Paul Daugherty

pdaugherty@enquirer.com

A minor-league soccer team is two-thirds through its rookie season when it starts talking openly about seeking bigger pastures.

Ambitious.

The team is spectacularly successful. It sets league attendance records. That’s nice, but only a start. Its leaders cozy up to power brokers at the proverbial next level, suggesting they take a good, long look.

Audacious.

The high-ups from the bigger league actually take note of the upstart, and not disapprovingly. “Keep in touch, kid. You’ve got a shot.’’

Cincinnati?

Buckle up, FC Cincinnati fans

I don’t care if Futbol Club Cincinnati ever spends a minute playing Major League Soccer. FCC could remain in the United Soccer League from now until forever (or until the U.S. men win the World Cup, whichever comes first), and that would be OK. What’s greatest about the local side’s wooing of the MLS isn’t the possibility of moving up in class, though after two-thirds of one season of existence, that’s impressive.

It’s what it represents.

It’s bold. It’s visionary. It takes our town’s sometimes shaky belief in itself and slams it into a trash can. “We think we’re on the front of something special,’’ says team president and general manager Jeff Berding. “We feel strongly Cincinnati shouldn’t be left on the sidelines. Someday we’ll hopefully look back at this and be glad we didn’t lose out to other cities.’’

They’ve hired a consultant. Mark McCullers is the former president of the Columbus Crew, an MLS member. McCullers offers this, when reminded it’s been barely a year since the local Futbol Club started playing:

“But what a year, right? It hasn’t just been good, it’s been USL-best by a long shot. The market is credible. It’s a pro sports market. It has the culture of a pro sports town. You have a strong youth soccer community, good market demographics.’’

MLS should heed FC Cincinnati fever

Then McCullers says this:

“It’s a place that 24-34-year-olds want to live.’’

It is, isn’t it?

It took a generation or so for that to be true. But the scary and fabulous truth is:

We’re hip.

Cincinnati is cool. FC Cincinnati is a living, growing manifestation of that.

The cool, the class of futbol in Cincinnati

Those who do the hiring at P&G, GE Aviation and Kroger must be doing back-flips. The key to any small city’s success is the young minds it’s able to hire and retain. Creative types. Eager, optimistic, smart kids who want to come to work here, or who’ve grown up here and want to stay.

FC Cincinnati has bisected our town at a sweet spot in time. Millennials live, work and play Downtown. They’ve grown up loving soccer. They’ve adopted FCC. They’re bringing the rest of us along with them.

McCullers says ownership is key. “The proper brains’’ is how he puts it.

The Lindners didn’t get rich spending foolishly. Whether it was diligent research, keen instincts or blind luck – all three, most likely – they have tapped into a mother lode of potential. They’d like to see how far they can take it.

“The Lindners are credible, they’re major-league, they fit well at the MLS ownership table,’’ McCullers says.

A franchise fee of up to $200 million has been suggested. That’s a filter, insiders say, to identify the serious. A charge of $125 million is closer to reality. Berding says ownership would pay that.

The soccer-only stadium isn’t a big issue, says Berding. He cites the franchises in Seattle and New England that play in NFL stadiums, and the new franchise in Atlanta, which will share a new stadium with the Falcons. Says McCullers of Nippert Stadium, “They could play MLS there tomorrow.’’ Berding hopes to get MLS officials to a game there before the year is out.

Berding is also quick to say “Our immediate future is the USL and we are very comfortable with that,’’ he says. MLS expansion isn’t likely until 2020, he says.

It could be an overreach. As a reader suggested to me, “I don’t see the local soccer-loving public demanding MLS so much as a good time with a winning team.’’

That could be true. Or it could be limiting. Regardless, McCullers says, “It’s hard not to have Cincinnati in the (MLS) discussion now.’’

Ownership is banking that the value of an MLS franchise will appreciate significantly over the next several years at least. As Berding puts it, “A changing sports culture has made soccer a very important sport. Twelve years ago, soccer was behind women’s figure skating in terms of public interest.’’

Those with big money invested can sweat those details. The rest of us bask in the intangibles. Pro soccer is fashionable, Cincinnati’s pro soccer market is exploding, thus Cincinnati is fashionable. And we’ve only just begun.