Since 2014, the Sacramento Republic soccer team has broken attendance records, drawn fans from all over Northern California, and given hope to its hometown that it might one day soon have its own place in the majors.
On Wednesday, just hours after the deadline for Major League Soccer hopefuls to submit their applications, Sacramento fans got some good news, along with some confusing news:
Meg Whitman — CEO of Palo Alto-based Hewlett Packard Enterprise, former eBay CEO and one-time candidate for governor — was joining the team’s ownership group – along with her husband Dr. Griff Harsh.
Supporters were ecstatic to have an investor with Whitman’s credentials on board. Barry Broome, CEO of the Greater Sacramento Economic Council, told a local paper that Whitman puts Sacramento’s bid “over the top.” And Kevin Nagle, CEO of Sac Soccer & Entertainment Holdings, an entity known as SS&EH, agreed, saying the addition of Whitman and Harsh to the group should increase chances of a successful bid by the Republic to join the MLS.
Without saying how much Whitman and Harsh were chipping in, Nagle said that the investment was “significant.”
This good news came two months after the Sacramento City Council approved a proposal for a development project that would include a new soccer stadium at the city’s historic downtown railyard. When he visited Sacramento last April, MLS Commissioner Don Garber announced the league’s plans to expand to 28 teams with the next round likely starting in 2020. And he indicated the Sacramento Republic were a prime candidate to be a future MLS expansion team.
“We hope and really we expect that Sacramento will be one of the next four [teams],” he told an assembled Sacramento crowd.
But Wednesday’s news was not all good.
ESPN reported that the hoped-for expansion team may not be the done deal that some first thought. “When Sacramento presented its bid to be an MLS expansion franchise on Jan. 31,” the news outlet reported, “the name of the club that has led its drive to join MLS — Sacramento Republic — was conspicuously absent.”
Republic was apparently surprised by the Whitman-Harsh announcement. It seems the two groups pushing for a MLS team, the Republic and Nagle’s SSEH group, aren’t quite on the same page. ESPN said “the Republic were caught flat-footed by the announcement. One would have thought that a press release would have been forthcoming from the club, but one never appeared, even on the club’s website. A press release instead emerged from an entity calling itself Sac Soccer & Entertainment Holdings.”
Sacramento Republic finally issued a statement on Wednesday, and they were not happy campers.
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“We are just as surprised as our fans to hear that various news outlets are reporting that a bid was submitted to MLS for Sacramento which does not reference Sacramento Republic FC,” the statement read. “If these reports are true, this is deeply troubling to us.”
The statement went on to say that “if the bid submitted yesterday by Mr. [lead investor Kevin] Nagle did not include Sacramento Republic FC, it was in violation of our agreements and without our authorization; and we will take this up with the appropriate parties immediately. We want to thank all of Sacramento Republic FC’s fans for your continued support. This is, and always will be, your team.”
Stay tuned for more developments.
