Just before the holidays MLS commissioner Don Garber made the announcement that Charlotte would become Major League Soccer’s 30th team. Carolina Panthers owner David Tepper heads up the new franchise and the yet named team will begin play in 2021.
The growth of MLS is pretty amazing as the naysayers back in the early days of the league never thought that it would work. Play began in 1996 with just ten teams. 25 years later and the league continues to grow and attract more talented players.
David Beckham’s Inter Miami and Nashville SC will begin play this season. Charlotte and Austin join the league in 2021 and will be followed by St. Louis and Sacramento in 2022.
I got to attend a soccer match in Charlotte this past summer as Arsenal and Fiorentina faced each other in a pre-season match. The game was played at Bank of America Ball Park and was attended by about 35,000 fans. It was a great match, but as purists of the game know, seeing a soccer match at an American football ballpark just doesn’t feel right. The new Charlotte franchise will play in this stadium and it’s unclear if there are plans for a soccer specific stadium in the future.
I’ve attended home matches for both the Red Bulls and NYCFC and there’s no comparison between the experience of seeing a match at Red Bull Arena versus Yankee Stadium. Hopefully NYCFC will find its own home and other MLS clubs will follow suit.
The real question now is whether there is enough fan interest in Charlotte and the other new MLS cities to keep the league moving forward. What do you think?