Oregon Public Broadcasting

The official bid to bring Major League Soccer to Oregon has begun. Sports fans and Portland city leaders gathered Wednesday to publicly back the effort.

The Portland City Council sent a unanimous letter in support of Portland hosting a team. But as Rob Manning reports, the question of how to pay all the associated costs has been kicked farther down the field.

Soccer supporters focused on the selling points of a major league team in Portland as they officially launched their marketing effort.

Merritt Paulson is the owner of the minor league soccer team, the Timbers, as well as the triple A Portland Beavers’ baseball team. Paulson says he’s willing to put up $40 million for a top-tier soccer team, as part of a two-part plan.

Merritt Paulson: “Number one, bring Major League Soccer to Soccer City, USA, and add another major league team for Portland. Number two, put professional baseball in Portland in a position where it’s best poised to succeed.”

Paulson unveiled a sketch of a renovated PGE Park for the new team, and one of a new baseball stadium in Southeast Portland, for the Beavers.

The renovations and new stadium would cost an estimated $75 million.

He says time is short - with just six weeks until an application is due to Major League Soccer. At that point, Portland would compete with candidates from Montreal to San Diego.

Paulson insists that a detailed financing plan isn’t necessary to meet the mid-October deadline. But city commissioner Randy Leonard says he’s ready to support a financing plan similar to one he and then Mayor Vera Katz supported in 2003, to pay for a Major League Baseball team.

Randy Leonard: “The city leadership back when Vera was mayor, including the council, was supportive of developing a strategy that used ticket sales, and an ad valorem on top of the ticket sales, to bond, then to do the construction.”

Commissioners Dan Saltzman and Nick Fish say they haven’t seen a financing plan, but say they could support using public money, depending on the plan’s details.

Mayor Potter’s office was more critical. A spokesman questioned whether a $30 million ballpark was the most cost-effective way to improve the economy in Southeast.

The Mayor’s office also noted that Paulson and Leonard are suggesting a $45 million upgrade, to a stadium that got a $39 million facelift, seven years ago.

Little leaguers and soccer fans say they're thrilled at possible baseball and soccer changes. But in terms of money, the only other public partner that advocates have been eyeing is Portland State University.

PSU athletic director, Torre Chisholm, says he’s happy that the football team’s home field at PGE Park would improve. But he says the university is far from handing over any money.

Torre Chisholm: “We haven’t had discussions along those lines at this point, I don’t know if those discussions will take place. I think right now, we’re looking at it as an additional revenue opportunity to move ourselves more toward being more self-supporting.”

Major League Soccer is expected to decide whether Portland will be chosen as one of  two new soccer cities in the next few months.

If it is chosen, then city leaders expect to enter more serious talks with Merritt Paulson about how to put the financial pieces in place.

A Major League Soccer team could start playing in 2011.