We want to first congratulate you on the job you have done thus far in creating a truly wonderful league. As supporters of the MLS, we see improvement in the quality of play, fan experience, and overall value. 

We the members of the Crocketteers, San Antonio’s Premier Soccer Supporters, are writing you this letter to state our intentions to support MLS in San Antonio.

We state our commitment to continued growth.

We state our commitment to creating a festive atmosphere that both the City of San Antonio and Major League Soccer can be proud of.

Today, we have over 350 members including over 180 paid members.  We wear our scarves with pride and we exist to see the establishment and subsequent support of professional soccer in San Antonio.  We have sold out our initial order of 200 scarves and will have 200 more on the way in the coming weeks.

Our growth has been tremendous over the last year and half of our establishment. In fact on this very day, 50+ members of the Crocketteers will be in Houston to cheer on the MLS All Stars and to proudly wear our supporter colors.

As you may or may not know, San Antonio’s new mayor, Julian Castro seems to be very open to the idea of professional soccer in San Antonio based on limited public comments he has made. We would like to believe that he is not unlike previous mayor Ed Garza in his willingness to see the MLS in San Antonio. And we are hopeful that this change might put the unfortunate events of 2005 behind us and that this change might also be an opportunity to reopen the dialogue between MLS and San Antonio.

In addition, the parent company of the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs, San Antonio Sports & Entertainment (SS&E) has recently indicated that they are interested in getting into the professional soccer business (perhaps MLS).  And while SS&E is interested in the prospects of our very own Soccer-Specific-Stadium, many of us believe that the Alamo Stadium with its storied history is certainly viable at this point in time. The success of the Sounders in Qwest Field and the prospects of seeing the Vancouver franchise in BC Place drive this point home nicely. 

We were very pleased to learn that Major League Soccer has continued interest in the San Antonio market. Your statements the past few days mentioning San Antonio as an expanision market for MLS reaffirms our establishment. We feel we are the largest supporters group without a team. We hope that is not always the case as we look forward to the day we see our team finally take the pitch.

Commissioner, the Crocketteers humbly ask you to strongly consider San Antonio once again. Perhaps you and your league are already in talks with Mayor Castro and a potential ownership group.  We hope all sides realize the tremendous potential of the MLS/San Antonio partnership.

If there indeed exists advanced discussions with your league and our city, I can assure you that the Crocketteers will support it’s future hometown team and all that MLS brings to our great city.

Lastly, I invite you to share in our vision for what could be the day MLS finally calls San Antonio home. We can make this happen!

Thank you again for all that you have done for the beautiful game in America and we look forward to hearing from you soon.

Yours Sincerely,

The Crocketteers

San Antonio…. I don’t know if a lot of people are aware of this. The San Antonio Spurs are actually bringing a team to San Antonio in the next year or two. That’s been confirmed.

Listen to sound byte: Aztex Coach Adrian Heath on San Antonio in the USL

“That’s been confirmed.”

With the Austin Aztex now confirming that San Antonio will be in the leauge in the next year or two, we now have three credible sources stating that the San Antonio Spurs are indeed looking to bring professional soccer to the Alamo City.

• The first source was the USL itself (see “Confirmed: Spurs Sports & Entertainment in talks with USL”).
• The second source was Spurs Sports & Entertainments Chairmain, CEO, and owner Peter Holt (see “Soccer Stadium Deal stalling Spurs Sports & Entertainment”).
• This latest source of information, thanks to AM 1300 The Zone, brings to center stage a time frame of 1-2 years when San Antonio Soccer fans will have a team to cheer for.

The Austin Aztex Coaches Show on AM 1300 The Zone with coach Adrian Heath runs Wednesday evenings from 6:30 PM to 7:00 PM.

Listen to the entire podcast of last Wednesday’s show: Aztex Coaches Show (May 20, 2009)

Discuss this blog with the Crocketteers on our forum

San Antonio Back In Expansion Race?

As one of Texas’ Major League Soccer teams struggles to remain viable in the face of poor results on the field and even worse ones in the stands, another city in the Lone Star State could be stepping back into the debate on future MLS expansion. San Antonio, the city that flirted with landing a team of their own back in 2005, could again be throwing their name back into the ring, depending on the outcome of the upcoming mayoral election…

…San Antonio has several things going for it that could make it a good fit for an expansion franchise, in my opinion. The estimated 2007 population is 1,328,984, making it the seventh-largest city in America, just behind Philadelphia, a city who was granted an expansion team for the 2010 season.

MLS Expansion Candidate: San Antonio

As long as the ownership group is solid, and the team and city can come to an agreement on getting a SSS built as soon as possible, San Antonio has all the making of a fantastic MLS market…

… Match Fit USA hereby bestows upon the City of San Antonio the rating of five “MFUSAs” (that’s pronounced “ma-fu-sa”) as a potential MLS market.

Would, Could, Should MLS go to San Antonio?

As a former resident and frequent visitor to the Alamo City, I have to say I find the idea appealing to say the least. For all the reasons TJ and Jason cite, San Antonio would be an ideal market…

…It’s (San Antonio) a wonderful place to be. I would love for the place to have an MLS franchise, because its size, Hispanic identity and geographic location make it ideal. So, you go SA. Get that team.

MLS To San Antonio: Version 2.0?

This news is big to me since I was born and raised in San Antonio and I know first hand about the politics that goes around in the city. So it took me a while to think about this and I feel that San Antonio is more suited for USL-1 at this moment instead of MLS due to these factors…

…Besides, USL-1 need new teams to replace Portland & Vancouver in 2011 and San Antonio would be perfect for Texas to have 2 MLS teams & 2 USL-1.

And I for one as a member of Chantico’s Army, the Austin Aztex supporters group, would love to have The Crocketteers on the pro soccer bandwagon rather if it’s MLS or USL-1.