Nashville Soccer Club is a
Major League Soccer team based in
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and ...
. The team began play in the league in 2020 as a continuation of the
USL club of the same name and plays its home matches at
Geodis Park
Geodis Park, formerly known as Nashville SC Stadium and Nashville Fairgrounds Stadium, is a 30,000-seat soccer-specific stadium at the historic Nashville Fairgrounds in Nashville, Tennessee. It is the home of Major League Soccer club Nashville ...
. It is principally owned by
John Ingram, owner of
Ingram Industries, along with investors and partial owners the Turner family of
Dollar General Stores
Dollar General Corporation is an American chain of variety stores headquartered in Goodlettsville, Tennessee. As of April 11, 2022, Dollar General operates 18,216 stores in the continental United States.
The company began in 1939 as a family- ...
.
History
Soccer in Nashville
Prior to the arrival of Nashville's MLS team, the city had various soccer teams which played in the lower divisions of American soccer. The most notable teams were the
Nashville Metros
The Nashville Metros were an American soccer team based in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1989, the team most recently played in the Premier Development League (PDL), the fourth tier of the American Soccer Pyramid, in the South ...
who played from 1989 until 2012 and
Nashville FC
Nashville Football Club was a soccer organization based in Nashville, Tennessee. Founded in 2013, the team played in the National Premier Soccer League (NPSL), a national amateur league at the fourth tier of the American Soccer Pyramid, in th ...
, who played in the
National Premier Soccer League
The National Premier Soccer League (NPSL) is an American men's soccer league. The NPSL is a semi-professional league, comprising some teams that have paid players and some that are entirely amateur. The league is officially affiliated to the Uni ...
(NPSL) from 2013 to 2016. The city also hosts two
NCAA Division I
NCAA Division I (D-I) is the highest level of intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States, which accepts players globally. D-I schools include the major collegiate athletic ...
men's soccer teams, the
Belmont Bruins
The Belmont Bruins are the intercollegiate athletic teams of Belmont University located in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. The Bruins athletic program is a member of the Missouri Valley Conference. Prior to 2022, the Bruins were members of th ...
and
Lipscomb Bisons
The Lipscomb Bisons are the athletic teams that represent Lipscomb University, located in Nashville, Tennessee, in intercollegiate sports as a member of the Division I level of National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), primarily competing ...
. The
Vanderbilt Commodores
The Vanderbilt Commodores are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent Vanderbilt University, located in Nashville, Tennessee. Vanderbilt fields 16 varsity teams (6 men's teams and 10 women's teams), 14 of which compete at the National ...
also played Division I men's soccer until the team's demise after the 2005 season. Prior to these teams, the
Nashville Diamonds
The Nashville Diamonds were an American soccer club based in Nashville, Tennessee that was a member of the American Soccer League. Their home stadium was Hale Stadium on the campus of Tennessee State University
Tennessee State University (Te ...
participated in the then-second division
American Soccer League for one season in 1982.
The NPSL team, Nashville FC, was founded by a supporters group that intended to form a team as a fan-owned group. Chris Jones, Nashville FC's president, cited existing
fan-owned clubs as inspiration for NFC's foundation, in particular the English club
F.C. United of Manchester
Football Club United of Manchester is a semi-professional football club based in Moston, Manchester, England, that competes in the , the seventh tier of the English football league system, and plays home matches at Broadhurst Park.
Found ...
.
In February 2014, the two groups merged to form a single club for the
2014 NPSL season. The club had two teams participating in the Middle Tennessee Soccer Alliance, Nashville's largest competitive adult league, and had partnered with the Tennessee State Soccer Association (TSSA), an organization with over 20,000 registered players in the
Middle Tennessee
Middle Tennessee is one of the three Grand Divisions of the U.S. state of Tennessee that composes roughly the central portion of the state. It is delineated according to state law as 41 of the state's 95 counties. Middle Tennessee contains the ...
area alone. The team played its matches at
Vanderbilt Stadium
FirstBank Stadium (formerly Dudley Field and Vanderbilt Stadium) is a football stadium located in Nashville, Tennessee. Completed in 1922 as the first stadium in the South to be used exclusively for college football, it is the home of the Van ...
