Detroit's hope for an MLS expansion franchise might be on hold now that Nashville is expected to receive one of two bids for 2020.

The league revealed Tuesday it will make a major announcement in Nashville on Wednesday, making it highly likely the Music City will be awarded a soccer franchise.

The Nashville announcement likely means Detroit will be passed over in this round of expansion, despite having the highest-rated TV market of the finalists and the backing of three billionaires with professional sports ownership experience.

Sacramento has long been viewed as a favorite to get one of the expansion spots, and its position on the West Coast only reinforces that belief. Cincinnati is the other finalist.

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MLS commissioner Don Garber was adamant in April 2016 that Detroit's bid was tied to building a 23,000-seat soccer-specific stadium on the site of the failed Wayne County Jail site at Gratiot.

Although the county announced it is nearing a deal with Gilbert's Rock Ventures to build a $520-million criminal justice center at a different site, the soccer-specific stadium idea was scrapped when the William Clay Ford family joined Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert and Detroit Pistons owner Tom Gores in the ownership group in November.

Gilbert, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, Pistons vice chairman Arn Tellem, Lions president Rod Wood and Rock Ventures principal Matt Cullen presented their alternative vision for the Detroit bid earlier this month at the league headquarters in New York. They tried to convince the MLS Expansion Committee, which included some other NFL owners, that using the Detroit Lions' Ford Field, an indoor 64,000-seat stadium with a closed roof, for MLS games would be a better alternative than the league's preference.

They had hoped the MLS expansion committee would see the success that Atlanta United had playing to record crowds in the Falcons' Mercedez-Benz Stadium, with a retractable roof, this past season and adjust their thinking about the need for a soccer-specific stadium, which Nashville is planning to build.

Detroit's pitch stressed the ability to adapt to varying crowd sizes. The Detroit group argued there was no need to limit the crowd size to 23,000 in a soccer-specific stadium if it could offer an already-built stadium that could hold crowds from 24,000-63,000, depending on different configurations. Tellem has said the Detroit group believed there was enough interest in pro soccer in Detroit to have crowds averaging between 30,000-40,000.

The MLS is charging a $150-million expansion fee to each of the two clubs that will begin play in 2020. Detroit could still be in the mix for two more expansion teams that are planned in 2022, although the expansion fee is expected to increase significantly.

Assuming Sacramento gets the final bid for this cycle, Detroit's only hope for a franchise by 2020 is to leapfrog the Miami bid, which has struggled to reach a deal on a new stadium. The Miami ownership group is led by David Beckham, and Miami business moguls Jorge and Jose Mas joined the bid last week.

Miami was expected to begin play before 2020.