Study: Sacramento Compares Favorably In Most Areas To MLS Cities

Sacramento is not a Major League Soccer city, but a new study finds it compares favorably to cities that are. 

The study shows the Sacramento region is younger and spends more money on sporting events than two-thirds of the cities in Major League Soccer.

Bill Rhoda with CSL International performed the study. He says Sacramento Republic FC should do well financially if it is invited to join the MLS.

"Based on its strong performance, we believe they have the ability to out-perform most of the metrics in Major League Soccer and a downtown MLS-caliber stadium is essential and is critically important to the viability of a major league soccer team here in Sacramento."

Sac Republic majority owner Kevin Nagle says the team plans to privately finance a new stadium, but is still in talks with the City of Sacramento to see how much help might be available.

One area of concern in the study is the relatively low number of corporations in the region -968- that have more than $5 million in sales.

Sacramento ranks 18th out of 24 MLS cities and well below the MLS median of 3,449.

The Republic plays in the USL-Pro league and led the league in corporate partnership revenues the last two years, as well as five other revenue categories.

The region is defined as Yolo, Sutter, Yuba, Sacramento, Nevada, Eldorado, and Placer counties in California and Douglas County in Nevada.

San Joaquin County south of Sacramento was not included because it is considered part of the fan base of the San Jose Earthquakes.