FC Cincinnati makes its final MLS expansion push Wednesday in NYC

The day of days is upon Futbol Club Cincinnati.

FC Cincinnati, the internationally-recognized soccer sensation born of local minds in Mt. Lookout coffee shops, will have its day in New York City Wednesday to present what amounts to a closing argument to Major League Soccer regarding the club's bid to gain an expansion spot in the league.

Club President and General Manager Jeff Berding, majority owner Carl Lindner III and possibly others will present for approximately two hours Wednesday evening at MLS headquarters at 420 5th Avenue.

There, Berding and Lindner will address a room packed with some of the most powerful figures in American sports. Among the attendees will be MLS Commissioner Don Garber and the league's expansion committee chaired by Jonathan Kraft, owner/investor of the New England Revolution (MLS) and President of the NFL's New England Patriots.

The roughly two-hour-long presentation will likely be a carefully choreographed highlighting of the deliverable and lofty projections FC Cincinnati has compiled over its nearly three years in existence.

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Seeing as many of the club's successes in terms of attendance, merchandise sales, TV draw and on-field accomplishments are well-documented, the team's most recent developments on the stadium front could take center stage.

FC Cincinnati will then be forced to wait days and possibly weeks as MLS deliberates and ultimately chooses two teams from the four expansion finalists, a group that includes Sacramento Republic FC and organizations representing the Nashville and Detroit markets.

On Wednesday more than ever before, what is good about FC Cincinnati – what the club has stood for and what has largely been forgotten or overlooked during a somewhat contentious but merely weeks-long push for public funds to secure the team's long-term stadium solution – must be conveyed.

Here's what you need to know and remember going into what is unquestionably the biggest day in FC Cincinnati history:

WHAT MLS NEEDS TO HEAR FROM FC CINCINNATI: FC Cincinnati's Wednesday presentation will be the club's fourth known meeting with MLS officials. Two of the three that already occurred were in public view (during Garber's trip to Cincinnati in November 2016 and Aug. 15 for the U.S. Open Cup semifinal match). FC Cincinnati has had opportunities to sell MLS on aspects of the club's strengths but Wednesday is the day it all needs to be tied together.

As a refresher, MLS's stated criteria for expansion emphasizes the following: Ownership, stadium (details on the proposed site, financing plan, required governmental approvals and support from public officials), financial projections, corporate support and soccer support (business and financial projections and commitment letters for stadium naming rights and jersey-front sponsor) and an overview of the soccer community.

The media market is also a key consideration for each finalist.

WHAT FC CINCINNATI HAS TO SELL: On paper, FC Cincinnati's now-completed package of offerings for MLS is arguably as strong as any of the other three competitors.

The team's stadium plan is in a good enough place for now and the club can say with certainty it can build a stadium in Cincinnati. Public officials at the city and county level voted to support that stadium plan, and also backed up their support with a financial commitment.

FC Cincinnati is unmatched in this group of four finalists in terms of its popularity and scale. The team was the eighth-best drawing soccer club in America in 2017 with 21,199 in attendance per league home game. It's 339,181 total attendance for league matches broke the club's own USL single-season record, and totaled 477,331 across all home matches this year (including the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup and a friendly match).

FC Cincinnati has merchandise sales, TV viewership numbers and profits to compliment the record attendance numbers.

After stadium solutions, market size might be the biggest hurdle FC Cincinnati has to clear as it is ranked the No 36-sized market in America, according to Nielsen.

On that point, the club can point to its increasing popularity outside the city of Cincinnati, the size of the overall metro area and that its fan base increasingly extends northwest toward the Dayton market.

THE CLOSERS: Berding and Lindner are flying to New York City to close this deal out as only they can. If you're an FC Cincinnati fan and supporter of the club's front office, there's no one you'd rather have standing before Garber and Co. with the city's MLS future on the line.

Win or lose, Wednesday will always stand as one of the biggest days in Berding's and Lindner's lives – and they're proven winners when it comes to getting results for the community they represent.

Berding, the former Cincinnati City Councilman, is the key man in the room as he is as skilled a rhetorician as you will find anywhere.

Berding's challenge on Wednesday will be overlooking the recent clunkiness of the organization's stadium push – a lot of which was out of his control anyway. You can argue about the methods of FC Cincinnati in getting its stadium deal pushed through, and plenty have and will continue to. But it's really the only baggage weighing FC Cincinnati down. There's so much more positive to be focused on.

Berding will have to tap into and focus on everything that made FC Cincinnati the ground-up soccer sensation that it is and remains. Throughout the team's existence, Berding has been humbled by the vast response by FC Cincinnati fans. His appreciation for what this project became is sincere, and he won't have trouble conveying the big picture at this all-important juncture.

What's indisputable is Berding and Lindner – two born-and-bred Cincinnatians – are great champions of the Queen City and have been doggedly chasing their MLS dream, along with every season ticket holder and sports fan in the region.

Who else would you entrust with getting this bid across the finish line once and for all?

THE ENQUIRER WILL BE THERE: Enquirer FC Cincinnati beat writer Pat Brennan will be in New York City Wednesday providing reports and analysis from the MLS expansion finalists' presentations to the league. Follow Pat's coverage on Cincinnati.com and on Twitter, @PBrennanENQ.