From a Business Prospective, The MLS Financial Model Is In Trouble
I am not defending ownership, their lack of transparency and waiting 15 years to sound the alarm on issues with BC Place were scummy.
But as someone with a business perspective, there are just so many red flags about this league. A lot of the positive financials the league points to are inflated and it's a bubble that is starting to pop.
I studied the econ of sports a bit in my undergrad and was growing more confused at why so many teams averaging over 20k/game are losing money so I started digging.
Average attendance may only be slightly down this year, but median attendance (when you look at non Messi games) is way down. There were reports from Business Insider that some games in 2024 had less than 1000 people watching on Apple. Viewership from the MLS Cup in 2024 was 400k (The Canucks do better on Hockey Night). The league evaluations are at $500m, when 60-80% of the league is losing money and the few who are profitable are not really in that ballpark to justify those evaluations.
The league has multiple bubbles right now inflating its overall value. They got billions in expansion dollars over the last 16 years. That's pretty much ran its course and cant continue at the same pace. Viewership and Attendance is being inflated by Messi right now. Once he's gone and the league switches to a Winter Schedule competing against the NHL, NBA and NFL in horrible weather, that will also get worse. Sponsors wont really have much interest in being attached to a league that gets less than 10k worth of total views per game.
There are an absolute boatload of these articles from 2016 or earlier that pretty much predict what is happening now (Sourced Below). Evaluations and operating costs continues to skyrocket and revenues mostly stagnated. Nearly half the league's overall profit came from Inter Miami alone (Sourced Below)
Seeing the numbers from Forbes, the Whitecaps would be one of the few teams running at a small profit if they controlled BC Place. Currently, the Whitecaps lose about $10-12m/year.
All this is 100% on Don Garber. Salaries/expenses outgrew revenue too quickly.
https://www.sbnation.com/soccer/2016/8/9/12404638/mls-expansion-fee-number-of-teams-200-million?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/justinbirnbaum/2026/02/13/the-most-valuable-mls-teams-2026/