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With the Vancouver Whitecaps for sale and rumours swirling about a U.S. buyer possibly snapping up the MLS club at a bargain basement price and moving it to a more profitable locale, the club’s longest running supporters group – the Vancouver Southsiders — want it shouted from the rooftops that they are not OK with the team leaving the city.
That’s why on Saturday evening, the Southsiders are asking anyone and everyone to show their love of the team by joining the Save The Caps pre-game march down Robson Street.
Southsiders president Ciaran Nicoll said the Whitecaps’ 7-1 record to start the season should help swell the ranks to more than 1,000 marchers.
“This is a really good opportunity to show whoever it might be that is going to be putting up money, that we really do love our club in Vancouver, and … show the league, the world, the city that we are a club that cannot be moved,” Nicoll said.
The march will end at B.C. Place where the ‘Caps host the Colorado Rapids. It will be Vancouver’s final appearance in their home stadium before hitting the road for two months and nine consecutive matches to accommodate the FIFA World Cup.
Save The Caps was inspired by Columbus Crew fans, who organized against the MLS club being moved to Austin, Texas almost 10 years ago. The Save The Crew campaign came together after then-owner Anthony Precourt claimed the team was not financially viable in Columbus.
Whitecaps sporting director Axel Schuster had a similar message in February when he stated that despite the on-field success, the club is “in a lot of trouble,” citing a $40-million revenue shortfall while appealing for more public and private investment.
The Whitecaps private ownership group, led by billionaire Greg Kerfoot, put the team up for sale in 2024.
So far there have been no takers, but what’s making fans like Nicoll nervous is the soaring value of MLS teams in general, which has reached an average of $750 million US.
Top of the money table is Inter Miami FC, the team that beat the Whitecaps for the 2025 MLS Cup. According to Forbes magazine, Inter Miami is worth $1.35 billion US, with annual revenue of $200 million US.
That’s close to triple what Forbes says the Whitecaps are worth – $445 million US – putting them 29th out of the 30 MLS teams in valuation, with the league’s lowest revenue of $46 million US.
The last expansion fee that MLS collected was a cool half-billion dollars from San Diego FC in 2023.
MLS leadership has mused about further expansion in cities like Detroit, Tampa Bay, Indianapolis and Sacramento. Just last week Las Vegas entered the conversation after plans for a new sports and entertainment hub containing a 50,000-seat soccer stadium were made public.
“The expansion fee for an MLS franchise at this point is astronomical,” said Nicoll. “So of course somebody who wants a team is going to look at how they can get one for cheaper than that, right?”
Raising the spectre of relocation is a tried and true tactic of professional sports teams to lever taxpayer money and concessions out of governments.
The Whitecaps’ pleadings spurred the provincial government to hand over upward of $1.5 million in stadium revenues for this season. B.C. Place is owned and operated by provincial Crown corporation PavCo.
Longer term, the team and City of Vancouver are discussing a potential land deal on the site of the now-shuttered Hastings Park racecourse that would see the development of a soccer-specific stadium and entertainment district, from which the team would receive continual profits.
Whatever the outcome at Hastings Park, it won’t solve the Whitecaps’ immediate concerns. And the team’s one-year lease at B.C. Place expires at the end of this season.
In an email to CBC News, PavCo said it “remains committed to working collaboratively with the Whitecaps and our partners to support the team’s long‑term future in British Columbia – a future we very much hope is at B.C. Place.”
Meanwhile, the Southsiders hope that love will have something to do with it, and that the voice of loyal Vancouver soccer fans won’t be lost in the deal-making.
“The risk of the MLS saying that we’re not profitable enough, and the team needs to move to become profitable, is too high for us to do nothing,” Nicoll said.
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