Minnesota United announced as next MLS expansion team

Not sure how auspicious this is for the Republic FC's chances, but it's great news if you like soccer and live in the upper Midwest.  This means we have LAFC, Atlanta and Minnesota United as definite expansion sides, with Sacramento Republic and Miami as possibilities for the last slot.  I have a hunch that Garber and the boys, possibly with a push from David Beckham who is allegedly involved in Miami's potential ownership group, are going to go for Miami as being a much larger market than Sac, even though there is a pretty strong argument to be made that soccer fans in Miami, most of whom are immigrants from Latin America or the Caribbean, already have teams that they follow and aren't really interested in MLS, but that could just be my bias speaking.  Anyhow, this from the nice email MLS sent out earlier today:

Major League Soccer announced that Minnesota has been awarded an expansion team that will begin play in 2018. The new club will be owned by a Minnesota ownership group led by Dr. Bill McGuire, and the team will play in a new soccer-specific stadium in downtown Minneapolis. 

"We are proud to welcome Minnesota to Major League Soccer," MLS Commissioner Don Garber said. "The ownership group's commitment to soccer and the community, the area's growing millennial population and the region's rich tradition of supporting soccer at all levels in Minnesota were key indicators that this was the right market. The passionate soccer fans in Minnesota will soon have a world-class, downtown soccer stadium that will serve as the home for the new MLS team and become a destination for marquee international sports events. 

As for Minnesota FC's elegant crest, seen here in it's current NASL incarnation, for copyright reasons MLS is obliged to change it.  If the past is anything to go on, I expect that they will "cartoonize" it and in general, try to make it look as inauthentic and garish and blatantly commercialized as possible.