A spokesman for Major League Soccer says the organization “will evaluate all options” when it comes to the future of the Whitecaps — including keeping the team in Vancouver and moving it to another market.
“We remain focused on supporting the club in identifying a sustainable long-term solution, and our preference is to find a path that allows the Whitecaps to continue to grow and succeed in Vancouver,” Dan Courtemanche said in a statement Monday night.
“At the same time, we have a responsibility to ensure the long-term health of the league and its clubs, and we will evaluate all options, including interest that has been expressed in the club from other markets and investor groups.”
The comments come after The Athletic published a story earlier on Monday saying the league has told its 29 other owners it is exploring relocating the team, with Las Vegas being the top candidate for the new market.
The report did not include a timeline for the move.
“The Whitecaps’ ownership group has played a significant role in growing the game in Vancouver and across Canada,” Courtemanche said. “However, stadium economics, scheduling restrictions, and a lack of government and corporate support have created ongoing structural challenges that make it difficult to establish a viable path forward for the club.”
The Whitecaps also issued a statement Monday saying the club has faced well-documented structural challenges around stadium economics, venue access, and revenue limitations that have made it difficult to attract buyers committed to keeping the team in Vancouver.
“Over the past 16 months, we have had serious conversations with more than 100 parties, and to date, no viable offer has emerged that would keep the club here,” the club wrote.
“It remains the strong preference of this ownership group to find a solution in Vancouver. If there is a local ownership group with the vision and resources to chart a path forward, we urge them to come forward.”
Vancouver’s current ownership group — including Greg Kerfoot, Steve Luczo, Jeff Mallett and former NBA star Steve Nash — announced the team was up for sale in December 2024 and repeatedly said the priority was keeping the Whitecaps in Vancouver. The asking price was not publicly released.
MLS’s latest expansion club, San Diego FC — which began play last season — reportedly paid a US$500 million fee to join the league.
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Toronto paid a $10 million expansion fee when it became part of the league in 2007. Vancouver reportedly paid $40 million to join four years later.
Las Vegas is currently home to the Las Vegas Lights, a USL Championship team owned by former Toronto Blue Jay Jose Bautista.
The Athletic’s report comes days after thousands of Whitecaps fans used signs and chants to express their support for the club.
A sold-out crowd of 27,589 people watched the ‘Caps down the Colorado Rapids 3-1 on Saturday, packing B.C. Place for Vancouver’s final home game ahead of this summer’s FIFA World Cup.
Hundreds of people marched to the stadium behind a giant banner reading “Save the Caps.”
Once inside, more than 2,000 fans held signs with the same “Save the Caps” message as players walked out onto the field.
The paper signs were placed by Vancouver’s supporters groups before the game.
Others brought their own visual messages of support, including a giant banner reading “We will fight for our club and we will win” next to an image of a fist.
Chants of “Save the Caps!” also rang out through the stadium after Ema Lake sang the American and Canadian national anthems.
“We hear what’s going on, but at the end of the day, that’s not in our control,” striker Brian White said after the game. “We love playing in Vancouver, we love the fans. But all that stuff is up to powers that are out of our control.”
The players are all focused on winning, not what’s happening behind the scenes, said defender Tristan Blackmon.
“We’ve known for a little while now that the team is up for sale. But our job at the end of the day is to get results on the pitch,” he said. “We don’t have that much of an influence on what goes on big picture in terms of where the team goes, if it stays. All we can do as players is put on good performances like we did tonight.
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“The most we can do as players is try to represent the community and everybody who comes out here really well. So we’re going to keep on trying to do that.”
The ‘Caps currently sit second in the MLS standings with an 8-1-0 record and are coming off their most successful season in the league.
Last year, Vancouver was crowned Western Conference champions before falling to Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami in the championship game.
Despite the on-field success, the Whitecaps still sat at the bottom of the league in team revenue, trailing clubs in the middle of the standings by US$40 million, CEO Axel Schuster said in February.
“We are really concerned that, after such a successful season, the gap is even becoming bigger, that this at some point will not be manageable for us anymore,” he said.
Schuster and MLS commissioner Don Garber said late last year that the club’s lease at B.C. Place Stadium was not sustainable because of limited scheduling flexibility and restricted revenue from food and beverage sales.
The team signed a memorandum of understanding with the City of Vancouver in December over exploring the viability of building a new stadium on the city’s eastern edge, then agreed to a new, one-year deal with the Crown corporation that owns and operates B.C. Place in February.
Schuster said at the time that the new lease did not solve the Whitecaps’ long-term financial viability issues.
“To be clear, I think it needs 25 to 30 more of these little steps, or it needs a few big steps to really get in safe water and to say ‘OK, now this club gets into more of the area of financial stability and viability,'” he said.
Originally a North American Soccer League team, the Whitecaps have been part of Vancouver’s sports fabric since 1974.
The club won the NASL title in 1979 and, when players returned to Vancouver, about 100,000 people lined Robson Street to cheer them on.
Kerfoot, a Vancouver entrepreneur, bought the club in 2002 when it was a USL First Division team, and was joined by the rest of the ownership group in 2008 with the intention of making the ‘Caps an MLS team.
The Whitecaps played their first game in the new league in March 2011.
The club has experienced a series of highs and lows since.
Some prominent Canadian national players have come up through the ‘Caps academy system during the current ownership group’s tenure.
Star left-back Alphonso Davies joined the residency program as a teen and broke through in MLS in 2016 at age 15 before the Whitecaps transferred him to German powerhouse Bayern Munich in 2018.
The Whitecaps weathered a scandal in 2019 when allegations emerged that a former coach with both the women’s club team and Canada’s under-20 women’s program had assaulted multiple players. Bob Birarda was handed a two-year sentence in November 2022 after he pled guilty to three counts of sexual assault and one count of sexual touching involving four teens.
FIFA vice president Victor Montagliani has said moving the Whitecaps would be “a bruise” on the city, especially as Vancouver prepares to host seven World Cup games this summer.
“To lose an MLS club on the back of the World Cup would be a capital crime, in my opinion,” he said at a Vancouver Board of Trade event last June.
The Whitecaps ownership are using the stadium excuse to sell out to the highest bidder AkA a Las vegas consortium.
Already a done deal the owners bought for $40 Million selling for $600 Million do the math . A new stadium would not increase profitability just look at what increased costs there would be with staffing a new stadium and running costs. The new contract for BC place is almost free for the Whitecaps yet not enough for the greedy owners. Sorry Caps fans you have two more years to enjoy games here in Vancouver.
People of British Columbia, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE support your team! We do not need to see ANOTHER Canadian team move south of the border like we have seen from other professional leagues in the past.