Following up on Jose Romero's post that MLS or some form of professional soccer could work in the Phoenix market, I asked Steve Nash for his thoughts. Nash is a part owner of the MLS Vancouver Whitecaps and of course, a huge soccer fan.
"I think it's a good soccer market in some respects but it's just hard because (the MLS) is a summer league so you need an indoor stadium and I don't know how it models out," Nash said.
The problem with University of Phoenix indoor stadium, according to Nash, is that it may be hard to justify costs of running a 60,000-seat building with only 20,000 fans. He also feels it's tough to sell the product when the building is so large and there would be so many empty seats.
↵"It's not the most intimate or exciting environment."
↵As for Jose's idea of having a team tied to a Mexican club, Nash agrees.
↵"I think there's a good soccer population here regardless, but obviously with the Mexican population we could make a great link to one of the clubs there that could have a relationship here. I think that would help, but again it's hard to build a stadium."
↵MLS Owner Nash is not sure where talks are about moving the MLS schedule to a more desert-friendly August-to-May calendar.