Atlanta become 22nd team to join MLS

ATLANTA

Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank and MLS commissioner Don Garber will confirm the inevitable on Wednesday afternoon: Atlanta will join MLS in 2017.

The decision constitutes an important landmark for MLS in its continued quest to broaden its footprint and strengthen its core. The arrival of the nation’s ninth-largest city creates yet another building block in the Southeast and marks a substantive step toward fulfilling Garber’s stated goal of expanding the league to 24 teams by the end of the decade.

Blank and Garber are expected to lead the celebrations downtown in the wake of the announcement. Once the furor subsides, the hard work commences. Join Atlanta on its journey from inception to expansion with this primer.

Why does MLS want to expand to Atlanta? It is the largest market in the country without a team. It boasts the right mix of business interests and favorable demographics. It possesses a ready-made, if somewhat imperfect, stadium plan to place the team downtown. Oh, and a billionaire with ample experience in professional sports wants to pay an expansion fee likely to hit the high eight figures for the new club after investigating the idea for nearly a decade.


BLANK DISHES ON MLS IN ATLANTA

Atlanta investor/operator Arthur Blank discussed his new club in some detail during an interview with a local radio station last week.
Fair enough. So what does Arthur Blank get out of the fairly expensive deal?: Blank is in the middle of shepherding a $1.2 billion stadium project toward a 2017 completion date. The new facility will cost him the better part of that price tag. He needs tenants to help fill dates. Owning a soccer team in a facility he will operate makes a whole lot of sense from a revenue perspective.

This decision isn’t just about the money, right? Nope. Blank’s children are involved in youth soccer. He grasps the appeal of the game. And he thinks this expansion side is the right move for both himself and his adopted city.

But will his team play in the right stadium? The new, 65,000-seat venue won’t tick a lot of boxes for the soccer purists: it is expected to have an artificial surface and use technology similar to the system deployed at B.C. Place to reduce capacity for soccer matches. But the location (accessible from downtown, familiar to residents and proximate to MARTA and the perpetually congested highways) and the revenue flow (a team controlled by Blank playing in a venue managed by the Atlanta Falcons) mitigate those genuine concerns quite a bit. The prospect of playing air conditioned matches during the summer with the retractable roof closed is a nice perk, too.

“Our new stadium is being designed to accommodate potentially the World Cup and international soccer games with the roof expanding,” Blank told 680 The Fan last week. “The roof, obviously, is retractable, which means we can open and close it to any level we want to. The field will be designed to accommodate soccer. We're enthused about that. We think the fan support in Atlanta will be incredible. An urban, downtown soccer stadium will be a tremendous hit in Atlanta.”

Will the fans actually show up for games? More likely than not, but Blank might want to splash the cash on a Mexican national team star for his new team just in case. El Tri just drew 68,212 fans to the Georgia Dome for a friendly against Nigeria last month. It isn’t quite as straightforward to entice fans to attend 17 (give or take, depending on the schedule) home matches for a MLS team.


BREAKDOWN ON MLS IN ATL

MLS made a sensible decision by selecting Atlanta as the home of its latest franchise.
Atlanta holds a rather mixed record in the attendance department – good for the Braves and Falcons (especially since Blank assumed control in 2002), not so good for the Hawks and the departed Thrashers – that may or may not translate here. The demographics fit the league’s target group well enough. The initial enthusiasm – spurred by Terminus Legion, a supporters’ group vocal in its support for bringing a MLS team to Atlanta – offers some encouragement. But this market will need to prove itself to a league with quickly increasing standards in these matters.

Is there a downside if Atlanta falls short of the mark?: Yes, but it isn’t as large as most people suspect. MLS is headed for 24 teams by the end of the decade. It will likely add a few more after that stage. In a league of that size, there is some room for deviation.

Not every team needs to adhere to the desired model or transform into the next Portland or Seattle (or any one of several other teams, for that matter) to vindicate the decision to expand. Sure, it’d be nice to have 24 (or more) wildly successful teams playing in soccer-specific stadiums with perfect grass surfaces. Reality doesn’t always dovetail neatly with ambition, though.

Atlanta is a large market with an wealthy and well respected investor/operator willing to pay a significant expansion fee to place a team in a stadium he operates. It makes perfect sense to expand here, even with the attendance, stadium and surface foibles in play. And if a team with this sort of infrastructure eventually settles into the bottom half of the pecking order instead of the top half, then it is a sign that the league has strengthened considerably.

One last, minor tidbit: Why is Atlanta number 22? Isn’t Miami number 22?: David Beckham exercised his contractual option to invest in a club. He plans to place the team in Miami. He must, however, reach an agreement on a stadium deal before the league will officially award him a franchise. No such deal exists at the current time. And that’s why Atlanta, not Miami, is the 22nd club to joinMLS. Expect the folks from both sides to continue the debate on this topic as the start date approaches.

http://msn.foxsports.com/soccer/inside-mls/everything-you-need-to-know-about-mls-to-atlanta-041614?cmpid=tsmtw:fscom:foxsoccer

Needed regional addition. Eventually had to happen..But..This is the fourth expansion team announced in the past few months... 2 have no stadium solution yet.. one is going to play on NFL turf.. I feel as if Garber is rushing this a bit.

However...Things I like about it:

-Apparently the turf is new technology. There is a difference I suppose because this team is being put in a stadium that is being build with it in mind that they are going to spend more time there than even their NFL counterpart.

-29,000 seat stadium... Too much, but for an NFL stadium, could be way worse.. Average attendance now is only 20,000.. So if in the coming years they can even maintain the average it won't appear to be too empty like other stadiums aka REVs.

-Owner seems to actually have great interest in this project. Said all the right things during the presser.

PS.. PLEASE be called the Atlanta Apollos. That name is so sick. They can have so much fun with the branding

Really not sold on Atlanta as a sporting city, but I am rather disappointed they decided not to invest in the Silverbacks and bring them up to MLS since they are already the established team in the city. Beyond that, this is rather ambitious. Should be interesting to see what type of talent they produce and can attract, especially for the DP slots.

McLewis wrote:Really not sold on Atlanta as a sporting city, but I am rather disappointed they decided not to invest in the Silverbacks and bring them up to MLS since they are already the established team in the city. Beyond that, this is rather ambitious. Should be interesting to see what type of talent they produce and can attract, especially for the DP slots.

What i can see happening is the Silverbacks moving to the USL and become the Atlanta teams low league partner.

If they come up with a better name/branding then silverbacks, then this will have been the right decision. If its something equally as stupid like firebirds.. Then this whole move was a complete and total rush job

The entire staidum in Atlanta has been a rush job. I am not a fan of Arthur Blank or the city in general rushing along products like this, buying out old churches who had been city staples for generations(and who wont easily find another spot downtown unless Morris Brown finally gives up the rest of its property), and basically investing money in areas that are not needed. The Georgia dome is still a new-ish staidum, and was remodeled less than 10 years ago after the tornado...its a waste of funds in a historically fickle city.

Seriously the only thing folks love are UGA. Everything else struggles. The braves made the playoffs for like a decade straight and were one of the classier sides in baseball and the playoff games would have piles upon piles of empty seats at turner field(a new stadium which will also be replaced in the next few years). Something is rotten there, and one can only hope Jimmy Carter's grandson can get this sorted out.