FC Cincinnati to join MLS: Implications for the team and league

With a huge announcement Tuesday, FC Cincinnati officially will enter MLS in 2019. The gathering at Fountain Square will be an unforgettable day for the club and the city. With only 3 years of play, FC Cincinnati is making the jump quicker than most expected. There are many implications and expected shifts for the club and MLS.

Don Garber is apparently not scared of doing business in Ohio. FC Cincinnati have been announced as the 26^th team admitted to MLS and will begin league play in 2019. Nippert Stadium will host the inaugural season while a new 21,000 seat stadium in the West End is being constructed.

With Nashville and now Cincinnati entering the league, MLS is making some bold statements with their choices. Most of the new clubs, with Miami also still scheduled, have been on the east coast. Sacramento’s chances are bipolar. They’ve seemingly cleared every stadium hurdle to be granted a spot, and now should be a shoe-in expansion candidate to balance the league. However, shouldn’ t they have been in by now? The ownership issues for Sacramento clearly have MLS HQ worried.

Contrastingly, in only three years, FC Cincinnati is being welcomed into MLS 3.0. Sure, it will take close to half a billion dollars to stage the first game. But Cincinnati ownership has the money. And while fast-tracked teams have fared poorly in MLS — Minnesota and Orlando are both looking for their first playoff appearances –, Cincinnati has the infrastructure and demand to deal with these early-season growing pains.

A pared down stadium will keep demand high, though ownership will need to spend to keep the apparent buzz around the city. The USL team finished 6^th in their conference last year and are presently 2^nd in 2018. Minnesota United did well to incorporate Miguel Ibarra and Cristian Martinez. No one on this FC Cincinnati team will get a callup to the USMNT soon, even if Klinsmann were in charge.

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But FC Cincinnati’s fanbase will be relieved the expansion process is over. Tying up millions of dollars while tempering expectations if things go south is a tenuous situation. Now the investors can move forward without hedging their bets. The prickly debates over public dollars for FC Cincinnati’s infrastructure needs are mostly resolved.

Last week, Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley decreed Expansion Tuesday an “Orange and Blue Day.” FC Cincinnati’s next order of business should be to lean on Garber; they should let MLSHQ know that the Columbus Crew rivalry should be preserved. Long-time fans of the league have an affinity to blue-collar rivalries.

The Hell is Real Rivalry is perfect Ohio joke material, especially when both fanbases can make the claim to not be from Cleveland. The billboard between the two cities provides all the branding needed. The fans have taken care of the rest.

While the new West End Stadium has been announced as less than 22,000, it is expandable to 28k. Orlando City initially marked their stadium capacity at 20,000 approximately. After seeing demand remain after the jump to the bigger bowl and pricier seats, the team delayed the move to allow for a 25,000 redesigned stadium. Orlando city fans put up, and now they have a loud, raucous, progressive stadium.

Likewise in other MLS cities. Portland’s new Providence Park renovation increased capacity to just 21,144. LAFC, with their jewel of a stadium in a major city marking MLS 3.0, hold only 22,000. Vancouver, 22,120, is among the cities that tarp seats to limit capacity. Empty seats are abundant for both New York teams and Houston.

Complaints about stadium capacity are a feature for MLS and FC Cincinnati at the moment. Recent stadium decisions point to this decision not being driven by fan interest or ownership financial wherewithal. MLS is finding it’s formula to maximize an intimate setting that plays well on TV but is able to hold numbers larger than NBA or NHL events. Once these MLS games are looking better on TV, more dollars will enter into league coffers.

Success in MLS is more about interested ownership and front office efficiency than game day capacity. How many MLS Cups have the Krafts won? Seattle just announced they may not be the biggest-spending team in the league, even though they are in the top few teams for attendance every year.

Reducing the size of the crowd does not limit a team’s championship potential. Parity is built into almost every North American league. Generating sellouts is more important than selling an extra 1000 seats, especially if a team builds 4000 extra seas. Maintaining a waiting list increases excitement around the team.

In 2019, Cincinnati should play in the Eastern Conference. The MLS conferences and schedules could be better balanced with 12 in each conference. In 2020, Nashville and Miami will also likely be Eastern MLS teams.

Cynical fans will try to deem that Cincinnati joining MLS means the Crew are definitely moving to Austin just to balance the conferences, which is of course nonsense. There are a lot of moving parts to #SaveTheCrew, but this expansion news matters very little. Money talks in Columbus just as well as the money being spent in Cincinnati.

Chicago could move to the west since there is a Midwest rivalry versus Minnesota waiting to blossom. Pairing the Midwest rivals would leave Nashville to battle Atlanta and the rest of the Mid to Southeast coast teams. Besides Twins versus White Sox and Vikings versus Bears games are plenty fun.

FC Cincinnati ownership pushed for a 2019 entrance so that the team has a monopoly on the expansion benefits. Expansion teams are usually granted extra Allocation Money and the first pick in the draft. Coming in the next year might have meant less money and picking third. Three expansion teams trying to trade into better assets dilutes the market.

With only FCC, perhaps they follow the Las Vegas Golden Knights model of asking teams for an asset to not pick a player. If FC Cincinnati can replicate the Cup runs of the Fire (1998) and Golden Knights (2018), the experience at Nippert stadium would be one of the best atmospheres in MLS. If they languish for years, at least they won’t do so in a half-filled stadium.

Next: FC Cincinnati gets first MLS win

Three years ago, FC Cincinnati began to play. Copa90 also made a video which today’s expansion announcement resoundingly affirms. MLS and soccer in America are here and infiltrating a city near you. No longer is the MLS game inaccessible to large swaths of the country. FC Cincinnati may indeed be marking the start of yet another new MLS era.

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