Yet Another Partnership: Vancouver Whitecaps and Charleston Battery

For what feels like the umpteenth time this week, another MLS-USL PRO partnership has been announced. The Vancouver Whitecaps will be sending any of their future-but-not-yet-great studs to the Charleston Battery.

“Charleston? Where is that exactly?,” you say, “The biggest Charleston I can think of is in South Carolina. Surely a Vancouver club isn’t sending their players all the way across the country, right?”

Sorry, they sure are. According to Google Maps a drive from BC Place in Vancouver all the way down to Charleston takes 45 HOURS to complete!! A drive from New York to LA takes 41. A flight from Vancouver to Charleston takes at least 7 hours. Is there not a single, suitable USL PRO any where in between the Northwest corner to the Southeastern coast of U.S. and Canada territory?!?

Hold on.. [open up new tab.. type: uslpro.com…. click teams.. ] Alright, there’s only two teams that aren’t already affiliated and closer than Charleston, and one of those is in Los Angeles, so that’s probably off limits. (There is a team in Charlotte, North Carolina, which is a little better, but it wouldn’t improve my argument much.)  The one team any where closer would be the Phoenix FC Wolves in Scottsdale, Arizona. That’s still a 24 hour drive, although that is nearly half the travel time.

Luckily enough for Vancouver prospects, this deal is only for the 2014 season. It should be noted that two more clubs will join the USL PRO league in 2015, so there might be a chance those affiliate with the Caps. The only problem being that those new clubs pop up in Colorado Springs, Colorado and Tulsa, Oklahoma, which would be ripe for the picking by the Colorado Rapids and FC Dallas, respectively. Both of those clubs do not currently have USL PRO sidekicks.

Also, I’m not stupid, there aren’t as many USL PRO teams as there are MLS teams, so not all MLS clubs will be so lucky, right now. With the recent announcement that San Jose and Portland will share the Sacramento Republic FC, maybe Vancouver could split a team with the Seattle Sounders. Geez, listen to me — I sound like I’m recommend they share desserts.