CLOSE FC Cincinnati was announced as the newest expansion team to join Major League Soccer Tuesday, May 29, 2018 at Rhinegeist Brewery in Over-the-Rhine. The Enquirer/Meg Vogel

Major League Soccer commissioner Don Garber speaks in an exclusive interview with The Enquirer at Rhinegeist Brewery in the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood of Cincinnati on Tuesday, May 29, 2018. (Photo: Sam Greene/The Enquirer)

Welcome to Major League Soccer, Cincinnati.

On Tuesday, Futbol Club Cincinnati turned the page on its years-long MLS expansion push and celebrated across the city as the club was welcomed to the top soccer league in America and Canada by team and league officials.

The formal confirmation of FC Cincinnati's jump to MLS had been anticipated for weeks, but the development was made official during an event attended by local and national soccer dignitaries Tuesday at Rhinegeist Brewery in Over the Rhine.

There, amid scenes of pageantry and the same kind of fanfare that's become synonymous with the FC Cincinnati movement, MLS Commissioner Don Garber officially welcomed the Queen City club to the league as its 26th franchise, and the last of two organizations to be accepted in the first of two expected rounds of expansion.

FC Cincinnati majority owner Carl Lindner III speaks in an exclusive interview with The Enquirer at Rhinegeist Brewery in the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood of Cincinnati on Tuesday, May 29, 2018. (Photo: Sam Greene/The Enquirer)

By Tuesday, with all the MLS expansion deadlines, civic debates about stadiums and infrastructure, and general fatigue around the process in the rearview mirror, celebrations were sparked across the city.

With beers in the hands of many, at least 900 patrons celebrated the announcement at Rhingeist.

Hundreds more gathered on Fountain Square in Downtown and watched the simulcast of the Rhinegeist event on a large-format screen.

Garber confirmed to The Enquirer FC Cincinnati is now an MLS member, with majority owner Carl Lindner III now a member of the league's board.

"Jeff (Berding is) the CEO of FC Cincinnati, an MLS team, and I now report to him," Garber joked during an exclusive interview with The Enquirer prior to the official announcement.

FC Cincinnati will play in MLS in 2019, as had been previously reported.

More: Enquirer Q&A with MLS Commissioner Don Garber

More: Paul Daugherty: FC Cincinnati has been major league from the beginning

More: Alan Koch is excited to build FC Cincinnati's MLS roster

Lindner III, during the exclusive Enquirer interview with Garber and Berding, said the team first learned of its confirmation for MLS about a month ago while attending the opening match at Los Angeles FC's Banc of California Stadium.

"That was probably the first time I heard Don congratulate me and Jeff congratulate me," Lindner III said of the trip to see the newest MLS venue.

"This was a long time coming, so I think it’s fair to say – and you’ll hear this a bit in my remarks – Carl had an enormous passion for this city and for the community, for FC Cincinnati and for trying to take a step forward in building the sport in this country," Garber told The Enquirer. "We and our expansion committee felt that when he and (Berding) and John Cranley came in, like all deals, it takes time to get them finalized. Fair to say that several weeks ago we knew we were shaking hands and crossing the ‘T’s’ and dotting the “I’s.”

"I think almost from the very first time we saw what was happening here, we had a sense that Cincinnati belonged in Major League Soccer."

The Rhinegeist ceremony was broadcast around the world, an MLS spokesman confirmed.

That allowed Berding, Lindner, Garber and Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley an international audience for their remarks at the brewery.

As most MLS expansion announcements go, FC Cincinnati was officially christened for MLS with the donning of MLS-branded knit soccer scarfs with "CINCINNATI" emblazoned all the way across them.

More: FC Cincinnati owner Lindner: 'My dad would be rejoicing' about Major League Soccer bid

More: Social media reactions about MLS FC Cincinnati announcement

With ESPN soccer broadcasters Taylor Twellman and Adrian Healey emceeing the proceedings, the throng at Rhinegeist applauded uproariously for the stage filled to the brim with MLS and FC Cincinnati brass.

FC Cincinnati won't suddenly turn to the onboarding process for MLS – it started long ago for Berding, he said during remarks prior to Tuesday's event at the brewery.

The team is in the process of designing its training facility and building out other infrastructure needs for the immediate future of the organization.

All of that can wait for Wednesday, though, Berding said.

