On April 8, 2014, the announcement had not yet been made official, but the reporting was clear: Arthur Blank, the Home Depot co-founder and Atlanta Falcons owner, was preparing to bring a Major League Soccer expansion franchise to Atlanta. The team would play in the new downtown stadium Blank was already constructing to replace the Georgia Dome.
For soccer analysts, the move was overdue. Ives Galarcep, a soccer commentator at SoccerByIves.net, described Atlanta as "a bit of an underrated soccer city" — one that consistently ranked among the top 25 U.S. cities for soccer website traffic despite having no MLS team. The audience existed. It had simply never been given a venue at the right scale.
Why Blank Mattered
MLS expansion is not just a market decision — it is an ownership decision. "You need an ownership group that has the financial muscle," Galarcep noted, and Blank's involvement changed the calculus entirely. A billionaire who was already building a $1.5 billion stadium in downtown Atlanta did not need to negotiate for a venue. The infrastructure was coming regardless.
Atlanta represented MLS's third-phase Southeastern expansion, following Miami and Orlando. The league had learned hard lessons in the region — two Florida franchises folded in 2001 — but the market dynamics had shifted. Hispanic and immigrant communities were growing across metro Atlanta, youth soccer participation was among the highest in the country, and the Terminus Legion, an advocacy group pushing for an MLS franchise since 2011, had demonstrated that organized fan demand existed.
The Existing Landscape
Atlanta was not without professional soccer. The Atlanta Silverbacks played in the North American Soccer League, a lower professional tier, but the franchise lacked the resources, venue, and ownership to compete at the MLS level. An MLS team backed by Blank, playing in a new downtown stadium, would operate in a different universe.
Three years later, Atlanta United would debut with the most successful expansion launch in MLS history — averaging 48,200 fans per game and setting a single-match attendance record of 71,874. The analysts who said Atlanta was underrated turned out to be right. The city was not an underrated soccer market. It was an untapped one.
Original reporting by GPB News, Georgia Public Broadcasting, April 8, 2014.