Nashville SC CEO Ian Ayre and his staff are still painting in broad strokes as they prepare for the club’s inaugural MLS campaign in 2020, but the club’s owner, John Ingram, often sums up his side’s mentality in two short sentences: “We’re not coming to participate. We’re coming to compete.”



Of course, this is MLS, where best laid plans often go to die. There is a chance that Nashville will end up at the bottom of the heap for a while, as other expansion sides have. If that ends up being the case, Ayre will be afforded one of MLS’s more notorious luxuries: the never-ending series of mulligans the league gives its worst teams.



Promotion and relegation, of course, is not a thing in MLS, as it is in many other soccer leagues around the world. Advocates say that heightened stakes would encourage more competition and organic growth amongst lower-tier clubs, as they seek to prove their mettle. And detractors say that...