"It's a proud moment, for sure. It's a celebration of our city. It's a celebration of the world's sport coming to our hometown in a way that allows us to promote Cincinnati on a global scale at a time when that's probably more important than ever," Berding said. "It's certainly the culmination of a lot of hard work. There were certainly some times where it tests the soul but I will say that the new friends we've made in the West End encouraged me. They sent me emails and text messages. They were praying in biblical verse to me and I'd go to supporter events and just feel the passion of our supporters... It really moved me to really keep my head down and just keep moving the ball up the field."</s>LOS ANGELES: FC Cincinnati were confirmed as the 26th team in Major League Soccer on Tuesday after being named as the league's latest expansion franchise.

MLS Commissioner Don Garber said the team who currently play in the second tier United Soccer League would join the league from 2019.

"Major League Soccer is proud to introduce Cincinnati as our 26th team," Garber said.

"The rise of Cincinnati as a passionate soccer market in recent years, coinciding with the city's growing economy and reputation as a top destination for young professionals makes it an ideal city for our growing league."

The team currently plays its games at the Nippert Stadium on the campus of the University of Cincinnati, regularly drawing crowds of around 20,000.

However the club will eventually move to a new purpose-built soccer stadium in Cincinnati's West End, most likely in time for the 2021 season.

FC Cincinnati are owned by insurance tycoon Carl H. Lindner III, the chief executive of American Financial Group, owner of Great American Insurance.

"We congratulate Carl Lindner and his partners, and also the soccer fans of Cincinnati, who have passionately supported FC Cincinnati in the USL," Garber said at an official announcement.

FC Cincinnati have drawn increasingly impressive numbers of fans in recent seasons, with more than 32,000 attending a semi-final game of the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup last year.

Cincinnati's arrival continues the rapid expansion of MLS, which has welcomed 16 new clubs since 2005.

Nashville and Miami have also been named as expansion teams recently meaning that MLS is only two shy of its target of 28 teams.</s>Cincinnati's meteoric rise as one of the new soccer hotbeds in America will be affirmed Tuesday in a way that only Major League Soccer can provide.

MLS Commissioner Don Garber and leaders from Futbol Club Cincinnati are expected to announce Tuesday the three-year-old soccer club will be accepted to the league for the 2019 season, ending more than a year of pursuing membership in the league via a formal expansion process and behind-the-scenes work by the club dating back as far as early 2015.

Team leaders and league officials remain mum on the purpose of the meeting. However, the events leading up to Tuesday have followed the pattern of announcements for other successful expansion pushes.

Historically, MLS has made posh events of its expansion announcements in the chosen cities, and Tuesday is shaping up to be another one of those.

Last week, Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley's office proclaimed Tuesday "Orange and Blue Day," and is encouraging locals to wear FC Cincinnati's colors.

Cranley, along with Garber, FC Cincinnati majority owner Carl Lindner III and team President and General Manager Jeff Berding will speak Tuesday during an event at Rhinegeist Brewery at 1910 Elm St. in Over-the-Rhine.

There, the expansion bid announcement is expected to take place with the evening program scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m.

With Rhinegeist's capacity already maxed out for the announcement, fans have been invited to congregate at Fountain Square in Downtown at Fifth and Vine streets. A simulcast of the announcement program happening at Rhinegeist will be broadcast on the video board above the square.

The party at Fountain Square is scheduled to last from 4:30 p.m. to 9 p.m.

More: FC Cincinnati clearly struggled, but Louisville City's performance shouldn't be overlooked

More: First month free: Subscribe to unlimited digital access to Cincinnati.com

Get the latest FC Cincinnati news. Download the FC Cincinnati Soccer app on both the Apple App Store and Google Play for Android users.

The banner day for local soccer fans will also bring about a welcome finish to the first of two expected rounds of MLS expansion as the league continues its push to grow to 28 teams.

Details regarding the next round of expansion haven't been released, and first-round finalists that failed to earn a bid in Sacramento and Detroit will likely make strong pushes for the last two spots.

Locally, the expansion process won't be missed. It tested the patience and made skeptics of FC Cincinnati's typically excitable fanbase. Contentious debates amongst politicians also resulted from the expansion process, with the commitment of public dollars to FC Cincinnati's infrastructure needs at issue in the 2017 mayoral race and subsequent meetings at City Hall this year.

Ultimately, FC Cincinnati found the support it needed from city and Hamilton County elected officials.

Representatives of the residents of West End, where the club's proposed soccer-specific stadium will be built just blocks from Downtown, also achieved for their constituents a community benefits package.

