Soccer, yes; stadium, no

The virtual certainty that Major League Soccer will announce its expansion to Salt Lake City this week is exciting for all Utah sports fans. The team will become the state's second big-league franchise and symbolizes the vibrancy of a growing metropolitan area.

Two important questions loom, however.

The first has to do with whether the Wasatch Front is big enough to support such a team. In the past week, some reporters have noted that the Salt Lake area would be the smallest market in the MLS. Technically, that isn't true, but it's a perception fueled by the Census Bureau's recent decision to divide metro areas into smaller geographic sets.

Most people who live here consider the metro area to include Provo, Salt Lake and Ogden. Combine the most recent Census figures for those "separate" metro areas and the population is 1,788,288. That would put this area slightly ahead of both Columbus and San Jose, two other MLS cities, and not far behind Kansas City. In any event, the Salt Lake area isn't wildly out of line with the size of other soccer towns.

But whether this translates into attendance at games is another matter. Word is the league would like the team to average at least 15,000 fans per game. However, the team in Dallas is averaging only 8,697 fans through seven games this year, while San Jose is averaging 10,738 and New England has drawn 12,345. Average attendance seems to have little to do directly with population. It may instead be true that Salt Lake would benefit from not having a major league baseball team competing with soccer, as is the case in Dallas and New England.

But the second question is by far the most important. It has to do with whether Salt Lake City, the county, state or any other public government in Utah should dedicate tax money toward the construction of a soccer-only stadium to house the team. The answer is an emphatic no.

As this newspaper reported on Saturday, the investors who are bringing the team here — led by former Utah Jazz and New York front-office man Dave Checketts — have met with city and county officials. State leaders also report hearing proposals to use sales tax increment to help fund a stadium.

The Wasatch Front may well be poised to provide great support to a Major League Soccer franchise, but taxpayers shouldn't be forced to gamble on that. Plenty of scholarly studies exist demonstrating conclusively that taxpayer-funded stadiums of all kinds do not help local economies. Instead, they suck money out of the economy that people could use for other things, and they end up generating little real revenue.

Many other MLS teams play in football stadiums. The Colorado Rapids, for example (a natural rival for the Salt Lake team), play in cavernous Invesco Field, home to the NFL's Denver Broncos. While we join fans in being thrilled that an MLS expansion team is coming here, we feel the team ought to be content to play at Rice-Eccles Stadium for the time being.