Jeff Berding (born February 8, 1967) is an American sports executive and politician. He serves as co-CEO of

FC Cincinnati Football Club Cincinnati, commonly known as FC Cincinnati, is an American professional soccer club based in Cincinnati. The club plays in the Eastern Conference of Major League Soccer (MLS). The team succeeded the lower-division team of the ...

, a professional soccer team he co-founded in 2015. He is also a Democratic politician, having served on the

Cincinnati City Council The Cincinnati City Council is the lawmaking body of Cincinnati, Ohio. The nine-member city council is elected at-large in a single election in which each voter chooses nine candidates from the field. The nine top vote-getters win seats on the cou ...

from 2005 to 2011. From 1996 to 2015, he worked as an executive for the Cincinnati Bengals. Berding is currently serving as board chair of the Cincinnati USA Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Early life

Jeff Berding grew up in the Westwood neighborhood of

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

, with nine siblings. Berding became interested in sports at an early age and played basketball, baseball, and soccer in school. He graduated from St. Xavier High School in Cincinnati in 1985 and attended

Miami University Miami University (informally Miami of Ohio or simply Miami) is a public research university in Oxford, Ohio. The university was founded in 1809, making it the second-oldest university in Ohio (behind Ohio University, founded in 1804) and the ...

. He received his MBA from Xavier University.

Sports career

Cincinnati Bengals (1996–2015)

Berding was an executive with the Cincinnati Bengals for 19 years, starting in 1996 after working on a sales tax initiative that would fund construction of

Paul Brown Stadium Paycor Stadium, previously known as Paul Brown Stadium, is an outdoor football stadium in Cincinnati, Ohio. It is the home venue of the Cincinnati Bengals of the National Football League and opened on August 19, 2000. Originally named after the B ...

and

Great American Ball Park Great American Ball Park is a baseball stadium in Cincinnati, Ohio. It served as the home stadium of the Cincinnati Reds of Major League Baseball (MLB), and opened on March 31, 2003, replacing Cinergy Field (formerly Riverfront Stadium), the Reds ...

. He quit his position as Director of Sales & Public Affairs in July 2015 to found the new soccer club

FC Cincinnati (2015–present)

In August 2015, news broke of the formation of a

United Soccer League United Soccer League (USL), formerly known as United Soccer Leagues, is a soccer league in the United States and Canada. It organizes several men's and women's leagues, both professional and amateur. Men's leagues currently organized are the ...

franchise team to be located in Cincinnati and begin play in spring 2016, with Jeff Berding as president and general manager. Upon launching,

was quickly noted for its unusually high attendance, frequently outdrawing Major League Soccer matches and breaking league records. In October 2017, Berding spoke at a Hamilton County Commissioners public hearing on major projects to advocate for public funding to build a new stadium for FC Cincinnati to play in, should the club's bid to join Major League Soccer as an expansion team succeed.

was officially granted a Major League Soccer franchise on May 29, 2018, to begin play in 2019. Berding retained his positions as president and general manager through the transition from USL to MLS. However, on May 30, 2019, FC Cincinnati announced they had hired Gerard Nijkamp to take over Berding's general manager responsibilities. Berding said Nijkamp was hired for his lifelong soccer expertise which Berding lacked. Berding remained the club's president and shifted his work focus to the business and branding side of the club.

Political career

Berding was elected to a two-year term on the Cincinnati City Council in 2005 in his first campaign for political office. He previously worked for Senator John Glenn and on other political campaigns. In the 2005 election, Berding raised the most money of all the candidates in the race. Although he is a Democrat, the council seats are nonpartisan. He served as Chair of the Rules and Government Operations Committee, Vice-chair of the Finance Committee, and was a member of the Law and Public Safety Committee and the Economic Development Committee. In 2009, the local Democratic Party withdrew its endorsement of Berding. In January 2011, Berding announced that he would soon resign from his council position, citing a desire to focus on his position with the Cincinnati Bengals. He stayed on the council for two more months before officially resigning in March.

Honors

In September 2016, the Ohio Valley Chapter of the

National Multiple Sclerosis Society The National Multiple Sclerosis Society (NMSS) is a nonprofit organization that was founded in New York City as the Association for Advancement of Research on Multiple Sclerosis on March 11, 1946 by Sylvia Lawry. Ms. Lawry was a lawyer looking fo ...

named Jeff Berding that year's recipient of the Silver Hope Award. In his State of the City speech in October 2016, Cincinnati mayor

John Cranley John Joseph Cranley (born February 28, 1974) is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 69th Mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio from 2013 to 2022. A member of the Democratic Party, he was a member of the Cincinnati City Council and a partner ...

named Jeff Berding and Carl Lindner III as the shared holders of the Cincinnatian of the Year award for their work managing FC Cincinnati.

Personal life

Jeff Berding has three children – Allie, Jack, and Grace. He married Lindsay Bumbaugh in 2009.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Berding, Jeff Living people Ohio Democrats Sportspeople from Cincinnati Politicians from Cincinnati Cincinnati City Council members St. Xavier High School (Ohio) alumni FC Cincinnati FC Cincinnati owners Miami University alumni Cincinnati Bengals executives USL Championship executives 1967 births