Bad news re: St. Louis Athletica

The WPS has lost a second club today.
http://stlouis.bizjournals.com/stlouis/stories/2010/05/24/daily49.html

So, a little background: Jeff Cooper, the owner of Athletica and the AC St. Louis D2 men's side that plays in the Timbers' league, ran into money trouble a couple weeks ago. He was able to find some investors in the UK but as you can see that was not enough. Word yesterday was even with the new money AC St. Louis still would not be able to make it through the season.

What's really maddening is this is the guy who (A) was going after an MLS franchise in the last round of expansion, when Portland and Vancouver got theirs; (B) wanted to buy the USL last year (now we can see why Nike was reluctant to sell to him); and (C) helped form the new NASL that was going to show us how to run a soccer league.

I really feel badly for the players and fans in St. Louis. It does have a history of supporting soccer, but right now they are going through a tough time. I can't imagine what it would be like to lose the club you support. We really are fortunate in Portland.

Owning a professional sports team (especially a womens' professional sports team) in today's fragile economy (when most people are nervous about staying employed) has GOT to be a high risk business venture.

Sometimes in business timing really IS everything.

Update:

The men's team sold Steve Ralston back to New England. They are also looking at buying out the contracts of the players who live out of town (most second division contracts pay a housing allowance).

The Timbers are getting the he11 out of the 2d division at just the right time.