With all that work behind it and a future in a prominent and growing soccer league on the horizon, FC Cincinnati will celebrate Tuesday the fulfillment of the lofty dreams of a few friends that birthed the concept for the club in East Side Cincinnati coffee shops less than four years ago.

But for FC Cincinnati's loyal supporters, the club probably wouldn't be on the precipice of receiving an invitation to join the top soccer league in the U.S. and Canada.

Regardless of what was happening on the field with FC Cincinnati, the fans have always been an undeniable part of the equation as they made a habit of packing the Nippert Stadium grandstands.

Strong attendance numbers for the club's first games snowballed and, by the end of the United Soccer League franchise's first season, a league-record 333,353 fans attended matches.

More than 477,000 fans attended games in 2017 and more than 100,000 have turned out so far in 2018.

With attendance numbers rivaling or besting cities that already have an MLS team, Cincinnati quickly gained notoriety for its loyal soccer following.

The formal MLS expansion process started with 12 cities. As FC Cincinnati was up against organizations without existing teams and that could only offer speculative projections of fan interest, fans in the Queen City gave their club an undeniable advantage in the expansion race.

When would play begin, and where?

FC Cincinnati will eventually play in a state-of-the-art facility in the city's West End neighborhood, but that day won't arrive for a while.

To start out, FC Cincinnati is expected to continue playing at the University of Cincinnati's Nippert Stadium, which it has already poured millions of dollars worth of upgrades into. It's unclear what additional upgrades could be needed prior to the start of the 2019 season when Cincinnati is reportedly scheduled to begin to play in MLS, according to Sports Illustrated.

FC Cincinnati strived to arrange a 2019 entrance, partly to allow the soccer operations staffers some advantages in building the team. The club will be on the receiving end of several personnel mechanisms to help first-year teams and it won't have to share like it would have had the team entered the league in 2020. That year, Miami and Nashville are also expected to begin to play and the personnel mechanisms – things like priority order for drafting and selecting talent – would be split between all the new teams.

What else to expect for 2019

Some past announcements you might have missed or forgotten about are suddenly relevant again, such as the team's MLS jersey, or "kit" sponsor.

The words "Mercy Health," along with a logo of the Cincinnati-based health care provider, will adorn FC Cincinnati's jerseys starting in 2019. The deal, the club said last summer, is a lucrative one and "one of the largest jersey sponsorship commitments in MLS and is on par with Atlanta United’s deal with American Family Insurance."

FC Cincinnati's also likely at some point to begin phasing out its offerings of Nike apparel and souvenirs. MLS is an Adidas-sponsored league and will remain one through at least 2024. That means FC Cincinnati will be wearing Adidas jerseys in 2019.</s>Major League Soccer has welcomed FC Cincinnati to its ever-expanding family.

The second-division United Soccer League side made the announcement that they would be joining MLS, with MLS confirming that the club would begin play in 2019 to become the league's 24th team.

FC Cincinnati is actually the 26th announced franchise in the league, following David Beckham’s long-awaited Miami franchise and Nashville’s announcement in December.

MLS has stated previously it intends to get up to 28 teams, so the door is not yet closed on Sacramento or Detroit, the other cities in the running for expansion.

FC Cincinnati has become known for its sizable crowds and had a memorable run to the U.S. Open Cup semifinals in 2017, losing to the New York Red Bulls in extra-time after surrendering a 2-0 lead in the second half.

The franchise averaged over 21,000 fans per game in 2017.

MLS Commissioner Don Garber, Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley, FCC majority owner Carl H. Lindner III and club president Jeff Berding were all on hand to make the announcement.

The club will continue under the same FC Cincinnati name when it joins MLS next season and will play at Nippert Stadium, home of the University of Cincinnati, until the club’s 21,000-seat soccer stadium in the city's West End neighborhood is completed in 2021.

“Major League Soccer is proud to introduce Cincinnati as our 26th team,” said Garber said. “The rise of Cincinnati as a passionate soccer market in recent years, coinciding with the city’s growing economy and reputation as a top destination for young professionals makes it an ideal city for our growing league. We congratulate Carl Lindner and his partners, and also the soccer fans of Cincinnati, who have passionately supported FC Cincinnati in the USL.”

