Charlotte FC thinks it can get a sold-out crowd for MLS home opener against LA Galaxy
A date is set for Charlotte FC’s long-awaited home debut. The city’s Major League Soccer team will host the Los Angeles Galaxy at Bank of America Stadium at 8 p.m. March 5.
Charlotte FC president Nick Kelly said that he’s expecting a sold-out crowd of more than 74,000 fans.
“Hopefully having someone like the LA Galaxy with stars like Chicharito and other big-name players, we can deliver on that sooner rather than later,” Kelly told the Observer.
Bank of America Stadium seats close to 75,000 people and is home to the NFL’s Carolina Panthers. The venue is undergoing renovations to make it more suitable for soccer ahead of the club’s first season, which comes two years after the announcement that an MLS expansion franchise was coming to Charlotte.
The pandemic delayed the team’s debut by a year, but the same stadium where Charlotte will play recently hosted a major soccer match in October. Ecuador beat Mexico 3-2 during a friendly as part of Mexico’s U.S. tour. The match-up brought out just under 40,000 fans with neither team playing its headlining stars, and Kelly said that the attendance number is giving Charlotte FC confidence it will draw a crowd.
“Having seen nearly 40,000 people at the Mexico match, being on pace to sell more than 20,000 season tickets,” Kelly said. “I think that those two things, and then just the market itself of waiting for single-game tickets to go on sale, waiting for that inaugural match, our full expectation is that it will be sold out.”
It’s a lofty goal for a new club, as achieving it would set a league attendance record. Atlanta United hosted a record-setting 73,019 fans at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in 2018 playing for an MLS Cup title. Atlanta is so far the only club to top 70,000 fans for an MLS match on multiple occasions. Charlotte is aiming to be the next, but the club knows it’ll have to put a product on the field worthy of following.
Head coach Miguel Ángel Ramírez has described his style of play as “aggressive” and “offensive,” and ultimately one fans will want to watch.
“I want to enjoy a game,” Ramírez told WFNZ radio earlier this month. “I don’t want to just win. Of course, everybody wants to win, but how you do it is also important.”
There are eight players signed with Charlotte FC as the team looks ahead to the expansion draft and MLS SuperDraft this winter, which is when the club’s roster is expected to balloon. The team has also been pulling from a global talent pool. It agreed to acquire two international roster spots from Nashville SC in exchange for more than $230,000 per slot in General Allocation Money (GAM), sources with knowledge of the deal confirmed.
That means Charlotte FC will have at least 10 international roster spots, five of which are currently occupied as those players aim to secure green cards before the roster compliance date ahead of opening weekend.
Charlotte’s MLS schedule
The MLS regular season will take place Feb. 26 through Oct. 9. Playoffs will run through the following month, culminating with the MLS Cup on Nov. 5. The FIFA World Cup in Qatar begins at the end of that month.
As is standard across the league, Charlotte FC will play 17 regular-season home matches and 17 away matches. The club will be part of the Eastern Conference and will play teams in that pool twice while facing eight of 14 Western Conference teams, the Galaxy being one. A full match schedule has not been announced.
Even if Charlotte doesn’t amass a sell-out crowd for the first home match-up, the game between a team new to the league and an original member is expected to generate some buzz. Charlotte FC will be looking to demonstrate early strength with a relatively unknown product while the Galaxy will seek to correct an underwhelming 2021 season, in which the Southern California team again missed the playoffs. The Galaxy is led by former Toronto FC coach Greg Vanney and features famed Mexican striker Javier “Chicharito” Hernández, midfielder Jonathan dos Santos and 22-year-old designated player Kévin Cabral.
“I don’t know that we could’ve drawn a better opponent for our first match,” Kelly said. “The history that the LA Galaxy has as one of the first clubs to start the league and a number of championships that they’ve brought home to their fanbase, there’s probably nobody better that we could be lined up against. It’s a good measuring stick for us out of the gate.”
Charlotte FC’s first match of the season will be an away game, Kelly said, with announcements forthcoming on a date, opponent and broadcast options. An official kit release is also scheduled for December, although similarly styled replicas of the jersey have been spotted in at least one sporting goods store in Charlotte.
But at least the next steps for the club, long in a waiting period, are now hurtling toward action.
“We had a lot of unknown and now some real certainty coming into play,” Kelly said. “Who we’re gonna play in our first (home) match, finalizing when we’re gonna have these kits in the marketplace all within the next 30 days and then the big moments of expansion draft and everything else.”
“Getting all that stuff accomplished and focusing on the next year of being a competitive team will feel great,” he added.
Single-match, upper-deck tickets will be sold for a $15 minimum for the inaugural home game on sale next Monday.
This story was originally published November 18, 2021 at 10:00 AM.
