How the Vancouver Whitecaps' woes highlight hurdles faced by all of Canada's major-league sports teams

It might yet be too early to write the obituary for the Vancouver Whitecaps, as rumours swirl of potential buyers for the Major League Soccer club and campaigns organized by fans and businesses to "save the Caps" gather strength. 

But amid the swell of hope, emotion and social media blitzes in the fight to keep the franchise from being moved elsewhere, there are a number of cold, hard, dollars-and-cents factors stacked against the club — one of those being, simply, that it's based in Canada.

If the club — which has been for sale since December 2024 — is moved to Las Vegas, as many fear will happen, it'll join the line of Canadian pro sports teams to be relocated down south. They include Major League Baseball's Montreal Expos; the Quebec Nordiques and the first incarnation of the Winnipeg Jets of the National Hockey League; and the Vancouver Grizzlies of the National Basketball Association. 

It is, in fact, 25 years almost to the month since the Grizzlies played their last game in the city before moving to Memphis. It's easy, then, to appreciate the current fears of many B.C. sports fans of a certain age.

But the Vancouver market faces the same challenges of every other Canadian city that has a sports team in a border-straddling league. 

The elephant in the room is, of course, currency. Canadian teams' expenses are primarily in U.S. dollars, and they operate at the mercy of the exchange rate.

"It can quickly gobble up your revenue and turn into big losses," says Moshe Lander, a sports economist and senior lecturer in economics at Concordia University in Montreal. 

"That's what led to the Nordiques and the original Jets leaving the country. The Canadian dollar fell below 70 cents, so they ran themselves into financial