On Thursday, Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett announced plans to bring a Major League Soccer expansion club to the city. Hogsett said he traveled to New York on Monday to meet with MLS Commissioner Don Garber and see if the league would consider Indianapolis as a potential new market.
“As a result of this conversation, I am informing Indianapolis today that as mayor, I will lead the effort to apply for MLS and establish an MLS club,” Hogsett announced at a conference Press. “I am well aware that this new venture will present no guarantees, but all the great achievements in our city’s history began where opportunity translated into action.”
The current expansion fee hovers around $500 million, which is what San Diego FC will pay to enter the league in 2025. San Diego will be the 30th club in the league.
Typically, homeowner groups, with support from state and local governments, make a formal, public bid to obtain an MLS listing. In a press release, Hogsett said an ownership group is “forming” and will include a group of investors led by “an experienced and respected sports executive, who has held leadership roles in MLS and world football.
A source briefed on the league’s expansion plans said Athleticism As of Thursday, this expansion beyond 30 teams has not yet been discussed by its board of governors. Tom Glick, who most recently served as president of business affairs for the Chelsea Football Club, is the executive Hogsett referred to, according to multiple sources, who were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter. question. Glick was previously president of Tepper Sports & Entertainment, owner of the NFL’s Carolina Panthers and MLS’s Charlotte FC, launching in 2022. Before that, he was president of New York City FC and chief commercial officer of Manchester City.
Glick left Chelsea in October last year, after just 10 months on the job, after Chelsea asked external lawyers to review its handling of a sexual harassment complaint made against another leader. Glick and Hogsett’s communications team did not immediately provide comment when contacted by Athleticism.
Indianapolis is currently home to USL Championship team Indy Eleven. The club is working with real estate company Keystone Group to develop a sprawling sports complex that would include a new 20,000-seat stadium for Indy Eleven. The club and Keystone Group broke ground on the proposed $1 billion resort in June 2023. Hogsett and Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb were both in attendance.
A Keystone Group press release published by the Indianapolis Business Journal on Thursday called Hogsett’s announcement “troubling.”
“Unfortunately, after recent bipartisan approvals from the City-County Council, Mayor Joe Hogsett’s administration is preparing to walk away from the state and city leaders who entrusted him with this project and the neighborhoods that depend on the progress that represents Eleven Park. This is beyond disappointing – it’s a shocking reversal of Mayor Hogsett’s public support for this project in the 2023 inauguration, for the dozens of local investors on this team, the thousands of Marion County jobs hired by the Indiana companies that worked on this project. , and the tens of thousands of Indy Eleven fans in Indiana and across the country,” the statement read in part.
MLS was not involved in the city’s decision to abandon the project, according to the aforementioned source.
When reached for comment on Hogsett’s announcement, MLS provided the following statement: “It was exciting to hear Mayor Hogsett’s vision for a new soccer-specific stadium in Indianapolis.”
Indy Eleven did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Adam Crafton also contributed to this report.
(Mayor Joe Hogsett photo: Juan OCampo/NBAE via Getty Images)