The addition of the Philadelphia Union gives MLS 16 teams. When Vancouver and Portland officially start in 2011, that will be 18. It's pretty clear that Montreal will end up being No. 19. 

I think it's fair to say that No. 20 will be right around the corner, and that will halt expansion for a fair amount of time.

The smart money would seem to be on St. Louis being the lucky city. They already have an ownership group that is working on getting a bid together, which may end up being the only thing that ultimately matters. It got me wondering, though, which city in an ideal world, would make the best addition to MLS?

After going through demographic information, attendance figures and some other stuff like site location, I realized that none of it drew a direct line to what teams succeeded at the box office and which ones failed. Without a clear direction, I thought I'd look at the most successful MLS city to date -- Seattle -- and looked for the city that might best emulate it. 

What I ended up deciding was Austin, Texas would make a great No. 20. Not only would the MLS team have the market of about 1.6 million people essentially all to itself, but the area's population, at least on paper would seem to be soccer friendly. 

Add in the possibility of a three-team Texas rivalry and another city MLS supporters would actually want to visit, and suddenly you have the makings of a pretty attractive bid.

How I came to this decision is certainly unscientific, but it wasn't random, either. Here's some of the stuff I considered before ultimately deciding on this:

Obviously, the most important thing for any new team is stability; there would be few things worse than starting a team and being forced to contract it a few years later (like with Miami, which was around for four years before being folded along with original MLS member Tampa Bay).

The easiest thing to do is to learn from past and current mistakes. Last year, five teams failed to average at least 14,000 fans, all of which have pretty easy to identify issues.

• New England (13,732 per game average in 2009): They play in a NFL stadium, which in and of itself is not a killer as we well know, but the Revolution have the added problem of playing outside of their city center. Making matters worse, there seems to be very little attempt to make Gillette Stadium feel like a soccer field. They also share their season with two teams, again not a killer, but that's exasperated by the fact that they are really the fifth most popular major league team in their market. On the plus side, it is a college town, but being 30 miles away kinda renders that point moot.
• New York (12,491): If the Red Bulls still fail to draw after getting their own stadium, they will officially be out of excuses. On paper, they really shouldn't be struggling to draw as badly as they do. Sure, there are eight other teams in the market and four of them essentially compete directly with soccer season, but there are also nearly 20 million people in the metro area. That alone should be enough to render any competition meaningless. Playing in Giants Stadium, far from ideal in almost every sense, obviously hurt as well.
• Dallas (12,441): FC Dallas has its own stadium, but is probably hurt by the fact that it's about 30 miles from downtown Dallas. The four other teams in the market -- two in season -- don't help, but with 6.3 million people in the metro area, that shouldn't be as big of a problem as it is.  From everything I've read, it sounds like marketing has been a problem and the team's rebranding has not gone off particularly well. 
• Colorado (12,331): The Rapids have their own stadium, but also had to go to the suburbs to get it. Of course, it's less than 10 miles from the city center, so you wouldn't think that would be a huge issue. The biggest issue here, I think, is that the Rapids are essentially the fifth most popular team in an area that is the fourth smallest metro area in the league, are forced to compete with the Rockies in the summer and the Broncos in the fall, and skews a little older than is probably ideal.
• Kansas City (10,053): Obviously, the Wizards have problems. They left Arrowhead where their attendance ranged from awful (8,073 in 1998) to acceptable (15,573 in 2003), and moved to a minor league baseball park across the state line in Kansas where there just aren't that many seats to fill (10,385 capacity). There is a new soccer-specific stadium on the way, also on the Kansas side of the border, that should provide some boost. But big problems, such as being the third smallest market in the MLS while still having to share their season with the Royals in the summer and Chiefs in the fall; having a demographic that skews too young (more than 31 percent of Kansas City residents are younger than 20) without much disposable income; and not having much in terms of successful history make me wonder why anyone thought building a stadium was a good idea.

Much of the same negatives can be said about the two failed franchises in MLS history. Tampa Bay was one of the smaller markets to have to share its season and played in a football stadium that was less than ideal (it was usually about one-sixth full) and Miami was actually playing about 30 miles away in Ft. Lauderdale in a converted high school football stadium.

To put it in a nutshell, the ideal MLS situation would have the market all to itself; play in a stadium that is either soccer friendly or situated near the urban center; have about 55 percent of its population be between 20-49 years old (most of the information I use is from the real estate site Zillow); at least 40 percent of its inhabitants be single; and have a proven ability to draw fans to soccer matches.

