History of the Portland Timbers franchise

Many of these Timbers continued to live in the area after their playing careers and helped establish the soccer as a vital local sport.

Seattle and San Jose Earthquakes and the Canadian Victoria Riptides in a home and away round robin tournament, known as the Western Alliance Challenge Series.

While the Victoria Riptides opted out of the league, the Edmonton Brick Men joined the alliance, along with the Hollywood Kickers, Los Angeles Heat and San Diego Nomads.

At the end of the season, the team lost Goulet when he finished his four years at Warner Pacific College and signed with British club AFC Bournemouth.

Portland drop to the bottom of the end of year standings despite once again having the alliance's leading scorer, Scott Benedetti with 8 goals and no assists.

Dixon brought more than a name change, he also injected money and a higher level of professionalism into the team, bringing former Timbers great John Bain back as a player/coach.

More importantly for Portland, the WSL added three new teams, Real Santa Barbara, Arizona Condors and Sacramento Senators.

Additionally, Portland placed Keller, midfielder/coach John Bain and forward Scott Benedetti on the WSL All Star team.

In February 1990, the WSL announced it had reached a merger agreement with the American Soccer League, which had teams along the east coast.

The Portland Timbers remained in the North Division, which also had the San Francisco Bay Blackhawks, Seattle Storm and newly established Salt Lake Sting and Colorado Foxes.

Kasey Keller had also moved on after playing in the 1990 FIFA World Cup and then signing with British club Millwall and Scott Benedetti had transferred to Seattle.

However, many exciting moments went along with the 2005 season, including a 6-1 thumping of the Atlanta Silverbacks on September 8, 2005; Portland being the only team to give the Montreal Impact a home loss, and Timbers players Scot Thompson, Hugo Alcaraz-Cuellar, and Dan Antoniuk winning league awards.

The offensive production was last in the league as the club only netted 25 goals, and the Timbers lost their derby with heated rival Seattle Sounders.

They enjoyed successful friendlies against Preston North End (2-1), Club Necaxa (1-0) and Toronto FC (4-1) whilst drawing even with the A.C. Milan Primavera squad (1-1) and winning on penalties, and went unbeaten at home during the regular season.

However, the 2008 Portland Timbers attendance grew 25.5% averaging 8,567 fans (second in the USL-1 behind Montreal Impact), and Cameron Knowles won an All-League Second Team spot.

They went unbeaten for a USL-1 record 24 matches in a row, which started following a 1–0 loss to Vancouver in the first game of the season,[2] and ended with a Sept 3 defeat to Rochester Rhinos at PGE Park.

[5] The biggest issue for the city of Portland was that due to league concerns about seating configuration, field surface, and scheduling, obtaining an MLS franchise would require a new stadium.

[7] By November 2008, Paulson told The New York Times he expected Portland taxpayers would spend $85 million to "build a new baseball stadium for his Beavers and renovate PGE Park—just remodeled in 2001 at a cost to taxpayers of $38.5 million—for soccer", and that in exchange, he would spend $40 million for the franchise fee to bring a new Major League Soccer team to Portland.

[5] MLS was in support of the proposal, wanting to continue to expand the number of owners in the league (for a while, all of its teams were owned by three men: Phil Anschutz, Lamar Hunt, and Robert Kraft).

[5] Supporting the MLS franchise raised numerous issues for Mayor Sam Adams and the Portland City Council, in spite of a subsequent commitment from Paulson that Peregrine LLC would contribute $12.5 million towards stadium construction.

[8] The Portland franchise was announced as Major League Soccer's eighteenth team on March 20, 2009 by Commissioner Don Garber.

[9] The announcement occurred in the middle of the first and second-round games of the 2009 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament being held in Portland the same week.

Paulson is also the head of Shortstop LLC, which previously owned the USL-1 Timbers as well as the Pacific Coast League's Portland Beavers.