TORONTO – It was a scene typically not seen in professional sports.
Major League Soccer commissioner Don Garber stood at the podium of a hotel ballroom giving his annual “State of the League’’ address Friday in which he simultaneously talked up an aggressive expansion path while defending the right to relocate a flagship franchise. Usually in pro sports, a league either busies itself trying to rectify weakness by relocating an existing team or it plays up its strengths by adding expansion franchises.
Leagues never do both at the same time, given the contradictory approaches and messages they would send.