I imagine maybe 5 people here besides me care about this, but the bullshit the league is currently pulling with Columbus still deserves to be ripped apart, and IMO is arguably worse than any of the more infamous franchise moves from the bigger leagues like the Sonics or Browns. The tldr is that asshole oil heir buys the Columbus Crew in 2013, refuses to do any marketing for the team at all, and is now citing "business metrics" to justify moving the team to Austin. It's come out that when he bought the team in 2013, the owner specifically negotiated for a provision that he'd be allowed to move the team to Austin, even though this generally would not be approved by the league.
Several things however makes this worse than the typical asshole owner tries to move team story. First, it would be blatantly hypocritical for a league that continuously pays lip service to the idea of organic growth and community support. MLS constantly tries to portray teams as analogues of the European clubs, where the team belongs to the city, as opposed to all those other sports franchises that are concerned about the bottom line above all else. Obviously the franchise model was a necessary evil in the league's early years, but this rubbish about being different from other US leagues because teams are more connected to their communities is currently being destroyed.
One of the things the MLS likes to cite as evidence for the importance of community support is their elaborate expansion policy, in which prospective cities demonstrate a clear level of interest in the MLS (and of course pay the league exorbitant application fees). Austin however has never shown much interest at all in bringing an MLS team to the city, has had 2 failed USL teams, and has already declared the Crew owner will not get a cent of public money to facilitate the move. Indeed, to try to justify Austin jumping the line on all the cities actually going through the expansion and franchising application process,
the Crew's owner invented his own fake "community of supporters" looking to bring MLS to Austin.
Besides screwing Columbus,
the league also may have committed fraud against San Antonio by encouraging the city to purchase a stadium as part of its own bid for MLS expansion while the Crew owner served on the committee for expansion. The league isn't going to have teams in
both Austin and San Antonio, so it's kind of a bad look to be instructing San Antonio how to spend money to improve its chances of getting a new team all the while knowing Austin would be getting an old one. This doesn't even get into the other cities that were going through the expansion process but will be jumped in line.
Lots of people assumed when this story broke last month, it was a standard owner stadium hustle. This isn't even the case though because the owner still wants to move the team even if Columbus ponies up for a new stadium and Austin refuses to sell him any public land. Likewise, all ownership bids from Columbus people attempting to keep the team in the city are not even being considered.
As a cherry on top of the shit sundae however, the commissioner of the MLS had the generosity to suggest that Columbus could pay the various expansion bid fees and begin the application process if they lose the team.
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