Atlanta United hopes to build on Gold Cup

Atlanta United FC has plans to continue take advantage of the growing interest in soccer following the Gold Cup semifinals at the Georgia Dome.

More than 70,000 tickets were sold for the doubleheader — a new record for soccer in the city — and Atlanta United FC tried to get in front of as many of them as possible with a tent outside the Dome, a merchandise tent near the Vine City MARTA station, some personal engagements with club president Darren Eales and technical director Carlos Bocanegra before the game in the Futbol Fiesta outside the Dome, spots on local Spanish radio stations and digital billboards near the Dome and jumbotron advertisements during the game.

And all that was just for the one day.

Between Wednesday and the team’s inaugural game in 2017, vice president of business operations Ann Rodriguez said she and her team will work on three points:

• Continuing to build the team's brand.
• Bring the operating plan to life.
• Continue fan engagement.

“A lot of people know MLS is coming to Atlanta … but we are really trying to drive home the association that Atlanta United is your MLS team,” Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez said they haven’t had to be too aggressive in selling the brand because the community has quickly embraced the team. The season-ticket pledges have increased by 2,000 in the past two weeks to almost 24,000.

The team debuted its Periscope app account Tuesday night as a way to build engagement with fans to go along with other social-media tools.

“It’s not a hard sell, it’s more general engagement tactics so people know that we are here and come see us,” she said. “That recipe has been working.”

Rodriguez is also focused on building the front-office staff over the next seven quarters. She said jobs will be posted soon, primarily in “consumer-facing” positions such as social media to continue to try to build engagement. She declined to say how many positions there will be because they are working out the number of shared responsibilities there are between the franchise and owner Arthur Blank’s other interests.

Fan engagement will continue through the use of social media, community meet-and-greets and other typical strategies.

Rodriguez said they would love to bring more soccer events to Atlanta to keep people engaged, but it’s too soon to detail what’s possible.