Alarm bells about Whitecaps future? Sure feels like it.

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Are the Vancouver Whitecaps’ hopes of staying on in Vancouver and finding a new owner and building a new stadium fully cooked?

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No, they’re not — but you are right to start to worry more about the team’s long-term future in Vancouver.

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Dozens of people have taken a look under the Whitecaps’ hood, and at CEO and sporting director Axel Schuster and they’ve all come to the same grim conclusion: the Whitecaps just can’t carry on at B.C. Place. The costs of playing in Major League Soccer have become too big and what the downtown stadium is able to deliver to the team are just too meagre.

It’s a baffling truth given the big crowds, the exciting football, the signing of Thomas Muller. A baffling truth that, in the end, the Whitecaps are bottom of the pile in revenue. While many sports owners may not be after massive profits, they also aren’t going to lose their shirt no matter how good the vibes may be.

No one is buying the team without a new stadium and a new stadium is still nothing but a notion. Sure, maybe something can come together at Hastings Park, but the degree of difficulty in assembling a development project there is high — and that’s even before getting into the realities of permitting and development costs and construction, and on and on.

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Listen, Schuster is an optimist. He really believes that the Vancouver Whitecaps’ future is in Vancouver.

But it was hard not to hear a real tone of anxiety about the future of his football club when he spoke on Friday, first to a collection of reporters online and at the University of B.C., then one-on-one over the phone as he made his way to Vancouver International Airport and a flight back to Spain where the Whitecaps are now halfway through the pre-season training camp.

“Our situation is, unfortunately, not good,” he said, bluntly. “But we are not giving up.”

The league’s is the same. The situation is so dire that the league’s vice-president of communications sent along his own statement, unprompted.

Bluntly, Dan Courtemache said the stadium situation as it stands will limit “the club’s long-term future in the city.”

“Operational constraints around scheduling and venue access have intensified in 2026, creating untenable conditions for a major league club, with no clear path forward to resolving these challenges in future years,” he added. “This is not fair to the club or its fans. MLS continues to actively support the club and work alongside ownership to pursue a solution in Vancouver; however, meaningful progress is urgently required to establish a sustainable path forward.”

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Just over a year ago the Whitecaps’ CEO announced the team was for sale. Two months ago the team and the City of Vancouver signed an agreement that the Whitecaps could pursue putting together a project to redevelop the land at Hastings Park formerly used for horse racing, a project that would include a stadium and likely a hotel and a casino.

In the 14 months since the search for a new owner was first announced, Schuster figures about 100 parties have expressed interest. More than 30 have been interested enough they’ve signed non-disclosure agreements to take a look at the Caps’ books and all have come away with the same conclusion: there’s no business case for investing in a team that’s still playing at B.C. Place under the terms they’ve been playing under since 2011, when they first joined Major League Soccer.

The league itself has changed: no longer is it a nice little self-contained network of teams mostly in middling markets, filling out a niche in the North American sports landscape. This is now a league rife with billionaires, with expansion franchises drawing a half a billion each.

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Why would a prospective owner put money into a team carrying a valuation like that but which is last in the league in revenue?

Schuster said PavCo, the operators of B.C. Place, did what they could in negotiations for a new lease — but even what they’ve been able to give isn’t enough.

But in the end they are not masters of their own stadium and there’s a wild irony that it’s not supercross but the World Cup that’s underscoring this. Two years ago the Caps lost a home playoff date because PavCo didn’t get its own calendar in order; this year they could lose a crucial CONCACAF Champions Cup date or two because of the World Cup. In theory FIFA coming to town is good for soccer in this province; but clearly it’s not good for the Whitecaps because if they were to advance to the semifinal round or the final itself of the continental championship, they would be unable to host matches here: those games are in May and FIFA will have taken over B.C. Place by then.

So think about it: the Whitecaps would be playing in a final and they’d have to play it farther afield. Edmonton? Montreal?

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Absurd, right? If they did have their own stadium, there’s no issue. And that’s the brutal truth. If somehow they can find a plan for a stadium, maybe that’s enough to bring in an investor. Maybe they can manage their way forward at B.C. Place in the interim.

The problem is there are few stones left unturned at this point. And now time is running short. The league may love Vancouver as a concept, as a city where they want to be. It is, after all, a place that pulled in a global soccer superstar.

But MLS isn’t going to wait forever. This team needs a new owner and a plan for a stadium and it needs one now.

pjohnston@postmedia.com

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