Nashville’s Major League Soccer hopes don’t happen in a vacuum. As much as the people behind a bid say they’re focused only on Nashville — MLS2Nashville officials declined to discuss other cities’ proposals — ultimately the league will weigh the strengths and weaknesses of 12 cities as they hand out four expansion franchises, two in 2017 and two in 2018.

What is the league looking for? First, a club must have a stadium plan in place for a soccer-specific facility. MLS clubs can rarely get away with playing in oversized NFL facilities. Seattle, thanks to massive fan support — the Sounders averaged 10,000 more in attendance than any other team in the league in 2016 — is one, and Atlanta United, which also has an NFL owner and huge crowds, is the another. That means every bid city is preparing to build a new stadium.

Second, the league wants a local ownership group, preferably well-funded. It may sound gauche, but having a billionaire will help your cause. Even though MLS has retained a single-entity structure with a salary cap, clubs have increasingly spent beyond that through a designated-player program (the so-called “Beckham Rule”) that allows franchises to bring in big stars like Kaká in Orlando or Bastian Schweinsteiger in Chicago. Somebody has to bring the cash for a bid to be competitive.

Third, the league wants markets that have a “history of strong fan support for soccer matches” and are attractive to corporate sponsors and television partners. That last part is important, because the current TV deal runs through 2022, and MLS wants to have teams in place that will make an attractive footprint for networks.

Nashville can definitely be described as in the mix for selection. Below you’ll find a rough grouping of the other hopefuls, with the caveat that details change almost daily.

Mortal Lock

Sacramento, Calif., is all but assured of a slot. The club, Republic FC, has a stadium plan and a solid ownership group and has been in the mix for a franchise for a while. Commissioner Don Garber has said he hopes and expects the league’s board of governors to approve them this year. Sacramento was second only to Cincinnati in attendance among teams in the second-division United Soccer League last year. It’s also a top 20 TV market.

In the Mix

Nashville.

Cincinnati has raised a lot of eyebrows by putting fans in seats for a minor league team, averaging higher attendances than several MLS clubs. They’ve got billionaire backing in the form of Carl Lindner, plus three possible sites for a stadium. It’s the smallest TV market in the group, however, and the bid has run into some resistance over using public funds: Paul Brown Stadium, where the Bengals play, will end up costing the county’s taxpayers more than $1 billion by the time the team’s lease expires in 2026.

Tampa-St. Petersburg, Fla., is the largest TV market without a team, and its USL affiliate, the Tampa Bay Rowdies, has drawn decent support. Voters overwhelmingly approved a measure this spring allowing the team to convert Al Lang Stadium, a longtime spring-training site for several baseball teams, from baseball to soccer. Rowdies owner Bill Edwards has agreed to put up the $80 million in renovations in addition to the $150 million expansion fee, but his pockets are not as deep as those of ownership in other markets.

Raleigh-Durham, N.C., has demonstrated soccer support, with WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary hosting high-profile collegiate and international events for years. North Carolina FC, called the Carolina Railhawks before this season, has demonstrated good support, but as of this spring still did not have a stadium site or plan in place. It’s also the smallest-population market among the bid groups.

Detroit has a billionaire owner — Dan Gilbert, who also owns the Cleveland Cavaliers — and a huge market, with 4.3 million people in the area. The bid’s strength ultimately rests on whether its promoters can make a land swap with the city for a piece of prime real estate downtown, where a stalled jail project now sits. Gilbert’s group has offered to relocate the criminal justice complex elsewhere and help foot the bill, but county officials aren’t sold on the plan yet. Given Detroit’s size, though, the city becomes a frontrunner if a deal is cut.

Phoenix, like Detroit, is just too big to ignore, with the largest population of any bid. The ownership group pulled together a 6,200-seat stadium for the USL franchise in less than two months — an impressive feat — and has pledged to build a climate-controlled facility on the site by 2020 without public financing. It’s the largest market not currently in MLS.

San Antonio, Texas, despite being closer to Nashville’s size than some of the bigger markets, is attractive for one big reason: It’s the largest Latino TV market that’s not currently in MLS — even bigger than Phoenix. The USL franchise has drawn well, and the league seems enamored of its ownership, the NBA’s Spurs. An existing 8,000-seat stadium would be scaled up to 18,000, but it lacks the central location that MLS prefers.

Life Support

Four cities, all thought at one point to have good shots at a franchise, have run into some serious roadblocks and almost certainly will be left out of the first round of bids, if not dropped altogether.

St. Louis, a spot desired by the league since its inception in 1996, saw voters reject a stadium measure in April.

Indianapolis, which has put up good minor league attendance numbers, could not find any support in the state legislature for shifting some tax revenue to cover stadium costs.

Charlotte, N.C.’s city council moved a proposed stadium plan from its capital budget to wish-list status a few weeks ago.

San Diego’s proposed Soccer City mixed-used complex — with a new stadium, housing and shops on the site of now-vacant Qualcomm Stadium — is up in the air after a referendum was postponed from a 2017 ballot to the end of 2018.

So Where Does That Leave Nashville?

At the beginning of the process, with Sacramento and St. Louis seemingly assured of bids, it looked like Nashville was one of 10 cities fighting for two bids — not great odds. But then St. Louis fell out, along with early favorites Charlotte and San Diego, and all of a sudden, the odds look more like 3 in 7. That’s much more attainable.