Nashville embraces ‘underdog’ label in Major League Soccer pursuit

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John Ingram remembers the 1990s, before the Nashville Predators were born, when political and business leaders gambled on a Southern city becoming a hockey town as a way to leap into the major leagues.

He points to last year’s NHL All-Star Game held in Nashville as validation of success.

So now as Ingram, one of the state’s most prominent businessmen and a staple name in Nashville, looks to bring a Major League Soccer expansion franchise to the city, he believes the undertaking isn’t such a stretch. In fact, he’s optimistic.

This doesn’t mean Ingram, the lead investor of the 28-member Nashville MLS Steering Committee, isn’t aware of the hurdles.

His group represents one of 11 cities racing toward a deadline this Tuesday to submit applications to the MLS to compete for four expansion slots as the league expands to 28 teams. But a late start has meant playing catch-up.

Nashville’s ownership group first made contact with MLS officials last year. But some cities have spent years on the effort. Unlike several others getting looks, Nashville has never fielded a pro soccer team at any level. And Nashville's metropolitan population is the smallest of all the cities under consideration.

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“We do sit in a bit of an underdog role, on the one hand,” Ingram told The Tennessean in a recent interview. “On the other hand, I’ve never really been as concerned about where you start as where you finish."

Ingram, 55, chairman of Ingram Industries Inc. — a holding company that took in $2.3 billion in revenue last year — emerged as the lead investor of an MLS soccer push last month that was kicked off by Bill Hagerty, a former top aide to Gov. Bill Haslam who is now President Donald Trump’s nominee to be the next U.S. ambassador to Japan.

“Nashville has a very strong brand, maybe unlike any other city in the MLS,” Ingram said. “I think we have a great opportunity to bring this local brand to the global sport of soccer.”

Ingram, Barry to meet with MLS officials

But Nashville has competition.

Other cities in the hunt are San Antonio, San Diego, Detroit, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Ohio; Raleigh/Durham, N.C., Charlotte, N.C.; Sacramento, Calif. and Tampa/St. Petersburg, Fla. A group from Phoenix announced this week that it is seeking entry in the MLS, increasing the number from 10 to 11.

There’s some areas all MLS expansion applicants must address: commitment from an ownership group; a market’s fan support, size, geography, corporate support and television market; and, of course, a city’s stadium plan.

MLS soccer stadium price-tags vary. A new MLS stadium under construction in St. Paul cost $150 million, but Hagerty said the range could extend from $175 million to $250 million.

Securing a stadium remains a crucial box that is unchecked for Nashville, but the group has made important progress. The Tennessean first reported Thursday that Mayor Megan Barry has zeroed in on the city-owned Nashville Fairgrounds for a future MLS stadium and is throwing her support behind the group’s bid. She’s planning to discuss her site recommendation in more detail on Monday at a luncheon at the downtown Rotary Club of Nashville.

Appearing before the Kiwanis Club of Nashville on Friday, Barry pointed to recent well-attended men’s and women’s national soccer matches as a sign of the sport’s growth in the city.

Barry said she plans to meet with MLS officials next week. Barry, who will be joined by Ingram, said she had already planned to be in New York for a previously scheduled economic development trip.

Stadium site gives bid boost

Talks are still ongoing and a formal agreement between the city and the ownership group hasn’t been reached. Barry said she’s seeking a “private-public partnership with an emphasis on the 'private' part of the equation.”’

Though much work remains, the support from Barry — and her identification of a stadium site — is a critical boost for Nashville’s MLS application.

“Nashville has a long history of successfully public-private partnerships,” Ingram said. He pointed to the city’s existing sports stadium as well as the Frist Center, Music City Center and Schermerhorn Symphony Center, the latter of which his mother, philanthropist Martha Ingram, was instrumental in building.

“I think this is a situation where if it’s going to work, you’re going to have both groups with a lot of skin in the game," he said.

Ingram, who has deep ties with Vanderbilt University athletics, has been open about his interest in a future MLS team perhaps sharing a new stadium with Vanderbilt’s football team. Vanderbilt Vice Chancellor David Williams has called a new football stadium a priority for the university in the coming years with the goal remaining on-campus.

A spokesman for Vanderbilt declined to comment on the new focus of a pro soccer stadium at the fairgrounds.

“Personally, I hope that we could potentially create a situation that would be attractive to Vanderbilt, but in reality, I don’t speak for Vanderbilt and I don’t make the decisions for Vanderbilt,” Ingram said.