Here's how the Top 5 MLS attendance teams fair in these regards:

1. Seattle (30,897): They play in a stadium that was designed, at least in part, for soccer that is right outside downtown; almost 56 percent of the city's residents are between 20-49; about 42 percent are single; and the USL's Sounders had showed serious promise.
2. Los Angeles Galaxy (20,416): Home Depot Center is considered the model for MLS stadiums; about 48 percent of its residents fit inside our age bracket; 37 percent are single; the city has a long history of supporting the national team; and despite sharing the market, being in the second biggest metro area helps a lot.
3. Toronto (20,344): The only problem with BMO Field is that the team may have to expand it, as they continually sell out the 20,500-seat stadium; about 53 percent of the population is between the ages of 20-54; due to common-law marriage in Canada, marriage statistics are little more complicated there; and although they share the market with the CFL's Argonauts and the Blue Jays, neither team outdraws Toronto FC by much.
4. Houston (17,047): If there's a team that has real attendance growth potential, this might be it. Despite playing at a college football stadium in a bad part of town and not fitting in to my nice little demographic target  (49 percent are 20-49 and 32 percent  are single), the Dynamo still draw well. I suppose winning titles the first two years the team was in town didn't hurt. Imagine what would happen if they had a stadium they actually wanted to go to. 
5. Salt Lake City (16,375): Rio Tinto Stadium is, apparently, a pretty easy light rail ride from downtown Salt Lake City; 52 percent is in our ideal age range; only 32 percent are single; but not having to really compete for attention certainly goes a long way. 

Using this same information, I think we can safely assume the three new expansion teams will do just fine attendance wise.

• The Portland Timbers will have their own stadium in the middle of downtown; already average about 5,000 a game for USL matches; don't really skew my way demographically (50 and 32 percent, respectively); but won't have to compete for attention among the area's roughly 2 million residents.
• Vancouver will play in a downtown stadium designed with both the Whitecaps and the B.C. Lions in mind; has about 55 percent of its population between 20-54; will only have to compete with the Lions for attention; and recently drew 50,000 people for an exhibition game between the Whitecaps and Galaxy.
• The Philadelphia Union will start off playing in a stadium soccer fans are already drooling over; skews a little young (just 44 percent in our age bracket); is sufficiently single (40 percent); have already sold out their club seats; and will have to compete for attention, but with nearly 6 million people in the metro area, should be just fine.

Which brings us all the way back to the point of this post, which was to support Austin's candidacy for MLS inclusion.

Unlike St. Louis, as far as I can tell, there's no ownership group making its case, and that might be the end of it. But there's no reason MLS has to hurry up and admit St. Louis. In fact, AC St. Louis is really only now starting, so while it might make some sense to admit Montreal sooner than later (they fit our mold nicely), they still won't be playing until 2012.

The best thing Austin probably has going for it is the fact that it's a totally untapped market with the closest professional team being about 80 miles away, while a St. Louis MLS team would be competing directly with the Cardinals and Rams. Although the St. Louis metro area is certainly bigger than Austin (2.8 million compared to 1.6 million), if you consider it on a per team basis, that ratio is practically flipped (938,903 to 1.6 million). Let's also not forget that Austin does have an active minor league team, the Austin Aztex, which will play in the newly formed USSF D-2, drawing as many as 4,500 fans for a game against the Dynamo.

Neither city has a soccer-specific stadium that would be MLS worthy, but Austin is a much better fit demographically (56 percent in our age bracket and 40 percent single as opposed to 44 percent and 41 percent). Austin also has a much higher median income (about $42,000 compared to approximately $27,000). I also like the potential of having the University of Texas' roughly 50,000 students on the front porch.

I'll be the first to admit that this suggestion may be dead in the water, but if we're looking at which city fits our ideal, I challenge you to find a better fit than Austin.

As a side note: I considered several other cities than the ones detailed here for possible expansion. Real quickly, I main dismissed Miami and Tampa because they have already failed; Atlanta because the city has shown little willingness to support any sports, let alone "second-tier" ones; Carolina is probably too small; in general soccer has not caught on in the professional ranks in the South as well as it has in other regions; Baltimore would have to compete with DC United and is probably too small, anyway; Minnesota might be the next best option, but would have to compete with both football and baseball.