By Tony Edwards - SAN JOSE, CA (Feb 7, 2011) US Soccer Players -- Combine a cosmopolitan metropolitan area, an educated population that has shown its willingness to come out for good soccer, and a soccer specific facility in a good location, and you might have the makings of Major League Soccer's latest expansion success. We’re not talking about Portland, Vancouver, or even the latest version of the Cosmos, but rather an organization whose evolution is under the radar for most American soccer fans.
Montreal Impact executive vice president Richard Legendre said everyone in the organization is working towards 2012, when the Impact becomes the League's 19th club.
“We’re really excited about joining MLS in 2012,” Legendre said. “It might be February 3rd, 2011 today, but we’re feeling like its February 3rd, 2012.”
Legendre spearheads an organization that, like Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver before it, has to balance the needs of the present (competing in the NASL in the Impact’s case) with the needs of the immediate future.
“We’re focused on having good results in 2011,” he said in a phone interview. “The best way to go on for us is to be successful in 2011.”
That's a “hybrid season” for the Impact organization, with Legendre describing it as "essentially we have two seasons going full steam ahead in parallel.”
With MLS having grown from 10 to 19, there is a wealth of available expansion case studies for Montreal to find out what has worked and what has been less successful. It‘s an opportunity Legendre and staff have taken. “We’ve visited 10 MLS teams in the last 6 months,“ he said.
In a League sometimes known for being opaque about its inner workings, at least to the paying customers, Legendre said he was “pleased and surprised” at the welcome and transparency he’s found at every stop. “We’ve been made to feel like we’re partners already,” he said. “It was a great learning process.”
He cited the sharing of financial, marketing, and other information from other franchises in MLS. “We’re trying to learn from the most recent expansion and other teams,“ Legendre said. “We’re trying to get the best practices from each place so we can use and learn.”
Even with all the good advice in the world, the Impact has a year to get through a long list of items, topped by the small matter of expanding their stadium while they are playing in it.
“We’re expanding the stadium to 21,000 [before the 2012 season],” Legendre said. “We are working right now with the architects and we’ll be building the stadium as we play in 2011.”
He said that while there was still “lots of work” to be done, it was an advantage that they were not building from the ground up. “We are more or less filling holes rather than creating something new.”
Also on Legendre’s to-do list is how to increase merchandise sales and marketing not only to the immediate metropolitan area, but marketing the Impact to all of Quebec.
“We have to make Montreal and Quebec fans aware of what is coming; it’s the return of the major leagues to Montreal during summer,” he said.
Last summer, Montreal hosted AC Milan during Milan’s tour of the United States. Playing in the Olympic Stadium, the Impact drew more than 47,000 to the game.
“We found out at the Milan game that the majority of the people who attended had probably not attended an Impact match,” he said. “People need to understand that we’re going from Division 2 to Division 1. We have to explain to people what MLS is and highlight the professionalism of the league.
“It’s our job to explain that in 2012 we have 19 events (games against other MLS teams),” he said. “Montreal is an event city and we have to tell them why these 19 games are events.”
The Impact will highlight the quality of play in MLS. “I was talking with the coach that many players in MLS could play first division in Europe,” he said.
Legendre and the Impact realize they have a great opportunity in Montreal, a city without Major League Baseball to compete with. “We realize the Canadiens are the number one team in the Winter, but we want to be the Number One team in the Summer in this market."
Tony Edwards is a soccer writer based in the Bay Area.
