Whitecaps welcome Atlanta’s high-flying expansion club
The rise of Atlanta United FC has become that city’s most surprising sports success story
Take an owner with deep pockets, a big potential fan base, a big-name manager and some smart market research, put it all together and what do you get?
Atlanta United, of course, the expansion team that’s playing highoctane soccer and is in the playoff mix to boot. They’re here in Vancouver to play the Whitecaps on this afternoon at B.C. Place.
It’s all a bit of a surprising success in a region known best for college football, then the NFL, with the NBA and Major League Baseball in the mix as well.
THE OWNER
Yes, United are owned by Arthur Blank. Yes, billionaire Arthur Blank, who made his money as owner of the Home Depot and now is just as famous as the owner of the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons.
This is Blank’s second effort at bringing Major League Soccer to Atlanta. The first, a decade ago, was put back on the shelf after he couldn’t secure a new stadium for the potential team. But he kept his eye on the game, and landed an expansion team for this season.
He knows sports, and he knows success.
“Having that backing from a big sports group is a big advantage,” Whitecaps president Bob Lenarduzzi, himself no stranger to the challenges of MLS expansion planning, said this week.
“They got built-in infrastructure from the Falcons. A big help.”
The Seattle Sounders drew heavily from the Seahawks in their early years, as does Toronto FC still from their ownership, MLSE, which also owns the Raptors, Maple Leafs and their respective minor league teams.
Leave no doubt: Blank knows winning sports. It’s the complete opposite of the dysfunction that wracked hockey’s Atlanta Thrashers through most of their time in Georgia, before leaving for Winnipeg in 2011.
THE FAN BASE
Metro Atlanta counts more than six million people. There are plenty of Falcons fans, plenty of Hawks fans, plenty of Braves fans.
And yet, like in so many other markets, there are a lot of young people looking for a different fan experience.
Such was the buzz for the inaugural year that Atlanta United signed up 30,000 season-ticket holders. They’re playing most of the season at Georgia Tech’s stadium, and will move into Mercedes-Benz Stadium — which they’ll share with the Falcons — in September.
“They know the sport,” Doug Roberson, who covers the team for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, said of the ready-made fan base.
“There was already a good baseline of support.”
Like so many of MLS’s success stories, Atlanta’s diehards skew young. There’s very little crossover with the Falcons’ seasonticket base.
Lenarduzzi points to connecting with fans as a big key.
“Our supporters groups have been huge,” he said. “I have friends who come to our games for the first time and the atmosphere grabs them.”
It sets soccer apart from the rest of North American sport, and time and again is proving to pull in a younger crowd, no matter the city.
THE MANAGER
It cannot be understated how important hiring Gerardo ‘Tata’ Martino was for player recruitment, Roberson said.
Martino coached for many years in Argentina before taking the reins of Barcelona in 2013. He lasted just a year in Spain, but took over Argentina’s national squad in 2014.
He managed the national team for two years, resigning last summer. Atlanta scooped him up and Roberson said he’s proved to be a vital recruiting tool.
More than one player said the reason they signed in Atlanta is simple: “Tata called,” Roberson said is the answer he’s heard from
former Argentine league stars like wingers Miguel Almirón (seven goals in 12 games) and Héctor Villalba (five goals in 12 games). Both are designated players.
Martino’s team has scored 27 goals in their opening dozen games. That’s tied with the Western Conference-leading Houston Dynamo for best attack in the league.