Interesting tangent on this, and apologies if it’s niche, the team bidding for the second nyc license was originally New York Cosmos which was the biggest team in the previous national league the NASL (formerly home to pele, beckenbauer etc and drawing crowds of 70k+ in the 70s-80s) and they were proposing building a stadium where the current NYCFC (city group) team are building one as we speak, first new stadium to be built in NYC proper for quite some time fwiw and quite a feat to pull off (even NFL don’t have a stadium in NYC proper). New York cosmos being a pre existing entity as opposed to a brand new franchise and one with a fair bit of name recognition and history in their own right by American standards they didn’t want to sell the rights to their name, logo, brand etc etc to the MLS which is one of the conditions of entry. They were trying barter and saying the league should change its model if it wanted them in..they ended up calling their bluff and just selling the licence to city group instead. Ever since they’ve been one of the main entities trying to push for alternate leagues and for an open league system and pro rel in the US as the mls have basically said “2 teams in NYC is enough, applications closed”.
Not completely analogous but maybe the closest equivalent I can see elsewhere to the situation we have here. An interesting twist of fate for a club which was probably the original example of “modern football”