Cincinnati becomes the 16th club to have joined MLS since 2005, and the league will announce which conference the club will compete in sometime in the coming months.</s>On Tuesday, MLS announced FC Cincinnati, which has been playing its home games in the United Soccer League at the University of Cincinnati’s Nippert Stadium, will be joining the highest ranks of professional soccer in the United States:

FC Cincinnati hosted a celebration in the city as the three-year-old team’s move to the MLS was announced:

According to Patrick Brennan of the Cincinnati Enquirer, FC Cincinnati will start playing MLS games in the 2019 season and can thank fan support that exceeded some of the teams currently in the league for helping push it to the next level.

Brennan noted the club drew a then-United Soccer League franchise record 333,353 during its first season before setting the bar even higher with 477,000 fans in 2017.

"Major League Soccer is proud to introduce Cincinnati as our 26th team," MLS commissioner Don Garber said, per ESPN.com. "The rise of Cincinnati as a passionate soccer market in recent years, coinciding with the city's growing economy and reputation as a top destination for young professionals makes it an ideal city for our growing league."

While those fans will have the chance to continue watching FC Cincinnati in Nippert Stadium in the early days of its MLS tenure, the club will eventually move to a stadium in Cincinnati’s West End neighborhood.

Since there was already a temporary home in place for FC Cincinnati, the team will start before two other expansion clubs in Miami and Nashville, which will join the league starting in 2020.</s>Major League Soccer announced on Tuesday that United Soccer League club FC Cincinnati will join Major League Soccer in 2019 as the league's 26th team.

The club regularly attracts 30,000-plus fans to their home stadium at the University of Cincinnati's Nippert Stadium, and has long been looked at as a strong contender to join the league. Their move to MLS will include a soccer stadium for the team, and they'll enter the league ahead of Nashville (2019) and Miami (likely in 2020).

More to come as this story develops.</s>On Tuesday, Futbol Club Cincinnati turned the page on its years-long MLS expansion push and celebrated across the city as the club was welcomed to the top soccer league in America and Canada by team and league officials.

The formal confirmation of FC Cincinnati's jump to MLS had been anticipated for weeks, but the development was made official during an event attended by local and national soccer dignitaries Tuesday at Rhinegeist Brewery in Over the Rhine.

There, amid scenes of pageantry and the same kind of fanfare that's become synonymous with the FC Cincinnati movement, MLS Commissioner Don Garber officially welcomed the Queen City club to the league as its 26th franchise, and the last of two organizations to be accepted in the first of two expected rounds of expansion.

By Tuesday, with all the MLS expansion deadlines, civic debates about stadiums and infrastructure, and general fatigue around the process in the rearview mirror, celebrations were sparked across the city.

With beers in the hands of many, at least 900 patrons celebrated the announcement at Rhingeist.

Hundreds more gathered on Fountain Square in Downtown and watched the simulcast of the Rhinegeist event on a large-format screen.

Garber confirmed to The Enquirer that FC Cincinnati is now an MLS member, with majority owner Carl Lindner III now a member of the league's board.

"Jeff (Berding is) the CEO of FC Cincinnati, an MLS team, and I now report to him," Garber joked during an exclusive interview with The Enquirer prior to the official announcement.

FC Cincinnati will play in MLS in 2019, as had been previously reported.

Lindner III, during the exclusive Enquirer interview with Garber and Berding, said the team first learned of its confirmation for MLS about a month ago while attending the opening match at Los Angeles FC's Banc of California Stadium.

"That was probably the first time I heard Don congratulate me and Jeff congratulate me," Lindner III said of the trip to see the newest MLS venue.

"This was a long time coming, so I think it’s fair to say – and you’ll hear this a bit in my remarks – Carl had an enormous passion for this city and for the community, for FC Cincinnati and for trying to take a step forward in building the sport in this country," Garber told The Enquirer. "We and our expansion committee felt that when he and (Berding) and John Cranley came in, like all deals, it takes time to get them finalized. Fair to say that several weeks ago we knew we were shaking hands and crossing the ‘T’s’ and dotting the “I’s.”

"I think almost from the very first time we saw what was happening here, we had a sense that Cincinnati belonged in Major League Soccer."

More: 18-year-olds get USMNT reboot off to strong start

Every FIFA World Cup champion: From 1930 Uruguay to 2014 Germany

World Cup power rankings: Rating all 32 teams, from hopeless to hopefuls

The Rhinegeist ceremony was broadcast around the world, an MLS spokesman confirmed.

That allowed Berding, Lindner, Garber and Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley an international audience for their remarks at the brewery.

