That presentation was a condensed version of the ownership group’s meeting with the league’s expansion committee last month at league headquarters in New York City, which came after Garber and top league officials met with ownership group members in both St. Louis and New York.

The St. Louis ownership group, spearheaded by Carolyn Kindle Betz, president of Enterprise Holdings Foundation, and Jim Kavanaugh, CEO of World Wide Technology, presented a plan to the league that included a primarily privately funded downtown stadium and a majority female ownership group.

Named “MLS4TheLou,” the ownership group led by Betz, Kavanaugh and other members of Enterprise’s Taylor family revived a previous failed effort to secure an MLS team for St. Louis. The city has a rich soccer tradition that has long been on the radar of MLS, increasingly so after the Rams football team left in 2016.

The most recent soccer swing-and-miss came in April 2017. Agroup led then by Kavanaugh, an owner of St. Louis’ United Soccer League team St. Louis FC, and Boston-based investor Paul Edgerley was unable to secure $60 million in public money for a stadium plan through a business-use tax that was rejected by city voters.