Preview

The 24th season of Major League Soccer kicks off Saturday with 12 matches across multiple networks. FC Cincinnati joins as the latest expansion franchise to MLS, bringing the total to 24 teams. Atlanta United impressed on and off the field in 2018, winning the MLS Cup before record crowds and average attendance over 53,000.

Everyone wants to be a rock star. 

We want to be Elvis, Prince, Paul McCartney, Jimmy Page, Rami Malek, Mick Jagger, Ozzy Osbourne, James Hetfield or, fuck it, even Adam Levine's nipples. 

No one really wants to be a country music star.

But someone’s gotta do it. 

The 2019 MLS season is right around the corner, and the buildup to it has been filled with news of growth: new MLS teams, new exciting young players and the new kits they’ll be wearing.

Mixed with the old and the new of MLS is the stadia. In MLS, a good portion of the league's teams now have their own soccer-specific stadiums. Some clubs are currently going through the process of building a stadium, some are renovating and others are still waiting to leave their baseball fields behind.

Here’s a roundup of new stadiums coming to MLS this year and a few years down the road.

The FA Cup Fifth Round took center stage in England this past weekend. Nine clubs of the final 16 were from leagues below the Premier League, with the tie of the weekend focused on Newport, Wales.

However, there was very little magic to be found in the results, just quality winning out. Manchester United and Chelsea squared off in the final tie of the round on Monday night. Two first half goals by United saw Ole Gunnar Solskjær's side defeat Chelsea on the road. 

When MLS kicked off in 1996, the league began with 10 teams trying to build on the wave of support from the 1994 World Cup. In the subsequent years markets experienced varying levels of success. For the next 11 years, the league stayed at either 10 or 12 teams. Then, in 2007, David Beckham arrived, along with increased TV time and global interest.