As most MLS expansion announcements go, FC Cincinnati was officially christened for MLS with the donning of MLS-branded knit soccer scarfs with "CINCINNATI" emblazoned all the way across them.

With ESPN soccer broadcasters Taylor Twellman and Adrian Healey emceeing the proceedings, the throng at Rhinegeist applauded uproariously for the stage filled to the brim with MLS and FC Cincinnati brass.

FC Cincinnati won't suddenly turn to the onboarding process for MLS – it started long ago for Berding, he said during remarks prior to Tuesday's event at the brewery.

The team is in the process of designing its training facility and building out other infrastructure needs for the immediate future of the organization.

All of that can wait for Wednesday, though, Berding said.

"It's a proud moment, for sure. It's a celebration of our city. It's a celebration of the world's sport coming to our hometown in a way that allows us to promote Cincinnati on a global scale at a time when that's probably more important than ever," Berding said. "It's certainly the culmination of a lot of hard work. There were certainly some times where it tests the soul but I will say that the new friends we've made in the West End encouraged me. They sent me emails and text messages. They were praying in biblical verse to me and I'd go to supporter events and just feel the passion of our supporters... It really moved me to really keep my head down and just keep moving the ball up the field."</s>CINCINNATI — Major League Soccer added Cincinnati in its latest round of expansion Tuesday, rewarding a city that has set attendance records during three seasons of United Soccer League play and has a stadium deal in place.

The announcement on Tuesday brings MLS to 26 teams, two shy of its ultimate goal. It began as a 10-team league in 1996.

Cincinnati will join next year, continuing to play at the University of Cincinnati’s football stadium while a 21,000-seat soccer stadium is built in the city’s low-income West End neighborhood. The stadium is expected to be ready for the 2021 season.

MLS added the Los Angeles Football Club this season, bringing the league to 23 teams. Miami and Nashville also are getting expansion franchises. The league held off awarding the 26th spot for six months because of ownership and stadium issues with the other three candidates: Sacramento, Detroit and Cincinnati.

Cincinnati jumped ahead of the other two when the city council approved $34.8 million for infrastructure as part of a stadium deal last month, the final piece of Cincinnati’s proposal.

The league hasn’t decided which conference FC Cincinnati will join next year, Commissioner Don Garber said.

The city was a long shot for MLS consideration three years ago when Jeff Berding, who led the campaign to build Paul Brown Stadium for the Bengals and Great American Ball Park for the Reds, formed the professional soccer team.

The soccer club has ties with the city’s other professional teams. In addition to Berding’s association with the Bengals — the team hired him after the stadium was built — the Lindner family became part of FC Cincinnati’s ownership. The late Carl Lindner Jr., owned the Reds for six years after Marge Schott was forced out in 1999.

FC Cincinnati had its inaugural season in 2016 and far surpassed attendance expectations. Last year, the team averaged more than 21,000 fans at Nippert Stadium, which seats 40,000, and gained attention by going 5-1 in the U.S. Open Cup, beating two MLS teams.

FC Cincinnati drew 26,495 fans for a home game against Louisville City FC last Saturday and is averaging more than 23,000 fans this season.

The fan base provided the impetus to push for an MLS franchise. One of the biggest obstacles was getting money for a soccer stadium in a city stung by cost overruns for Paul Brown Stadium, which opened for the 2000 season. In the backlash, the Hamilton County commissioner who led the stadium initiative was voted out of office.

FC Cincinnati considered another location in the city and one in northern Kentucky before getting a divided Cincinnati City Council to approve the infrastructure money last month, over the objection of activists in the predominantly black West End community who fear that residents will be displaced.</s>No longer just a pro baseball or football city. Not just a hotbed for college hoops. Thousands of soccer fans held a pep rally to celebrate Cincinnati's surprising ascendance on the pitch.

It's now a soccer city, too.

Major League Soccer added Cincinnati in its latest round of expansion Tuesday, rewarding a city that set attendance records during three seasons of United Soccer League play and has a stadium deal in place.

"You have shocked the world," MLS Commissioner Don Garber told hundreds of blue-and-orange clad fans at a brewery north of downtown.

The announcement brings MLS to 26 teams, two shy of its ultimate goal. It began as a 10-team league in 1996.

Cincinnati will join next year, continuing to play at the University of Cincinnati's football stadium while a 21,000-seat soccer stadium is built in the city's low-income West End neighborhood. The stadium is expected to be ready for the 2021 season.

