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If Major League Soccer decides to put a team in Indianapolis—an idea Commissioner Don Garber has expressed interest in—it can happen one of two ways: through an expansion of the 30-team league or by moving an existing team here.
MLS officials have not announced an expansion, and Garber has said he’s happy with the league’s current size and composition. Yet, in the more than three decades since MLS launched in 1993, only one team has ever moved from one city to another.
Nearly a year after Mayor Joe Hogsett announced he was pursuing an MLS team for Indianapolis, what shape that would take is still uncertain, and city and state officials are still picking their way through a number of big questions.
The State Budget Committee has yet to consider a stadium-funding proposal from Hogsett’s administration. And the city is still cobbling together the land it would need to build that stadium.
Last month, city and tourism officials hosted Garber at an Indiana Pacers game, and Gov. Mike Braun met with Garber while he was in town. That came as Pacers Sports & Entertainment confirmed its ownership, including Herb and Stephen Simon, is involved in the effort to bring MLS to the city.
Two sources close to that group told IBJ the investors are exploring their role in both team options: an MLS expansion and bringing a team from another city.
Both sources said Hogsett has told MLS officials and investor group representatives that his administration has no preference for how the city procures a team—just that it does so one way or another.
And one of the sources said discussions about the club-relocation option haven’t targeted specific teams.
Unlike teams in many top-tier professional sports leagues, Major League Soccer clubs are not franchises and do not have individual ownership groups. Instead, each team is owned by the league itself, which secures one or more investors to fund an expansion fee, contribute to stadium development and support team operations and other expenses.
So the league will ultimately make the call if Indianapolis gets an MLS team. A league spokesperson didn’t return multiple calls from IBJ.
Either option could work
Experts told IBJ it’s not surprising that those involved in the Indianapolis investor group are open to the relocation option, particularly given that Garber said last summer he was satisfied with the league’s size.
Matt Winkler is a professor of sports business at American University and a former D.C. United executive during the league’s early days. He said those involved in the Indianapolis effort could have soured the city’s chances of landing a team if they had told the league they were interested only in expansion. Keeping their options open signals a willingness to work with MLS to find a path forward, he said.
Garber’s hesitancy to commit to further expansion after bringing in San Diego FC at the start of the 2025 season means a relocation might be more palatable, experts said.
David Ridpath, a professor of sports business at Ohio University, said Indianapolis could be successful in its bid, given the city’s decades of embracing sports as an economic driver.
But which route to take? Ridpath said it’s a coin flip.
“I’d probably want to go after an established team,” he said. “An expansion team would also work well in Indianapolis, too, given the makeup of the city and what it does with regard to the sports industry. Indianapolis obviously has the infrastructure, has the [sports] fan base, has everything I think they need to be successful.”
It’s unclear what a relocation would look like in MLS’ current era, including what parameters might be set by the MLS board of commissioners, which consists of investors representing each team.
In an expansion, the new team’s investor group is required to pay an entry fee and meet numerous other requirements. San Diego FC investors paid the league about $500 million.
Sports business experts predicted that the franchise fee for the next expansion team—if one is approved—could be $700 million to $750 million, with that revenue split among existing teams.
If an existing team moved, however, experts said it’s not clear whether an investor group would be assessed a franchise fee on top of the cost of buying out the previous investor group’s rights.
Regardless, sources said, investors in an Indianapolis team would likely spend more than $1 billion to bring a team to the city, including expansion fees or purchase rights, stadium construction contributions and initial operations.
Finding an opening
The only team relocation in the league’s 30-year-plus history came in 2006, when the San Jose Earthquakes—one of the league’s original clubs—moved to Houston. (San Jose reclaimed an MLS spot in 2008 with an expansion team bearing the same name, although through a new investor group.)
In 2017, the then-owner of the Columbus Crew threatened to move his team to Austin, Texas, as part of his push for a new stadium. He later opted to sell rights to the team to the owner of the Cleveland Browns, and Major League Soccer awarded him an expansion club in Austin. Columbus later secured a deal for a new stadium with local officials.
The only team currently publicly for sale in Major League Soccer is Vancouver Whitecaps FC, but the current investors have said they want the team to stay in Vancouver.
There is no timeline on when the team might change hands, but the move comes as it continues to face financial challenges. In 2024, the Whitecaps saw operating losses double, to $10 million, among the highest in the league.
But experts say investors in other teams might be looking to make moves, either by fully divesting from a club or by selling off a large stake and signaling a willingness to relocate.
CF Montreal has been rumored to be one of those teams, with talk arising late last year that the club might move to Detroit, although other options might now be on the table.
Bill Yates, a senior associate with Dallas-based The Sports Advisory Group, said sports team relocations are usually motivated by financial challenges or difficulties in securing improvements or replacements for team facilities—such as a new stadium. Sometimes it’s a mix.
Yates is not involved with Indianapolis’ effort to secure a Major League Soccer club, but he said a city’s best bet for a relocation would be with teams already weighing a move for those reasons.
“Teams are always looking for ways to either improve their current situation or simply move to a new building, whether that’s in an existing market or a new market,” he said. Indianapolis officials “could start by trying to find a team that’s struggling, that is not in a good situation, and work out some sort of a deal so that team can move, whether it means buying the team from the current owner or coming up with another arrangement.”
Other professional American sports leagues have seen recent team moves, such as the National Hockey League’s relocation of the Arizona Coyotes to Utah in 2024 and the pending move of the Oakland Athletics to Las Vegas in Major League Baseball.
Two sources said the Simon family and Pacers Sports & Entertainment are cognizant of the challenges that might be associated with moving an existing team, including alienation of the team’s fan base and integration of the team into the fabric of the city’s sports scene.
Certainly, Indianapolis is no stranger to welcoming a relocated team: The Baltimore Colts moved to Indianapolis in a clandestine, overnight operation in March 1984.
The Pacers in 2019 signed an agreement with the city and state to remain in Indianapolis for 25 years as part of a deal for more than $300 million in renovations to Gainbridge Fieldhouse, stopping talks of relocation.
“I think Don Garber is going to probably find a way to make [an Indianapolis team] happen,” Ohio University professor Ridpath said. “If there’s problems with other teams … he’ll probably facilitate a move—or award an expansion franchise if it comes to that.”•
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The writing is on the wall. Indy is definitely getting a MLS team one way or another. Garber didn’t come visit the city just to watch the red hot Pacers play. You gotta think he came to tell city officials there’s a strong possibility of a team moving to Indy. Thats why we see The Old City hall and other developments get the green light to help with taxes to help fund the stadium. It’s all becoming a more clear picture now. 2027 or 2028 will be the opening season for the new team in Indy.
It seems like Ozdemir and Surack are out of the picture regardless of the expensive property they buy up.
If Indy Eleven go the route of the new USL Championship major league, the soccer fan base, which has been rather ignored in all of the MLS discussions, may stick with the Eleven to the detriment of MLS.
I think the promotion/relegation system of USL will rapidly overtake the MLS fanbase. We want real soccer. We want local soccer. We want every game to matter.
Indy Eleven’s women’s team has plans to play in Westfield’s new stadium. Granted it is supposedly only going to be 10,000 seats, but it would seem that it could be easily increased.
Westfield has the property and the tie-in to Grand Park and all the investments coming in. Oder already seems to like what’s happening in Hamilton County.