MLS is taking another step towards their dream of 24 teams by 2020, awarding an expansion club to the city of Atlanta. A press conference has been called for Wednesday when a “major announcement” will be made to formally announce the team. It is still unclear when the team will begin play, although it could be as late as 2018.
Atlanta set to be awarded MLS expansion team
Bend, corner’s like I was a curve, I struck a nerve. And now you bout to see this Southern player serve.
Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports
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Several media outlets reported that Arthur Blank, co-founder of Home Depot and owner of the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons, had agreed to a deal with the league to become the new club’s owner with an official announcement to be made with commissioner Don Garber on Wednesday. The announcement now confirms Wednesday as the day and Blank will be there with Garber to usher in MLS’s newest club.
The team is expected to play in the new stadium being built primarily for the Falcons. The stadium broke ground in March and is not expected to be ready until 2017, so the new MLS team may not begin play until the following year at the latest, although the stadium could open early enough in 2017 for the team or they could enter the league earlier and play in the Georgia Dome until the new stadium is completed
The downtown stadium will seat 65,000, but it was designed with a wide field for soccer and to have curtains that block off the upper level, creating a false roof for the smaller crowds of MLS. An exact capacity for MLS has not been revealed, but expectations are that it will be somewhere between 20,000 and 25,000 seats. A major drawback will be the artificial turf field, although the type of turf has not yet been revealed so it is unclear whether it will be closer to the excellent turf the Portland Timbers play on or the disaster that the New England Revolution have.
The league has made growing TV ratings a priority and Atlanta fits with that. Atlanta is the ninth largest TV market in the U.S., the largest in the south and the largest that does not already have a MLS team. With this expansion, MLS will now have teams in all of the country’s 10 largest TV markets.
When MLS announced its plans to expand the league to 24 teams, Garber said that a big focus would be to establish teams in the south. D.C. United had been the closest MLS has had to a southern team since the Miami Fusion and Tampa Bay Mutiny were contracted in 2001, leaving a gaping hole in one of the most populated regions of the country. The league quickly moved to award Orlando a team and they will begin play in 2015. MLS also awarded Miami a team, provided they can get a stadium built, and now Atlanta also joins the fray, giving the league three teams in the South.
With the additions of Atlanta, Orlando, Miami and NYCFC -- which is scheduled to join in 2015 -- MLS will have 23 teams and will have just one spot to fill under its current expansion plan. As of now, it does not appear as if any city is on the verge of getting the team, with Minneapolis floated as the frontrunner, but San Antonio, Sacramento, Detroit and Indianapolis are still in the mix to varying degrees.
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