Major League Soccer’s Atlanta

Atlanta may score two more professional soccer teams

“Beginning in 2018, both a men's team and a women's team will call Atlanta their home,” the company said on its website. “We will play out of Atlanta Sports City - a unique complex unlike anything else in the country.”

The teams will likely play at Atlanta Sports City, a $200 million, 190-acre sports tourism project set for the southeastern side of the Mall at Stonecrest. The project is expected to be one of the largest facilities in the country with the ability to host 22 different sports. It will feature a 15,000-seat professional soccer stadium, a 204,325 square-foot indoor athletic facility, 338,966 square feet of retail space, 22 multi-use fields, seven sports diamonds and five indoor professional basketball courts.

“We will be playing in a new 15,000 seat stadium, surrounded by more than 20 full sized soccer fields,” the company added on its website.

However, the company noted the teams will begin play in 2018 at Atlanta Sports City's 5,000-seat indoor arena.

"Like its bigger brother, every seat will be right on top of the action – but in a much louder atmosphere," the website reads. " It will be located right down the road from our main stadium, right in the middle of an entertainment district filled with plenty of opportunities for fun."

According to the study Estimated Economic Impact of the DeKalb County Soccer Facility and the Atlanta Sports Complex Operations, the men's team will play in the North American Soccer League and the women's team will play in the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL). The professional teams would use the facility for practices and would host a combined total of 25 annual home games there.

The support for two new teams in Atlanta could be plentiful. Atlanta is already home to the National Premier Soccer League's Atlanta Silverbacks and MLS' United, which has sold more than 40,000 tickets to its inaugural home match against the New York Red Bulls March 5 at Georgia Tech’s Bobby Dodd Stadium.

Source: http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/news/2017/02/23/atlanta-may-score-two-more-professional-soccer.html?ana=fbk