Atlanta joins America’s ‘summer of soccer’

For most of the last century, European club teams have been spending part of their off-seasons in North America, earning extra income, getting players into shape and enjoying a respite from intensified media and public attention that often overwhelms at home.

So when Major League Soccer announced this week the coming months would be the “most prolific Summer of Soccer ever,” this claim needs to be taken with a few historical grains of salt. And it deserves a bit of an explanation.

Surely MLS isn’t exaggerating one thing: In terms of marketing and promoting the presence of Barcelona, Real Madrid, Chelsea, AC Milan, the Mexican national team, etc., this is an unprecedented slate of highly coordinated events that illustrate a growing demand for high-profile spectator soccer in this country and Canada. A total of 101 games, starting today with the SuperLiga series between MLS and the Mexican Primera, will be played over the next 51 days.

Soccer United Marketing, an arm of Major League Soccer, is putting on Wednesday’s international friendly at the Georgia Dome between Mexico and Venezuela. Such legends of El Tricolor as Luis Hernandez, Carlos Hermosillo and Alberto Garcia Aspe will be in town before then to make appearances in various pockets of metro Atlanta’s sizable Mexican-American community.

Is Atlanta ready for some fútbol?

The Georgia State Soccer Association, which helping promote the game, announced on Friday that tickets for upper level seating at the Dome have gone on sale. More than 30,000 tickets, comprising the lower bowl, have already been sold. On Saturday, real grass was laid down at the Georgia Dome.

Next month, that same demographic is the obvious target of a club friendly, also at the Dome, between Mexico’s Club América and AC Milan. This is clearly the biggest ethnic soccer market in Atlanta, as it is in many U.S. cities, and turnout for these games will go a long way toward determining Atlanta’s viability as a destination for future spectator soccer events.

The timing of these two games couldn’t be more important for Atlanta’s bid to become a potential World Cup venue. The U.S. Soccer Federation, which is bidding for either the 2018 or 2022 World Cup, has put the Dome on its list of 45 venues in 37 cities for consideration and is requesting more detailed proposals to meet FIFA hosting specifications.

Atlanta Sports Council president Gary Stokan told me this week his group has little more than a month — July 29 — to provide that information and sharpen its pitch. That’s the sort of thing Atlanta’s been known for in bringing major sporting events to Atlanta — the Summer Olympics, Super Bowl, Final Four, SEC and ACC championships, etc. Stokan, who worked for Adidas during the days of the North American Soccer League, has for quite a while wanted to add soccer to the city’s inventory of big events. In a sense, it’s the final missing link.

But the World Cup — this is pretty heady stuff. It’s a different international animal than the Olympics, which depends on the largesse of both the American media establishment and corporate sponsorship. FIFA certainly depends on the latter, but its political culture is hardly dependent on the American way of doing things. To illustrate that, FIFA boss Sepp Blatter this week urged MLS to consider switching its seasons from the summer if it wants to attract the “next Beckham” to these shores.

Setting aside the fact that the Beckham experiment has been a dismal failure, that one of the top professional leagues in North America gets a public upbraiding like that from the most powerful man in the sport shouldn’t sit well with American soccer organizers and marketers. MLS commissioner Don Garber couldn’t really offer much of a response except to talk about new soccer-specific stadiums being constructed.

Blatter’s hot air, as usual, is nonsensical and misplaced when it comes to assessing the reality of the game on this continent. He understands fully the limited salary structure of MLS that pales in comparison to, say, Kaká’s transfer fee to Real Madrid. But that’s a topic for another time.

The fact that Atlanta has been added to the “Summer of Soccer” tour is the first phase in putting the city on America’s soccer map. That’s no small accomplishment in a city where spectator sports in general, much less soccer, have a history of inconsistent support.

Garber will be in town this week to talk about MLS expansion in the wake of a recent bid by Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank. He abandoned that bid, but his vice president of marketing, Jim Smith, is a former general manager of the MLS Columbus Crew. There now is a resident point man here well-versed in the league and who is learning this sports market and what might be possible.

So for the first time, major players in Atlanta’s sports scene are interested in MLS, even though having a team here is a long-term prospect at the very least. But in a city currently without any professional soccer, Atlanta is at last taking some baby steps toward becoming a serious soccer destination.