That's according to Arn Tellem, who is handling the bid process for Tom Gores and Dan Gilbert, the billionaire pro basketball owners jointly seeking a Detroit MLS team.

MLS has said it intends to announce the next two expansion cities after its owners meeting in early December. Two more expansion markets will be announced at some point after that.

Tellem told Crain's on Friday that the Detroit bid will make its pitch to league officials in October with the intention of being one of the two markets awarded a club that would begin play in 2020.

"Our hope is to be prepared so that when MLS makes its decision, we're one of the finalists," he said.

Tellem said MLS is especially interested in the Detroit market. "My understanding is that we're one of the cities they're focusing on," he said.

That echoes what MLS Commissioner Don Garber said in August, when he mentioned Detroit as one of four cities that have advanced their efforts over the summer to secure an expansion team. The others he singled out were Cincinnati, Sacramento and Nashville. A dozen cities submitted expansion bids.

The biggest question mark for Detroit's bid is the proposed stadium site. Gilbert and Gores have made progress in securing their preferred location — the unfinished downtown jail site at Gratiot and I-375 — when Wayne County announced on July 31 that it intends to work with them on a deal instead of finishing the justice facility.

"Detroit just got one step closer to having access to the jail site," Garber said. "That got a lot of energy and attention in Detroit."

Gilbert and Gores unveiled a $1 billion plan in April 2016 to build a 22,000- to 25,000-seat soccer-specific stadium on the jail site, and the project would include towers for residential, retail and office use.

MLS has told Crain's that it has monitored the success of high-profile soccer events in the Detroit market, including the International Champions Cup match that drew 36,000 fans in July at Comerica Park, crowds of more than 100,000 at Michigan Stadium for past ICC matches, and the crowds of 5,000-plus for semi-pro Detroit City FC in Hamtramck.

The other cities with formal expansion bids, which had to be submitted by Jan. 31, are St. Louis; Tampa Bay/St. Petersburg, Fla.; San Antonio; Raleigh, N.C.; Charlotte, N.C.; Indianapolis; Phoenix, Ariz.; and San Diego.

Ultimately, MLS will have 28 teams. Los Angeles FC begins play next year as the 23rd club and the unnamed Miami team launches for the 2019 season. After that, the next two expansion teams are expected to begin play in 2020. It's unclear when the final two expansion clubs would formally launch.

The expansion teams awarded in December will pay $150 million each to join the league. A fee for the final two clubs hasn't been formally announced.

New MLS owners aren't buying franchises. Instead, MLS is a single-entity business, meaning all teams are owned by the league and all players are its employees rather than employed by the club. MLS pays the players. Team "owners" pay an investment fee to MLS for the right to operate a team in a geographic area. They become league shareholders rather than franchise owners in a league that has publicly acknowledged it remains unprofitable.

Teams keep their own books and budgets.