Nashville awarded MLS expansion team

Major League Soccer is headed to the Music City.
The league made the news official at a Wednesday afternoon event at Nashville’s Country Music Hall of Fame. Nashville is the first of of 12 teams that submitted formal bids in January to be awarded one of four available MLS expansion teams.
Nashville’s MLS team will be owned by the investment group, Nashville Soccer Holdings, LLC, led by John R. Ingram, the chairman of Ingram Industries Inc. Ingram’s partners in the soccer club include Minnesota Vikings owners Mark, Zygi and Leonard Wilf, and the Turner Family, managing partners of Nashville-based MarketStreet Enterprises.
As a result of a private-public partnership between the club’s owners and the community, the team will play in a new, 27,500-seat soccer stadium at The Fairgrounds Nashville in the capital city’s artistic Wedgewood-Houston neighborhood.
The Nashville team will make its MLS debut in 2019 or 2020.
Nashville will be the third MLS team in the Southeast, following the recent additions of Orlando City SC (2015) and Atlanta United FC (2017) to the league.