Twelve months ago, some observers considered Nashville a long shot to get a Major League Soccer expansion franchise.

Now, Music City is getting called Soccer City. Nashville on Wednesday officially jumped to the head of the line, becoming the first from an original list of 12 cities to land a new club.

"This is a city that we've really fallen in love with," MLS Commissioner Don Garber said.

"Everything about it fits our brand. We're young. We're on the rise. We're very diverse. We're very interested in trying to do things a bit differently than the other pro sports leagues have done," he said. "We recognize that we've just finished our 22nd season. We've got generations of growth in front of us."

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It marks quite a feat for lead owner John Ingram, who got a key boost from Mayor Megan Barry and the Metro Council along the way.

Here's how Nashville did it and why MLS is coming to Music City.

1. 'It City' status proved mightier than other cities' strengths

Detroit is a significantly larger market. Cincinnati has a successful United Soccer League team that packs the stands. And Sacramento has been on Major League Soccer's radar for years.

Each made strong cases, but in the end, MLS Commissioner Don Garber chose Nashville, a city whose skyline is dotted with construction cranes and has fast become an international brand and destination for tourism.

Nashville, quite simply, is on fire. The "It City" status bestowed on Nashville nearly five years ago by The New York Times has stuck. Above all, MLS wanted to cash in on that sort of buzz — even if it meant disappointing other cities that had been waiting in line far longer than Nashville.

2. John Ingram ownership group impressed, so did early help from Bill Hagerty

Nashville's ownership group, led by billionaire businessman John Ingram, provided just what the league wanted.

When he signed on as controlling owner last December, Ingram — chairman of Ingram Industries Inc. and the son of philanthropist Martha Ingram — gave Nashville's bid the direction and financial support of someone with deep ties in the Nashville community whose connections span business, philanthropy, higher education, college athletics and politics. Most importantly, his involvement left no doubt about the ownership's group financial standing.

Earlier in the process, Nashville businessman Bill Hagerty, now U.S. ambassador to Japan, got the ball rolling with a steering committee of business and political heavyweights to rally around the team. Behind the scenes, the bid was steered by people who knew how to execute an economic and development deal: Hagerty, former Tennessee Economic and Development Department Chief of Staff Will Alexander and Mark Cate, former chief of staff for Gov. Bill Haslam.

Nashville had an organized front from the beginning. Comparatively, Sacramento, another front runner, changed their ownership group as recently as two weeks ago with the addition of Meg Whitman, CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

3. Preds' Cup run, record-setting soccer crowds showed what Nashville could be

Don't underestimate the role the Nashville Predators' historic Stanley Cup Final run played last June in helping Nashville make its case for MLS. The event became a national spectacle as tens of thousand of hockey fans packed downtown streets to watch the games on over-sized projection screens.

For a few days, Lower Broadway was the biggest party in North America. It showed that a nontraditional hockey market in the South could rally around an NHL team.

So why couldn't the same happen with soccer? If there were any doubt that Nashville had a growing soccer community, it was erased the next month in June when Nissan Stadium hosted a CONCACAF Gold Cup soccer match between the men's U.S. national team and Panama that broke Tennessee's soccer attendance record.

It was broken weeks later for a English Premier League preseason match also at Nissan Stadium.

4. Wilf family only strengthened ownership group

Already with a financially strong local ownership group, Nashville only strengthened its bid in August when brothers Mark and Zygi Wilf, and cousin Leonard — co-owners of the NFL's Minnesota Vikings — signed on as minority owners.

The Wilfs had sought to own an MLS team in Minneapolis in the past, but they were bypassed in 2015. It wasn't because of ill will toward the Wilfs, however, but rather because the Wilfs proposed the Vikings' indoor football stadium for soccer.

MLS wanted an outdoor venue. The addition of the Wilfs, who have made their fortunes primarily in real estate, gave Ingram's bid a second billionaire family, more cachet, a family that had worked with Garber and fellow MLS owners, and professional sports expertise.

5. Securing a soccer-specific stadium helped set Nashville apart

Nashville wouldn't be landing an MLS expansion club without the aid of Mayor Megan Barry and without approval of a new soccer stadium at the city's fairgrounds. It's that simple.

The Metro Council in November voted 31-6 to approve $225 million in revenue bonds to help pay for a $275 million stadium project. The Ingram-led ownership is supposed to help retire the debt with payments of his own. By approving a stadium, Nashville was able to whiz past other cities that have not been able to do the same.

Detroit, at the last minute, offered the NFL's Ford Field, home of the Detroit Lions, for MLS — bucking the league's soccer-specific criteria.

Cincinnati received some public support for stadium infrastructure but still faces a gap from the $75 million in public assistance requested by the owners.

Nashville and Sacramento most closely matched the request of MLS on the stadium front.

6. Setbacks elsewhere gave Nashville a lane

How do you move up a list of 12 cities to the top spot? It doesn't hurt when several of the other cities had setbacks along the way.

Voters in St. Louis, a one-time front-runner, voted in the spring to not help finance a new soccer-specific stadium. San Diego opted to hold a referendum on financing for an MLS stadium, but not until November 2018. And in Charlotte, talks from city leaders about an MLS stadium fizzled this fall after a public-private financing agreement could not be reached. The Charlotte Observer quoted a city council member who cited the rising competition, including the “unbelievable” project in Nashville.

Meanwhile, Nashville, kept trudging along, improving its proposal.

Reach Joey Garrison at 615-259-8236, jgarrison@tennesean.com and on Twitter @Joeygarrison.