While there has been a lot of talk lately about the arrival of AAA Pacific Coast League baseball in San Antonio, County Judge Nelson Wolff says the fight is still underway for the big leagues...big league soccer, that is.
Wolff tells News Radio 1200 WOAI that San Antonio is still in the running for Major League Soccer expansion. He says the MLS will make another visit to San Antonio later this year, and he says the fact that the current minor league team is owned by Spurs Sports and Entertainment, with its unparalleled record of success, should be a major league boost for San Antonio.
"There are some markets bigger than us, and obviously they are markets MLS is attracted to, but they have to have an overship group, they have to have a stadium, they have to have all the elements put together," Wolff told News Radio 1200 WOAI.
"I think we're in better shape because we already own a stadium, and we have the best ownership group in the country," Wolff said.
He expects MLS to announce two expansion sites at the end of this year, and two more at the beginning of 2018.
"I have met with them three different times now," he said. "They are going through their evaluations, and try to determine how things stack up."
An MLS franchise would play in Toyota Field, which is where the existing minor league team plays.
But the addition of Major League Soccer might present some new challenges for Wolff and other city and county officials.
If the MLS does arrive in San Antonio, it is expected to require a stadium capacity larger than the existing Toyota Field, and that is likely to require a public vote to spend money on the project.
At the same time, the owners of the San Antonio Missions, while planning to play in Wolff Stadium for their first seasons, are expected to ask for a larger stadium, which would also likely require public approval.
And that approval is becoming harder and harder to obtain. Voters in St. Louis and San Diego recently rejected public subscriptions to build sports stadiums.
But some observers say those are poor examples, because both cities have recently lost NFL franchises, after voters previously approved millions of dollars to build stadiums for the owners who later abandoned the cities.