. The NPSL club had ambitions of climbing the
American Soccer Pyramid, with the reported target an entry into the then third-tier
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 ...
(USL; now known as the USL Championship) by 2017,
and then ascension into the Division II
North American Soccer League by 2020.
However, in 2016, the USL awarded a franchise to a separate ownership group in Nashville. Nashville FC subsequently sold its team name, logo, and color scheme to the new USL franchise, which became known as Nashville SC, in exchange for a 1 percent equity stake in the USL team and a voting seat on its board.
Expansion bid
In August 2016, a group of Nashville business leaders from several of the city's largest corporations formed the Nashville MLS Organizing Committee and began efforts to secure funding for an MLS stadium. The group, led by
Bill Hagerty, sought an MLS team immediately rather than working up the soccer pyramid. The group fully supported the recently awarded USL expansion team, Nashville SC, which began play in 2018. Both groups supported each other in their common vision to grow the sport in Tennessee. In October 2017, the group unveiled their plans for $275 million stadium and redevelopment project, which was approved by the city in November.
The formal bid to add an MLS franchise to Nashville began in January 2017. On March 4, 2017, businessman
John Ingram, under the entity Nashville Holdings LLC, bought a majority stake in DMD Soccer, the ownership group of Nashville SC. Ingram also headed up the bid to bring an MLS franchise to Nashville, and the partnership between Ingram and Nashville SC was an effort to present a united front to MLS after Nashville was named one of ten finalist cities for four MLS franchises. In August 2017,
Mark Wilf
Mark Wilf (born 1962) is an American businessman who is the president and co-owner of the Minnesota Vikings, and chairman and co-owner of Orlando City SC.
Biography
Born to a Jewish family, the son of Joseph and Elizabeth Wilf, who were both Hol ...
,
Zygi Wilf
Zygmunt "Zygi" Wilf (born April 22, 1950) is an American billionaire businessman and real estate developer. He is the chairman and co-owner of the NFL's Minnesota Vikings and the majority owner of MLS's Orlando City.
Early life
Wilf was bor ...
and
Leonard Wilf
Leonard A. Wilf (born 1947) is an American businessman, the president of Garden Homes, the co-owner and vice chairman of the Minnesota Vikings football team, and co-owner of the Nashville SC.
Early life
Leonard Wilf was born in Göggingen, Germ ...
joined as investors; the Wilfs, owners of the
National Football League
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...
's
Minnesota Vikings
The Minnesota Vikings are a professional American football team based in Minneapolis. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the National Football Conference (NFC) North division. Founded in 1960 as an expansi ...
, had previously backed an aborted MLS expansion bid in Minneapolis.
MLS officially awarded an expansion team to Nashville on December 20, 2017, and announced that they would join the league in 2020. On May 21, 2018,
Ian Ayre was announced as the CEO of the franchise. On October 30, 2018, Mike Jacobs was announced as the general manager of the franchise.
On February 20, 2019, the franchise operators announced that the MLS side would assume the Nashville Soccer Club name then in use by the city's USL Championship side.
Inaugural season
Nashville SC's inaugural MLS match was February 29, 2020, with the club hosting
Atlanta United FC
Atlanta United FC, commonly known as Atlanta United, is an American professional soccer club based in Atlanta that competes in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference.
Founded in 2014, Atlanta United began pl ...
at
Nissan Stadium. The game was played in front of 59,069, becoming the highest attended soccer event in Tennessee.
Walker Zimmerman
Walker Dwain Zimmerman (born May 19, 1993) is an American professional soccer player who plays as a center-back for Major League Soccer club Nashville SC and the United States national team.
A native of Lawrenceville, Georgia, Zimmerman play ...
scored the team's first goal in the 2–1 loss. The inaugural season came to a halt on March 12, 2020, after only two games when the MLS suspended the season for thirty days due to the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...
, then extended to until May 10, 2020. On June 10, MLS announced
MLS is Back Tournament
The MLS is Back Tournament took place during the 2020 Major League Soccer season to mark the league's return to action after being suspended as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Of the 26 Major League Soccer teams, 24 participated in the tourna ...
