Former mayor attempting to bring Major League Soccer team to Mesa

Former Mesa Mayor John Giles said the city has started to look seriously into the possibility of bringing a Major League Soccer team to Mesa.

“I think that would be a huge thing for the Valley,” Giles said Friday on KTAR’s AZ Political Podcast. “If you talk to other big metro areas, I’ve been to visit other mayors, and these are mayors with NFL and NBA teams, and all they can talk about is MLS because it’s just such an amazing fan experience.”

While the greater Phoenix area currently has the Phoenix Rising, a professional team that competes in the United Soccer League Championship, the USL club plays in a second-division league on the American soccer pyramid.

The Rising also play in a temporary stadium, near Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport, that holds just more than 10,000 spectators, so a new stadium that meets MLS standards would need to be built before an MLS team arrives in Mesa. The MLS’ smallest stadium, PayPal Park in San Jose, California, has a capacity of 18,000.

“It’s just bizarre that the Phoenix metro doesn’t have an (MLS) team,” Giles said. “And the other coincidence is that Mesa’s got two amazing sites that would be perfect for an MLS franchise to be a home for. So I don’t know if there’s a role for me to play in that, but I’m a cheerleader on that topic. I would love to see that happen. I think that would be very transformational for Mesa.”

One of the proposed sites is a gravel pit in Mesa owned by Johnson-Stewart Materials. The company is listed as the owner of the land south of the Loop 202 Red Mountain Freeway at Alma School Road, near the Mesa Riverview shopping center, according to a Sports Business Journal report in April. Sports Business Journal also that said former Coyotes chief business officer Nick Sakiewicz is looking to build a professional soccer stadium in the greater Phoenix area.

The other potential site is the 80 acres of land that used to be home to the Fiesta Mall, which has been vacant since 2019, according to AZ Central’s Maritza Dominguez.

At just more than 500,000 residents, Mesa would be one of the smallest cities to house an MLS team, however it is larger than Cincinnati which has just more than 300,000 residents. The Ohio city was granted an MLS expansion team in 2018 with FC Cincinnati beginning play in 2019.

The league currently has 30 teams, with 27 clubs in the United States and three in Canada. In the current format, each team plays 34 games (with 17 at home and 17 on the road).

Since the MLS regular season spans from February to October (with the MLS Cup Final being played in December), Giles confirmed Mesa would need to build either a climate-controlled stadium featuring a roof or a domed stadium because of the Valley’s hot summer temperatures.

In addition to needing to build a new stadium, an expansion fee would need to be paid in order to bring an MLS team to Mesa.

San Diego FC, the league’s 30th team, is the most recent expansion side which is set to begin play in 2025. The ownership group paid an expansion fee of $500 million. San Diego FC will play its matches at Snapdragon Stadium, which sits on the campus of San Diego State University, so the club did not have to fund a new stadium.

The league’s second-most recent expansion club, St. Louis City SC, which began play in 2023, built a privately funded $457.8 million downtown soccer-specific stadium.

Former Mesa Mayor John Giles also alludes to possible NWSL expansion team

“A lot of these the stadiums are for both MLS and then there’s also a women’s league (the NWSL), so it would be a really well-used stadium,” Giles said.

The NWSL currently has 14 teams (all of the clubs are located in the United States), four are affiliated with MLS teams and two with men’s USL teams. Boston and Denver are set to join the NWSL in 2026.

In the league’s current format, the regular season runs from March through November before the playoffs and championship are also played in November. Each club plays 26 games during the regular season, including playing each other team once at home and once on the road.

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