Las Vegas group ready to pay MLS expansion fee

The Las Vegas Sports & Entertainment Group president Mark Noorzai has sent a letter to MLS telling them they are ready to pay the $35 million expansion fee to secure a team for the city. The letter also included information on the "$500 million retractable-roof stadium, an adjacent hotel and casino, practice fields and other amenities on 200 acres."

Now they are just waiting to hear back from the league.

MLS President Mark Abbott, who oversees expansion, declined to say anything about the letter, however he did say that Vegas is a place of interest.

"It's fair to say that Las Vegas is a market that's interesting to us," he said. "We think it would be very supportive of professional soccer, so it's a market we're looking at."

Interestingly enough, Abbott stressed the time needed to build a stadium as a reason to not rush any decision. If San Jose is award a team for the 2008 season, someone should ask Abbott about that stance.

As far as the Vegas group itself, they are pushing Paul Caligiuri as their public face. To say this is a smart move is an understatement as Caligiuri has a special place in US soccer fans hearts.

They are also looking into the idea of having Las Vegas Football Club youth academies in their countries.

"It has been offered first-division teams in Belgium and Italy, and a second-division squad in Spain, Caligiuri said. Officials in Brazil and Ghana inquired about starting Las Vegas Football Club youth academies in their countries.

"That's how Chelsea does it," Caligiuri said of the elite English team. The sports group " is in this for the right reasons. This is the best new brick in the foundation of the league, if done properly. "

"And I believe this group will do it properly."

Lots of fun ideas, but is it enough to win then a MLS spot?

MLS Expansion - Las Vegas Silver Spurs?

With all the recent MLS expansion talk centering around Portland/Seattle, San Jose and St. Louis, one other city has slowly eked it's way into the pool as Las Vegas is looking to land a top league soccer club.

A group called the Las Vegas Sports & Entertainment Group, led by Mark Noorzai, founder of a computer component firm, is committed to making the dream happen by 2010. The spokesperson for the group is Paul Caligiuri, a Hall of Fame soccer player.

Noorzai says the group has many investors and that the group is worth several billion dollars, thus they will not seek any public money to build a proposed stadium. Talking about the stadium, Noorzai says it will be "a high-tech, state-of-the-art stadium with a retractable roof that will be linked with a casino."

Ah, the casino. Gambling is a major reason why no other professional sports team is in the Las Vegas market; however, MLS Commissioner Don Garber does not have such an issue.

Noorzai has been in talks with Garber for three months on bringing a team to sin city and hopes to meet again with him and members of the US Soccer Federation Board of Directors on May 19th. Noorzai also hopes to have more defined information on possible site locations by the end of June.

The idea of bringing a team to Vegas is an interesting one. On one side you have a large population not served by any pro sports team but on the other you have extreme temperatures and a major reliance on tourist industry dollars. The heat could be fixed with an 'indoor' stadium but the tourist issue might be harder to overcome.

Normally, cities where the tourist industry is huge have a large portion of their population working for low wages, thus allowing for limited expenditures on non-essential items. I do not know if this is the case in Vegas, but if it is, that means finding people to purchase season tickets might be difficult.

Some people might worry about the influence of the gamming industry on the team, especially with the leagues low wages, however with so little money changing hands on soccer betting, I don't think it would be a very big target.

Vegas still seems like a bit of an outsider when it comes to the next expansion team, however this group has a lot of money and some good connections, so it might just be closer to reality then I think.