Good Friday morning Caps fans, hope you all are having a lovely week and that this weekend brings you rest and relaxation.

Over the weekend, the Southsiders launched the official Save The Caps movement, complete with a website, social media presence, and an emotional call to action for those leaguewide who do not want the Vancouver Whitecaps to become the Las Vegas Whitecaps.

The relevance of this movement increased this week, with a Guardian report quoting Axel Schuster, whose public pronouncements on the fate of the Caps continue to get more and more bleak.

“We’re not sitting here waiting,” Schuster said. “We believe in finding solutions. We’ll go through the alphabet: solutions A, B, C … all the way through. But one day – and it might not be this year or next year – we might be done with the alphabet. And then maybe we’ll have to look at other options. We focus on the season, we go all in. But what happens after the season, that’s actually something nobody really knows. But it doesn’t feel good.”

In light of Vancouver’s current political reality, the article was quite pessimistic on the Hastings Park gambit, something that I’m not totally ready to waive the white flag on. But the article’s message was clear: it is certainly not over the top to begin a lobbying campaign to keep this team in Vancouver.

The effort is clearly taking lessons from Columbus’ successful Save the Crew movement that fought off efforts to move the team to Austin. But this one is more complicated from a public relations standpoint.

The Crew’s fight had a clear enemy (Anthony Precourt). For Vancouver, well, it is a bit more complicated. Ownership, the league, and government officials all share some of the blame. And when the blame is dispersed, it makes it harder to target public outrage at any one entity.

In addition, Columbus actually had a supportive local and state political environment that helped get a new stadium built. That obviously is one of the primary hangups in Vancouver. One of the goals for this movement is convincing elected officials that the stakes are real, something that was never really a problem for the Crew.

Of course, the Southsiders should be commended for launching this movement. And it is heartening to see several MLS teams (Columbus, Seattle among them) pick up the baton and amplify this message locally. MLS needs to see that there is a real cost (monetary and otherwise) to rushing a decision on the Caps’ fate. The good news in the article is that it sounds like options are being explored for the immediate term, with an eye towards ensuring that 2026 isn’t the final deadline (as I assumed might be the case). That is a needed development and public pressure can really help with ensure that a final decision is not rushed. Plus, it feels good to know that other fans view the Caps staying in Vancouver as important to the league’s culture and future.

The financial realities are what they are. But, as I have said all along, it needs to be made clear to MLS that moving the Whitecaps jeopardizes the league’s financial future in a growing soccer market. Indeed, it jeopardizes its standing nationwide. If Don Garber and company want to move on from Canada, I suppose there is nothing that can truly stop them. 

But if the movement to save the Crew showed anything, it is that popular sentiment and financial goals can align. Columbus not only was saved but has become one of the league’s most intriguing teams, playing in a soccer-specific stadium that, one imagines, mints its ownership a good deal of money. If MLS is patient, there is no doubt in my mind that something similar can happen in Vancouver.

Shameless Self Promotion

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