MLS added the Los Angeles Football Club this season, bringing the league to 23 teams. Miami and Nashville also are getting expansion franchises. The league held off awarding the 26th spot for six months because of ownership and stadium issues with the other three candidates: Sacramento, Detroit and Cincinnati.

Cincinnati jumped ahead of the other two when its city council approved $34.8 million for infrastructure as part of a stadium deal last month, the final piece of Cincinnati's proposal.

The league hasn't decided which conference FC Cincinnati will join next year.

The city was a long shot for MLS consideration three years ago when Jeff Berding — who led the campaign to build Paul Brown Stadium for the Bengals and Great American Ball Park for the Reds — formed the professional soccer team.

The club has ties with the city's other professional teams. In addition to Berding's association with the Bengals — the team hired him after the stadium was built — the Lindner family became part of FC Cincinnati's ownership. The late Carl Lindner Jr. owned the Reds for six years after Marge Schott was forced out in 1999.

"This is a heady moment for a humble kid from the west side of Cincinnati," Berding said, calling it "the next big thing for Cincinnati."

FC Cincinnati had its inaugural season in 2016 and far surpassed attendance expectations. Last year, the team averaged more than 21,000 fans at Nippert Stadium, which seats 40,000, and gained attention by going 5-1 in the U.S. Open Cup, beating two MLS teams.

FC Cincinnati drew 26,495 fans for a home game against Louisville City FC last Saturday and is averaging more than 23,000 fans this season.

The fan base provided the impetus to push for an MLS franchise. One of the biggest obstacles was getting money for a soccer stadium in a city stung by cost overruns for Paul Brown Stadium, which opened for the 2000 season. In the backlash, the Hamilton County commissioner who led the stadium initiative was voted out of office.

FC Cincinnati considered another location in the city and one in northern Kentucky before getting a divided Cincinnati City Council to approve the infrastructure money last month, over the objection of activists in the predominantly black West End community who fear that residents will be displaced.

Mayor John Cranley proclaimed it orange and blue day in Cincinnati.

"There was a time when people didn't think we were hip or cool enough ... or big enough to support three major league teams in one city," Cranley said. "I'm still a Reds and Bengals fan, aren't you?"

FC Cincinnati has been one of the city's recent sports successes.

Xavier and Cincinnati were ranked in the top 10 in college basketball last season. The Reds are in the third year of a major rebuild and got off to their worst start since the Great Depression this season. The Bengals haven't won a playoff game since the 1990 season, the sixth-longest streak of futility in NFL history.

Bengals running back Giovani Bernard attended the pep rally Tuesday wearing an FC Cincinnati shirt. The team issued a statement congratulating the soccer team.

"Procuring a new franchise presents real challenges, and FC Cincinnati has handled those challenges with the energy and perseverance needed for success," the Bengals said.</s>Cincinnati, Ohio has been awarded a Major League Soccer expansion team to begin play in the 2019 season. MLS Commissioner Don Garber made the announcement Tuesday, citing record-breaking soccer attendance and commitment to build a new soccer stadium.

“Major League Soccer is proud to introduce Cincinnati as our 26th team,” said Garber. “The rise of Cincinnati as a passionate soccer market in recent years, coinciding with the city’s growing economy and reputation as a top destination for young professionals makes it an ideal city for our growing league. We congratulate Carl Lindner and his partners, and also the soccer fans of Cincinnati, who have passionately supported FC Cincinnati in the USL.”

The league hasn’t decided which conference FC Cincinnati will join next year.

With the addition of Cincinnati, the MLS will expand to 26 teams, two shy of its ultimate goal. The soccer league began with 10 teams in 1996.

Founded in 2016, FC Cincinnati is currently a member of the United Soccer League and play at the University of Cincinnati’s football stadium, Nippert Stadium. The team averages more than 23,000 fans per game this season. That fan base provided the impetus to push for an MLS franchise.

The club will continue to play at the University of Cincinnati’s football stadium while a new 21,000-seat soccer stadium is built in the city’s West End neighborhood. The Cincinnati City Council approved the stadium funding plan in April, and the stadium is expected to be ready for the 2021 season.

Cincinnati was a finalist for expansion along with Sacramento and Detroit. Sacramento Republic FC, who also play in the USL, were considered a front-runner for MLS expansion, according to CBS Sacramento. They took to Twitter to congratulate Cincinnati and assured Republic FC fans they were still committed to bringing an MLS team to their community.
FC Cincinnati is announced as the 26th expansion team of Major League Soccer, set to begin play next year.