The stadium hasn’t been built. The history is checkered for the league and the city. The franchise hasn’t been awarded. But what kind of success could Major League Soccer have here if the league’s 2017 expansion includes a team in Arthur Blank’s new stadium?
More than 67,000 fans attended an MLS game earlier this year when Seattle hosted Portland.
Whether Blank can create that kind of excitement in Atlanta is up for debate, but the city seems a natural fit. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution first reported Sept. 12 that Blank had begun discussions with the league about placing a new franchise in his stadium when it opens.
“It’s always been a market where I scratch my head and say why isn’t there one in Atlanta?” said Tony Meola, a former U.S. national team goalkeeper and MLS player.
Atlanta has had a checkered history with professional soccer. The Chiefs were the city’s first professional team, but they have come and gone and twice.
Experts who study or played in MLS can’t predict if the sport would work in Atlanta as it has in Seattle or with other successful expansions in Portland or Vancouver. Or if it would join the ranks of teams such as Miami or Tampa who were contracted in 2001 during the league’s early dark days, leaving a hole in the South that Atlanta may eventually fill.
But the demographics of Atlanta as top-10 media market and the strong grass-roots following the sport has in metro Atlanta, combined with the recent success of international tournaments and friendlies in the city, indicates that the city would be a natural fit and could benefit from an MLS that is stronger than ever.
“The future is bright for the league; the one hole they do have is the Southeast,” said Dick Cecil, who helped start the Chiefs in Atlanta the first time in 1966. “Atlanta is the most logical place. It will take ownership that understands the game and the fans.”
Based upon his knowledge turning around the Falcons, Blank would seem to understand the Atlanta sports fan who, fair or not, has a reputation for being fickle. Blank can always draw from the experiences of Jim Smith, the Falcons’ chief marketing officer who previously was president and general manager of the Columbus Crew of MLS.
“Atlanta is a big-event town,” Cecil said. “They like the big event, they like to see winners. … It will be successful at first. But you have to work it (to maintain the market share).”
Cecil could have been discussing the growth of MLS.
In its 18th season, MLS is the longest running professional soccer league in U.S. history. After going through franchise contraction in the early 2000s, the league has recently expanded rapidly. It will add its 20th team in 2015 and commissioner Don Garber said the league wants to add four teams no later than 2020.
To those who study the business of soccer, it appears that the league is correctly headed in directions that benefit the owners and those who have a stake in the franchises: the players and the fans.
“It’s pretty clear that Major League Soccer can expand without harming the quality of play and continue to expand into major markets in the country,” said David Carter, principal of Sports Business Group and executive director of the USC Sports Business Institute.
Spurred by Seattle’s 43,000, the league’s average attendance of 18,400 ranks third among professional sports leagues, trailing the NFL and Major League Baseball. It is either the seventh- or eighth-most attended professional soccer league in the world, depending upon the week.
There are 88.5 million soccer fans in the United States and 24.4 million participants, according to the United States’ failed bid to host the World Cup. There are more than 100,000 players, coaches or officials registered with the Georgia Soccer Association. That doesn’t include other associations in the state and the hundreds to thousands of unregistered players in Hispanic-based leagues.
The interest was partially reflected in the attendance for the Gold Cup in the Georgia Dome earlier this year. More than 50,000 fans attended the two games. Previous games at the Dome featuring Mexico, which played in the Gold Cup, also surpassed 50,000.
But the popularity of Mexico, which almost always draws a big crowd no matter the venue, is one reason that soccer fans shouldn’t assume that a franchise in Atlanta will draw the same crowds. For example, a friendly featuring two international club teams held at the Dome in 2010 drew less than 35,000, and one of those teams, Club America, is one of the most popular in Mexico.
MLS credits the Latin American fan base as one of the reasons it has grown. More than 30 percent of the league’s fans are Hispanic, according to MLS. Metro Atlanta has a growing Hispanic population, surpassing 477,000 in 2011, according to the 2010 census.
In turn, the growing popularity of the sport and the league is allowing the league and its owners to invest in their franchises:
- Expansion fees have increased from $7.5 million in 2005 to a reported $100 million that New York's owners agreed to pay.
- Fifteen of the league's 19 teams have built soccer-specific stadiums. Atlanta's potential franchise would play in the new stadium that is set to open in 2017. The stadium can be converted from big events such as Super Bowl that could seat 80,000 to events such as a regular-season MLS game that may need less than 40,000.
- All teams are required to have youth academies to develop home-grown talent. Several MLS players have come from metro Atlanta, including Philadelphia's Jack McInerney and Chicago's Sean Johnson;
- The league has consistently tried to import world talent, such as David Beckham and Thierry Henry, and has begun re-investing in U.S. talent by adding more designated-player slots (higher-priced players), capped by Seattle signing U.S. standout and national team captain Clint Dempsey for a reported $9 million transfer fee on top of a $24 million contract.
Those signings, which also include U.S. national-team players Landon Donovan, Omar Gonzalez and Graham Zusi, are important as the league seeks to grow, possibly into cities such as Atlanta, while improving its reputation world-wide.
“There is steady upside in terms of revenue to be captured and franchise values to grow,” Carter said. “The key is to manage the growth so that you don’t overexpand and dilute the product with reduced quality of play. That’s the balancing act the commissioner’s office dealing with.”
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