The Vancouver Whitecaps signed their best sporting year in 2025 – finalists of the Concacaf and MLS Champions Cup and champions of the Canada Cup – but the absence of their own stadium became a serious headache for the club: it hinders their business model and fuels the league’s threats to move the franchise to another city.
Vancouver plays at BC Place, a publicly owned stadium in the province of British Columbia that will host seven matches of the 2026 World Cup this summer and that the club rents for its matches. At BC Place, the club does not control the ticket office, concessions, parking or operation of the stadium on match days, which limits its income.
In addition, the current contract between the club and the province ends in 2025 and negotiations to renew it did not advance. Major League Soccer (MLS) commissioner Don Garber warned that the league faces “difficult decisions” if an agreement is not reached soon.
Garber traveled to Vancouver to try to unblock negotiations in search of a more beneficial agreement, although so far without fruit.
“We have a stadium situation that is not ideal and we are trying to fix it. And there is a very specific short-term fix: we want a better lease at BC Place,” Garber said on one of his visits to Vancouver.
“Those restrictions and those challenges make the situation unsustainable for the Vancouver Whitecaps. Financially, they do not participate in any revenue,” he added.
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Vancouver Whitecaps in trouble due to lack of stadium
If nothing changes, Vancouver – which this year saw its team at the top of North American soccer – could end up losing it.
“We owe it to the people who really want to have an MLS team. We have to wait and see if the city and the province are willing to do it. If not, we will have to make difficult decisions,” the commissioner said last week during a season-ending speech.
For the league, the stability of the club in Vancouver – a market that it considers strategic – necessarily involves its own stadium project so that it can generate business with tickets, concessions or naming rights.
Of the 30 MLS teams, 21 already have their own soccer stadium, which will be 23 when New York City and Chicago open theirs in 2027 and 2028. Others share the stadium with a “sister” NFL franchise, such as in Boston, Atlanta, Charlotte and Seattle.
Last week a door opened in that sense. The operator of Vancouver’s historic Hastings Racecourse – in operation for more than 130 years – announced it will stop using the facility after the city imposed new restrictions on betting.
The end of activity in Hastings leaves the future of the venue completely open, with many eyes directed at the Whitecaps, who had already shown interest in some nearby land.
In an MLS with a modest distribution of television income and where money comes mainly through sponsorships and the box office, the Whitecaps are among the clubs with the least capacity to generate resources. And that, despite having one of the most loyal fans in the competition.
This whole situation led the current owners – who include former NBA star Steve Nash – to put the club up for sale, but, a year after starting the process, they still have not found a buyer.
With information from EFE
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