MLS Commissioner Don Garber smiled and shook his head as the sellout crowd at Providence Park erupted in celebration and green smoked billowed from the north end moments after Portland Timbers midfielder Diego Valeri notched his first goal of the 2017 MLS season Friday night.

"When we were all working together to build this league, we never really expected we would be able to experience what we've been able to all share tonight," Garber said. "The Portland Timbers and the Paulson family have really set a new bar and a high bar and it warms my heart every time I'm here."

When Garber was named MLS Commissioner back in 1999, the fledgling league and its 12 teams were struggling to simply stay afloat and MLS even came close to filing bankruptcy in 2001. But eighteen years after Garber took over, MLS is thriving, and the MLS Commissioner couldn't be busier.

The league is coming off a historic 2016 season where it saw a record average attendance of 21,692 fans per game and record television ratings on ESPN, FOX and Univision. MLS now has 22 teams with the addition of 2017 expansion clubs Minnesota United and Atlanta United FC and markets across the country are clamoring to get in to MLS as the league looks to ultimately expand to 28 teams.

And MLS is embarking on its 22nd season with high hopes for the future.

Garber flew to Portland to watch the Timbers open the 2017 MLS season Friday by thrashing Minnesota United 5-1 in front of a packed stadium of 21,144 passionate fans. He then traveled to Orlando to watch Orlando City SC play its inaugural match at the new Orlando City Stadium in front of 25,527 fans Sunday. The first game at Orlando City Stadium came just a week after Garber was in Washington, D.C. to watch DC United break ground on a new soccer-specific stadium. On Sunday, Garber also traveled to Atlanta to watch Atlanta United began its MLS history with a match against the New York Red Bulls in front of an incredible 55,297 fans at Bobby Dodd Stadium.

"Every team has to write its own story," Garber said. "We just want to see our teams develop in the right way and have what we have here in Portland and have what we're going to have in Atlanta and Minnesota and continue to see that progress with the new expansion teams that will come in over the next couple of years."

As the league has continued to grow, MLS has also seen its quality of play improve. A growing number of top players in their primes flocked to MLS ahead of the 2017 season.

While the league's designated player rule was once primarily used to bring in aging, high-profile stars, twelve of the new 13 designated players that joined MLS in the offseason were under the age of 30 and the average age of designated players in MLS has dropped from 33.5 in 2008 to 27.6 this year. The Timbers had three designated players on the field Friday in Valeri, Fanendo Adi, and Sebastian Blanco that all joined the club when they were 28 or younger. And Atlanta United signed three designated players ahead of their inaugural season all 23 or younger.

"I think the beauty of our system is we can adapt our rules to accommodate for a changing environment," Garber said. "Early on the designated player rule was much more about bigger names that would attract attention and help us off the field while improving the team on the field. I think today our teams have decided that it can be more about on-field performance and perhaps be less about selling tickets."

MLS will continue to face challenges as it grows and expands, but Garber took some time Friday night to simply sit back and celebrate how far the league has come as he reveled in the electric atmosphere at Providence Park while watching the Timbers and Minnesota compete in the opening game of the 2017 MLS season.

"It's really exciting," Garber said. "These are the things that motivate us everyday, seeing a packed stadium and folks out in the rain and cold and loving their club."

-- Jamie Goldberg | jgoldberg@oregonian.com

503-853-3761 | @jamiebgoldberg