Hundreds of Whitecaps fans marched to B.C. Place “behind a giant banner reading ‘Save the Caps’” ahead of the team’s home game Saturday, as rumors “swirl about the club’s potential move,” according to Gemma Karstens-Smith of the CP. A sold-out crowd of 27,589 people watched the Whitecaps down the Rapids 3-1, packing B.C. Place for Vancouver’s final home game before this summer’s FIFA World Cup. Inside the stadium, 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 supporter groups before the game. Others brought their own 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 the American and Canadian national anthems. Whitecaps players said that they “see the support fans are showing.” Whitecaps coach Jesper Sorensen said that hearing and seeing the support was “emotional.” The message comes amid persistent rumors that the team “will soon be moved to an American market.” The current ownership group announced the Whitecaps were up for sale in December 2024. Whitecaps CEO & Sporting Dir Axel Schuster has repeatedly said that the priority is to “find a new owner who will keep the ‘Caps in Vancouver.” Earlier this month, Whitecaps MF Thomas Müller “called on fans to show their support by coming out to home games” (CP, 4/26).
RALLY THE TROOPS: CBC.ca’s Karin Larsen wrote the club’s longest running supporters’ group — the Vancouver Southsiders — “want it shouted from the rooftops that they are not OK with the team leaving the city.” The Southsiders are “asking anyone and everyone to show their love of the team by joining the Save The Caps pre-game march down Robson Street.” Save The Caps was inspired by Columbus Crew fans, who organized against the MLS club being moved to Austin, Texas almost 10 years ago. The Save The Crew campaign came together after then-owner Anthony Precourt claimed that the team was “not financially viable” in Columbus (CBC.ca, 4/25).
AT SERIOUS RISK? In Vancouver, Patrick Johnston wrote it is “hard to fathom how a team at the top of the league,” pulling in 25,000 fans, could be at “serious risk of departure.” But the “silence” from the Whitecaps about their future, be it a new owner or a plan for their own stadium, is “making it clear that a bad future is becoming more likely.” In the long term, the Whitecaps “need a stadium they can control.” Johnston wrote there is “just no clear vision for that stadium future right now, even if there is the possibility of putting one at Hastings Park a half-decade or more down the road.” However, with the “explosion of player quality and the addition of more designated players,” putting a squad on the field has become “far more expensive.” The biggest sources of commercial revenue in MLS — basically, ways you make money that is not from tickets — are “two things that just aren’t available to the Whitecaps: health care and gambling.” The target figure identified by Schuster earlier this year “remains daunting” — $40M “just to get to league average in revenue generation” (Vancouver PROVINCE, 4/24).