M. It contains 4 indoor soccer fields, lots of room and peripheral space and is a pre-fabricated structure.
I'm not a huge fan of pre-fabs, but you could concieveably get a regular soccer pitch, surrounded with 4k -5k seats around it for, let's be on the high end for argument's sake... $30-40 M.
$30-40 M is not that much money for a sports facility (to put it into perspective, the new Rec Centres in Calgary will be apprx. $100 million each). You could plunk an NASL franchise in there, and you could rent that space out completely throughout the summer and winter when the team is not playing. Soccer demand for space - and GOOD space - is high in this city. That facility would be packed year round.
Attach a restuarant in there, and conference space to rent out, and you've got yourself a multi-purpose sports facility.
IMO, putting an NASL franchise in a roofed facility like this would give us a fairly accurate read on how viable MLS could be one day in the future.
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