It can be challenging for expansion franchises to exceed their expectations and be on top of the sports world early.
Still, it’s not impossible.
From the Las Vegas Golden Knights gaining a 51-24-7 record and a trip to the Stanley Cup Finals in 2018 to the Florida Marlins winning the World Series four years after their inaugural campaign in 1993, expansion franchises have had many moments to prevail ahead of their older counterparts. The Knights won the Stanley Cup this season following a five-game series win over the Florida Panthers. This was an expansion franchise that went to its first Final two years after opening its doors in 1993-94.
Major League Soccer is no different.
The Chicago Fire took the then-Alan I. Rothenberg Trophy during its first season with a 2-0 win over D.C. United at the Rose Bowl in 1998. The Seattle Sounders, founded one year before the Seattle Supersonics moved to Oklahoma City, have seen four appearances and taken two victories in the MLS Finals.
After NYCFC won its first Cup Final six years after its inaugural MLS campaign, two new challengers have risen. These teams aimed to potentially take their first shot at cementing their place in the league’s history.
FC Cincinnati had spent a few seasons in the USL until they were awarded an MLS Expansion Bid in 2018. They have risen to the top of the league’s Eastern Conference with a comfortable seven-point lead over Nashville SC. St. Louis City SC stands at the top of the West during its first-ever season in the MLS. This followed taking wins over Real Salt Lake and San Jose during a five-game winning streak to start their season.
How did two recent expansion franchises find their way to the top of their respective conferences? What elements do future teams like San Diego FC learn from their meteoric rise to the top?
Cincinnati FC’s Winning Culture
A winning team couldn’t be supported without a winning culture.
And, in the case of FC Cincinnati President and General Manager Jeff Berding, a winning culture can be molded with the help of other successful expansion franchises.
“I think Atlanta has set the bar higher than anyone ever would have anticipated,” Berding said in 2018. “You can be an expansion team and have immediate success. You’ve seen that with LAFC. We’ve spent a lot of time talking to both clubs.
“We are coming in with a brilliant fanbase, so we’re not starting from scratch as LAFC had to do last year. We’re almost over 20,000 season tickets. We averaged 25,700 last year, which would be fourth in the league. I think this year, we’ll be up somewhere around 28, 29,000 a game. We’re right there at the top of Cincinnati in terms of the market, in terms of the most popular team in town. We have brilliant fan support, and that certainly sets us up for success.”
The brilliance of Cincinnati’s fanbase has been reflected by the team’s winning ways this season. They had been near the bottom of the MLS Standings for three straight seasons. Then, they took the tenth spot in 2022 and now a first place spot over Nashville this season.. They have scored three goals on five occasions this year, including a 3-2 win over Columbus Crew in May.
Cincinnati FC may have a solid standing within its own borders. It had an average attendance of 22,487 in 2022, putting it in eighth in the MLS ahead of LAFC, Austin FC and Real Salt Lake, according to Soccer Stadium Digest.
Now, it has to fight to push its perception across the country and beyond from an excellent team to an elite one.
“You are battling your market when it comes to what the ceiling is,” FC Cincinnati head coach Pat Noonan said, via The Athletic. “The only way you can talk about being a global name and people recognizing us in that way is to win championships …
“We’re a couple years away from (being an elite side), in my opinion but we can get there with an improvement of what you saw in 2022. But we have to do it with an exciting brand — and I do think we have that, and we’ll try our best to stay true to that.”
St Louis City FC’s MLS Preparation
No team is too prep for its inaugural season.
The team named Bradley Carnell, a former assistant for the New York Red Bulls, as its head coach in early 2022, more than one year before their first MLS preseason. It brought in midfielder Eduard Löwen, who’s currently for second on the squad with five goals scored. He is just one of the many other larger signings the team has made.
Most importantly, it took its time defining the team’s culture and getting acclimated, per The Athletic staff writer Tom Boger.
“We don’t want to start like the typical expansion team,” St. Louis Sporting Director Lutz Pfannenstiel told MLSsoccer.com in October. “We don’t want it to be where Bradley Carnell opens the door on the first day of preseason and there’s 25 people who have never met each other, good luck.”
Patience is key to a team’s success and its fanbase can afford to be patient in its first few seasons.
But that patience can only pay off with the right starting foundation to build itself upon.
The Youth Movement
San Diego FC will have plenty to learn before it can have an explosive season of its own.
Like every successful expansion franchise, that starts with a solid foundation built off the backs of bright, young talent.
The Denver Nuggets joined the NBA through a merger with the American Basketball Association in 1976. They recently hoisted the Larry O’Brien trophy this season. This came after a careful reconstruction of its roster in 2011 after trading forward Carmelo Anthony to the Knicks. The Toronto Raptors won their first NBA championship with a few homegrown draftees and undrafted signings after they made the blockbuster trade for San Antonio Spurs forward Kawhi Leonard in 2018.
San Diego FC will have to build the same solid foundation for it to find success from its first opening kick, a point San Diego CEO Tom Penn highlighted in May.
“Sustained excellence on and off the pitch,” Penn said when asked about San Diego’s identity, via MLSSoccer.com. “We want to be hyper-relevant to the entire community and something they care about.
“Then with the Right to Dream methodology, we’re going to be identifying and developing the best youth talent in our region and in the country so we can impact the quality of the game in North America.”
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Alex Sabri is a General Assignment Contributor for BackSportsPage.com.
The 23-year-old writer is an Associate Editor for ClutchPoints and a Sports News Contributor for Yardbarker. He has just over 2.25 years of previous collegiate and professional sports and local journalism experience. He specializes in the NBA, WNBA, NFL, college football and basketball.
You can find him on Twitter at @asabri012.