Weighing strengths vs. weaknesses

Although Nashville lacks widespread notoriety as a pro-soccer town, the steering committee hopes the city’s string of well-attended international friendly matches at Nashville’s Nissan Stadium can show the city has a passionate fan base that can grow.

The most recent, a match between Mexico and New Zealand in October, drew 40,287 fans. In December, Nashville was named one of 14 cities that will host matches in next year's CONCACAF Gold Cup.

Nashville’s MLS boosters are banking on the city’s new “It City” reputation. Boosting its candidacy, Nashville also boasts a rapidly growing foreign-born population, led by Latinos, that could help feed a soccer fan base.

Perhaps Nashville’s strongest asset is a deep-pocketed, well-connected ownership group. Early on, the group also picked up backing from some of Nashville’s corporate giants such as Ryman, HCA, Bridgestone Americas and Nissan, as well as the Tennessee Titans and Nashville Predators.

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MLS Commissioner Don Garber, in a conference call with reporters in December, mentioned some of Nashville’s strengths in discussing the league’s interest in Music City. He said Nashville could fit into a plan for a “geographic rollout in the Southeast,” a place where MLS has a smaller presence than other parts of the country.

Garber also said MLS is encouraged by the start of Nashville Soccer Club, a recently awarded United Soccer League team eyeing 2018 to begin play. He noted the league’s ties to the team’s chief executive officer Court Jeske, who previously worked as vice president of international business for Soccer United Marketing, the commercial arm of Major League Soccer.

Nashville's MLS ownership group and Nashville SC are working on a possible alignment, but details are unclear.

Nashville needs to 'blow MLS away'

Expansion teams will be announced in pairs of two. The league's 25th and 26th teams, to begin play by 2020, will be announced sometime next year and would pay a record-high expansion fee of $150 million. The 27th and 28th expansion teams, along with the cost of their expansion fees, are to be named at a later date.

Nashville is likely to compete for the final two spots, but the group isn’t ruling out anything.

“To be realistic, we probably have a better shot at one of the latter two because we are later to the party and there are other cities that have been working on this for a couple of years,” Ingram said. “But we’re going to go as fast and hard as we can because there’s no way to tell. We want to be as ready as possible.”

Sacramento and St. Louis have been widely considered two of the front runners. Other cities, such as Cincinnati, have shown strong fan support of USL-level soccer, perhaps aiding their chances.

Setbacks elsewhere could present an opportunity for Nashville’s bid. A stadium proposal in St. Louis has proven controversial and faces a local referendum for final approval. In Charlotte, the city council recently canceled a vote on a proposal to spend $43.5 million on a soccer stadium, putting its bid in limbo.

MLS followers say Nashville can emerge among the pack but it won’t be easy.

“Nashville’s one of the smaller markets that’s going to have to surpass expectations and really blow MLS away with a plan that forces them to take notice,” said Brian Straus, a soccer writer at Sports Illustrated who has been profiling all of the cities under consideration for expansion.

A possible legacy project for Ingram

Straus said there are two types of expansion markets — large markets that MLS “feels it has to be in” and small and mid-tier markets that must demonstrate why they deserve a team. Nashville would need to take the latter path, but there’s precedent, Straus said, pointing to Orlando, which has MLS’ Orlando City Soccer Club.

“With the Ingram’s resources and the reputation that Nashville is starting to develop nationally after the NHL All-Star game, it’s possible that Nashville could wow MLS with a stadium proposal and a message that the city is not only a great tourist destination but a place that’s going to support big-time sports as well," he said.

Peter Wilt, former president of MLS’ Chicago Fire who works at Club 9 Sports, a sports consulting firm, published a recent demographic analysis for Howler Magazine that sought to rank the nation’s next big soccer markets. Of cities that have more than 1 million people in their metro areas and currently lack pro soccer, he put Nashville first, above Austin, Texas, Detroit, San Diego and Baltimore — all larger cities.

“The demographics that soccer looks for are well represented,” he said. “What really excites me is the young adult population in Nashville. It’s large and it’s growing and their passionate about soccer and they’re also passionate about supporting localness.”

Ingram said he started recently thinking about how he wants to spend the rest of his working years. He cited his love of sports and an intrigue of creating a legacy project for his family.

He says Nashville is a real contender. Now it's time to deliver.

“I agree we’re an underdog, but I think we’re a city people better watch out for because here we come.”

Reach Joey Garrison at 615-259-8236 and on Twitter @joeygarrison.