El Paso was never a serious canidate. There are several major issues working against us. The biggest is our market size. We arent a top 50 tv market. MLS does great in stadium, but struggles mightily in tv ratings. El Paso would be the smallest market in any of the four major sports plus MLS, with the exception of Green Bay which is a very unique case, and market size doesnt matter in the NFL.
The second problem is there is no regional sports network to carry games in El Paso. MLS teams make alot of money by saling the broadcast rights to their home games. There are two major regional sports networks in Texas. CSN Houston, and Fox sports southwest. Neither of them would be interested in carrying El Paso MLS games. We are too far outside of their geographic footprint and bring too few eyeballs for foxssw to be interested.
The biggest problem mentioned earlier is that this just isnt a soccer city. Soccer doesnt sell in El Paso. They have tried big events and they never sell well.The three biggest clubs in Mexico, America, Cruz Azul and Chivas have all played in the Sun Bowl, and none of the games have attracted more than 22,000 people. Liga MX is a 100 times more popular than MLS in El Paso, and even their clubs dont generate ticket sales in El Paso.
El Paso is still a price sensitive market. For MLS you need to average more than 17,000 a game. Thats more than twice as many as the Chihuahuas average and the tickets would three times more expensive.
The MLS is interested in Austin and San Antonio. There is a ton of money available in both cities. Their markets are much bigger and their demograhics are much better suited for MLS than El Paso's. San Antonio has already approved a 25,000 seat stadium Toyota Park. In Austin there is a plan for a new arena for Whorns, and an MLS stadium on the site of the old Austin American Statesman building. San Antonio will get a team first, but I dont think Austin will be far behind. MLS likes to add geographic rivals.