League's 15th franchise will begin play in '09 season

The minor-league Seattle Sounders have three championships to their credit and a large existing fan base. Courtesy of the Seattle Sounders

By Jonah Freedman, SI.com

SAN FRANCISCO (SI.com) -- Major League Soccer has settled on Seattle as its next expansion city, SI.com has learned. According to a league source, the new franchise will begin play for the 2009 season.

An official announcement will be made in the next two weeks, the source said. Seattle is already home to the Sounders of the United Soccer Leagues First Division (one rung below MLS).

According to an earlier report by the Herald News of New Jersey's Ives Galarcep, the Sounders ownership group will have a big hand in the new MLS club, and the expansion team will also be called the Sounders.

It wasn't immediately clear if that meant the Seattle Sounders would essentially be promoted to MLS, ending the club's minor-league status.

The bid to lure MLS to the Emerald City has been spearheaded by Sounders managing partner Adrian Hanauer and movie-studio executive Joe Roth. That group's proposal was to bring MLS to Qwest Field, home to the Sounders and the NFL's Seattle Seahawks.

MLS spokesman Dan Courtemanche denied a deal with Hanauer and Roth was imminent, but did say, "Things are moving forward with [the Seattle group], but we've had no finalized agreement. Should they decide to use the Sounders name, uniform and colors, that's a discussion we'd look at."

MLS' goal is to expand to 16 franchises by the 2010 season, and Courtemanche said both expansion cities would be decided before the end of this year. The league currently has 13 teams and announced in July that it would add San Jose, Calif., as its 14th franchise for '08.

Seattle had been at the forefront of as many as eight candidate cities for further expansion. Portland, Ore., was also a consideration for a new club in the Pacific Northwest.

The new Seattle franchise would bring the number of teams in the MLS Western Conference to eight. If the league wants to balance its schedule, it must now add an Eastern Conference team. St. Louis and Philadelphia are said to be the frontrunners.

The current Seattle Sounders will play for their fourth league title on Saturday when they take on the Atlanta Silverbacks in the USL First Division championship.