As the hunt for the 2016 Supporters’ Shield and MLS Cup nears its end, many are looking ahead to what the 2017 season will have in store. One thing is for certain – there will be 22 teams chasing the Cup, with the inauguration of expansion teams Minnesota United FC (subject to a name change) and Atlanta United FC. Also certain is that 2018 will see the City of Los Angeles host what I can only hope is called the Darby of Angels, between the LA Galaxy and Los Angeles FC. David Beckham’s Miami expansion team is also set to start in 2018, but that still hinges on a stadium agreement that has been continuously revoked since the expansion announcement in 2014.
Despite MLS’s growth over the past several years – think Orlando City, NYCFC, Montreal Impact and more – MLS Commissioner Don Garber has not discussed, at least not publicly, expansion in an area that I believe could successfully accommodate an MLS team. Sports Illustrated reports that Sacramento, St. Louis and Detroit… yes, Detroit, currently sit atop the list for the next set of expansion teams. First-year USL franchise FC Cincinnati has also made waves with an astounding attendance average of just under 17,000 propelled by their multiple supporters’ groups, which will likely result in their joining the MLS in the near future.
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Expansion in North Carolina has been brought up casually, with Charlotte being the discussed location, but there has been little to indicate a real push for the Old North State to join the ranks of MLS. The Queen City, which is already home to the NFL’s Carolina Panthers, the infamous Charlotte Hornets and USL’s Charlotte Independence, would undoubtedly be a good location for an MLS team. As a hotbed for youth soccer, featuring Charlotte Soccer Academy, the Carolina Rapids and Charlotte United Football Club among others, there exists more than enough excitement and engagement in the sport, not to mention affluence – looking at you Lake Norman – to draw crowds. Add in one of the nations’ elite college soccer programs in UNC-Charlotte, and you’ve got yourself the ideal target demographics for fan support; the younger kids that bug their parents to take them to games, get season tickets, etc. and millennials, who are in large part responsible for the current “soccer boom” in the US.
In addition to Charlotte’s individual attributes, it sits just a few miles from South Carolina, not far from Rock Hill, which is another youth soccer hotbed. Increasing the radius, you have Winston-Salem, the Triangle Area, Greenville and Columbia all within a three-hour drive. In that space, you’ve just added some of the most established college soccer programs in the country in Wake Forest, Duke, UNC-Chapel Hill and Clemson (NC State is not to be forgotten). In that same space you have NC Fusion Academy and CASL, now known as Capital Area RailHawks, given their affiliation with NASL’s Carolina RailHawks. All of this is to say, with North Carolina’s premier youth and collegiate soccer, there is a strong soccer culture that would readily adopt an MLS team.
(AC Milan vs. Liverpool at Bank of America Stadium in 2014; Charlotte, NC)
Charlotte has already seen positive results with professional soccer exposure, as Bank of America Stadium has played host to Gold Cup and International Champions Cup matches, with the latter drawing an average attendance of over 60,000 for fixtures the likes of AC Milan v. Liverpool, PSG v. Chelsea and Inter v. Bayern. Of course, BoA would not be the ideal stadium for an MLS team, as soccer-specific stadiums are an ever increasing part of the MLS. This, however, would be of no issue given the existence of Memorial Stadium – a 20,000 seat municipal venue in downtown that could (fairly) easily be renovated to suit the needs of an MLS club.
With the recent construction of BB&T Ballpark in the heart of downtown Charlotte, the AAA Charlotte Knights have led all minor league teams in attendance the past two years. That’s a good sign that the city could continue to financially benefit from professional sports with an MLS presence, particularly with a recent push to make Charlotte more appealing to millennial professionals.
Don Garber doesn’t have Charlotte on his radar, but hopefully the Charlotte Independence and President Jim McPhilliamy have him on theirs.
