MLS

Fan starts $60 million crowdfunding campaign in desperate attempt to save St. Louis MLS bid

Published Apr. 6, 2017 4:57 p.m. ET

Caitlin Murray

The bid to bring MLS to St. Louis might appear dead after voters rejected funds for the proposed new stadium, but one fan isn't giving up that easily.

The fan has started a campaign on the crowdfunding website Go Fund Me to raise the $60 million required to build a proposed 22,000-seat stadium. The campaign, which started on Wednesday, has raised nearly $7,000 from 151 people, as of this article's publication.

The thing is, the campaign might, um, take a while. If the campaign raises about $7,000 per day, then it will take about 8,500 days to raise the $60 million needed. So, mark your calendars for 2040, which is about the time funding would be in place to build the stadium.

St. Louis looked like a likely choice to be one of the newest expansion teams in MLS as long as a soccer-specific stadium deal could be done. But voters rejected a ballot measure on Tuesday to direct $60 million in business tax increases toward building the stadium. MLS called the vote "a significant setback for the city’s expansion opportunity."

The Go Fund Me campaign, started by Cody Steffen in St. Louis, is meant to "show that there are people all over the St. Louis area that are willing to give their hard earned money to support this great opportunity."

So how likely is it the campaign will raise the $60 million needed to build the new stadium? Well, it would need to set a new record in record time by several orders of magnitude. Go Fund Me set a record last year in a campaign to help the victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando where 49 people died. That campaign raised $7.8 million in nine months.

Something tells us a soccer stadium isn't going to get enough traction to set a new crowdfunding record, but hey, good luck St. Louis.

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