, but were unable to participate in the tournament due to multiple COVID cases on the team. Their next game was an August 12 win against
FC Dallas
FC Dallas is an American professional soccer club based in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. The club competes as a member of the Western Conference in Major League Soccer (MLS). The franchise began play in 1996 as a charter club of the le ...
, the first in franchise history. Nashville SC finished the 2020 regular season 8–8–7 with 32 points. They entered the MLS Cup playoffs in the play-in round beating Inter Miami 3–0 before knocking off Toronto FC 1–0 in the first round, Nashville in the conference semi-finals 2–0.
Club crest and colors
Nashville SC's primary colors are
electric gold and
acoustic blue, referencing the colors of
Nashville’s flag. The club's crest is a gold octagon with a monogram "N" and several vertical bars in blue. The vertical bars were chosen to represent sound waves and vibrations, referencing the city's musical history.
Sponsorship
Stadium
The team plays at
Geodis Park
Geodis Park, formerly known as Nashville SC Stadium and Nashville Fairgrounds Stadium, is a 30,000-seat soccer-specific stadium at the historic Nashville Fairgrounds in Nashville, Tennessee. It is the home of Major League Soccer club Nashville ...
, a 30,000-seat
soccer-specific stadium
Soccer-specific stadium is a term used mainly in the United States and Canada to refer to a sports stadium either purpose-built or fundamentally redesigned for soccer and whose primary function is to host soccer matches, as opposed to a multi- ...
at the
Nashville Fairgrounds The Nashville Fairgrounds, also known as The Fairgrounds Nashville and the Tennessee State Fairgrounds, is an entertainment complex in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. The site is located southeast of Downtown Nashville on the Nolensville Pike ...
. The $275 million stadium was mostly funded by revenue bonds from the Nashville government, per an agreement with the
Nashville Metro Council that was approved in November 2017. The council approved the stadium on September 4, 2018, with the votes 31-yes and 8-no, with a crowd in the audience in the room. A proposal to submit the plan to a
referendum
A referendum (plural: referendums or less commonly referenda) is a direct vote by the electorate on a proposal, law, or political issue. This is in contrast to an issue being voted on by a representative. This may result in the adoption of a ...
based on Metro government's "partial funding" was rejected by the council, with the votes 25-yes (to reject the referendum) and 12-no (to permit).
In January 2019,
John Rose, a U.S. representative from
Cookeville led the nonprofit that operates the Tennessee State Fair to sue the team to halt construction, citing that the stadium would not leave adequate space required for the functions of the fair. However, in February of the same year, Rose and the nonprofit dismissed the lawsuit citing that city officials would not meet with the nonprofit while this suit was pending. Demolition on the Fairgrounds site began in March 2020.
The agreement of the stadium and its funding details was amended on February 13, 2020, with the help of Nashville Mayor
John Cooper to make the stadium 100 percent privately funded with the team will also funding $19 million of infrastructure improvements in the immediate area.
Nashville, for their first two seasons, had played in
Nissan Stadium; owned by the NFL's Tennessee Titans. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there were limited seating capacity in their tenure while using the stadium.
Players and staff
Current roster
Staff
Records
Seasons
This is a list of MLS seasons completed by Nashville. For the full season-by-season history, see
List of Nashville SC seasons.
Honors
MLS Cup Playoff Appearances: 2020, 2021
1. Avg. Attendance include statistics from league matches only.
2. Top Goalscorer(s) includes all goals scored in League, Playoffs, U.S. Open Cup, MLS is Back Tournament
The MLS is Back Tournament took place during the 2020 Major League Soccer season to mark the league's return to action after being suspended as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Of the 26 Major League Soccer teams, 24 participated in the tourna ...
, CONCACAF Champions League, FIFA Club World Cup, and other competitive continental matches.
References
External links
*
{{Portal bar, Association football, United States
2017 establishments in Tennessee
Association football clubs established in 2017
Soccer clubs in Tennessee
Major League Soccer teams
Sports in Nashville, Tennessee
Ingram family
Turner family
Wilf family