On January 8, 2011 MLS Commissioner Don Garber met one to one with soccer fans at the Marriot Harbor Beach Hotel in Fort Lauderdale. He shared his valid concerns about the South Florida market: Garber said “Miami needs to change its reputation as a market that believes in professional soccer, I’m telling you as a guy who’s sitting in New York and promoting soccer matches, we worry about this market. This is a risky market for international soccer. There is no reason why it should be.”
Well, South Florida has answered Garber’s call. We have done everything he asked us to do.
18,000+ fans came out for the two Gold Cup games At FIU Stadium in Miami.
The Fort Lauderdale Strikers attendance averaged 4,000 per game at Lockhart Stadium and made it to the final of the NASL (Div 2).
The Barcelona and Chivas de Guadalajara game at Sun Life Stadium had the largest attended soccer game in Florida history 70,080 came out to see the game on a Wednesday night.
Over 21,000 showed up during a rain storm to watch the United States v Honduras October 8, 2011 at Sun Life Stadium. We had better attendance than NYC and Los Angeles (Two Major League soccer cities) for a USMNT game.
Mr Garber, South Florida has responded. We’re more than ready to support an MLS team. Second team in NYC… really? Orlando? Not a big enough market. You know the Southeast needs to have an MLS presence and Miami is a top Market MLS can’t continue to ignore. Vamos, bring us MLS. We’d love for it to be the Strikers!
For more pictures and videos of the meeting be sure to go HERE
Also check out the meeting from Burrito the soccer dogs view by going HERE
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orlando a small market? cant be muhc smaller then portland
Austin Aztecs go creeping to Florida.DisneylandFC!
Ed,
I think that Garber wants to see if all this good stuff continues for a few more years before a decision is made about Miami/South Florida. I also firmly believe that he wants to see the kind, gentle folks in
Miami-Dade committed to local soccer more than they are before he sees the area as a viable member of MLS.
All this means that we fans, especially the Ultras & F-19, have our work cut out for us for years to come in order to secure the support that MLS seeks.
Its obvious that we need a soccer team in south Florida. I would like to see a team grow once again to give us the happiness and show the world that South Florida exist in a high level cause we are no lower than that. I wish they will give us an opportunity.
I have to agree with Antique on this. 70k people to watch Barcelona is just that 70k people that went to watch Barcelona. Is there a market here? Definitely. Is MLS-worthy? Hardly. I say for the 2012 season we lay off the MLS stuff and focus on an excellent team that we already have. The Strikers play for us and I can’t help but feel that they must believe that they’re not good enough for us. How would you feel if you played for a city and the fans just kept screaming about bringing another team in. Apart from the other clubs we support in our lives the one thing we have here are the Strikers.