Remember the year 2005?

The drive to bring Major League Soccer to San Antonio officially got underway Friday as San Antonio Mayor Ed Garza kicked off the effort to secure 5,000 season ticket commitments in 100 days (Aug. 17, 2005).

The season ticket commitments comprise one of three measures the city must take to obtain an MLS team that would begin play at the Alamodome as early as the start of the 2006 season. The other measures are securing an ownership group and finalizing plans for constructing a state-of-the-art training complex, complete with youth fields.

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Remember 2005 a little better now?

The above excerpt was from an article originally published on Major League Soccer’s website 4 years ago. I remember being on that web page, excited for my hometown while living in Houston, Texas.  As a result of then Mayor Ed Garza’s efforts, the ball was finally rolling and things were on track for San Antonio to be the second Texas team in Major League Soccer. The Alamodome would finally have a tenant roughly 4 years after the San Antonio Spurs played their last ball game there.  However, here we are today, 7 years without a team who can call the Dome home.

I know. I know. That will change in a few years, when the UTSA Roadrunner football team will play its first ever home game. Regardless, Mayor Ed Garza was on his way out, with Phil Hardberger slated to take over. Two months later …

…incoming mayor Phil Hardberger said at a news conference that the proposed deal with MLS didn’t make financial sense for the city.

“Goodbye. That’s what I would tell MLS,” Hardberger said.

But MLS officials said goodbye first in a terse letter to outgoing Mayor Ed Garza, a strong proponent of bringing pro soccer to the Alamodome.

The letter, signed by MLS Commissioner Don Garber, said the work of Garza and league officials was undercut by politically driven criticisms that didn’t take into consideration the benefits to the city.

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And that was that.  San Antonio’s last real opportunity to step into the world of professional soccer ended with a blink of an eye.

“This has been changed at the 12th hour due to politics, and it is appalling,” Garber later said in an interview with the San Antonio Express-News.

The letter said the criticisms impeded the effort to sell 5,000 season tickets or recruit local investors, two requirements MLS had set for granting a team in 2006.

San Antonio would have been awarded their second top level sports franchise by pursuing Major League Soccer the proper way and for the cheap. On the flip side, the entire sports nation witnessed Mayor Hardberger and other local officials failed attempt to “steal” an NFL franchise from the City of New Orleans as it was trying to recover from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. I digress.

With Mayor Hardberger now out, Julian Castro in, would Major League Soccer even look back in San Antonio’s direction?

In 2011, 18 teams will take the field compared to 12 teams in 2006 when San Antonio would have fielded a team. On top of that fact MLS has been expanding at a faster than normal rate, soccer specific stadia are being built or in the planning stages of being built all across the country.  With that said, the bar is set significantly higher (as well as the price) to get into Major League Soccer this time around.

Major League Soccer may (if the stars are properly aligned) or may not take a look, but does that mean professional soccer is dead in San Antonio? With the Austin Aztex in it’s first season in the USL-1 (United Soccer Leagues) , San Antonio is the only major city in Texas without a professional soccer club.

If San Antonio is to have another opportunity at professional soccer, there will be a need to have a strong ownership group and a willingness to help secure a stadium (preferably soccer specific) for a future club.

If another opportunity does arrive again, be it MLS or USL, hopefully new city leadership under Mayor Julian Castro will see the benefits this time around.

A while back, we published an open letter to MLS Commissioner Don Garber. We will republished it soon followed by a new Open Letter to Mayor Julian Castro.

-Victory or Death -

Tags: 2005, Ed Garza, Julian Castro, Major League Soccer, Phil Hardberger, San Antonio, Soccer, United Soccer Leagues