On Indy Eleven

17 nights a year, I get to turn on an Indy Eleven game, see the Brickyard Battalion roaring at the Mike, and hear Brad Hauter shoot the shit with Greg Rakestraw.

For me, that feels like home.

I was watching way back in April 2014, when the Eleven drew their first-ever game against the Carolina Railhawks. I was there in the stadium, taking in my first-ever professional soccer game in a narrow loss to the Tampa Bay Rowdies a few weeks later.

Through thick and thin, from the Miracle at the Mike to the penalty kick loss against the Cosmos at Belson, this has been my team.

I grew up in Indiana, and I started to fall in love with the soccer because of the 2010 World Cup. I started following Tottenham Hotspur and began to learn about the game after that, but getting a club in my hometown was something else entirely. It felt real, and it fostered a sense of community in a tangible and special way.

In 2018, I left Indy to go off to college. From a distance, I kept supporting the Eleven. That interest and investment eventually grew into the long-winded, quasi-journalistic USL obsession you see every week on this site and at Backheeled.

The club that started it all for me is now at risk, and that cuts deep. I feign neutrality as a part of the coverage I provide, and I know how to separate emotion from fact. With the Indy Eleven’s future in jeopardy, that wall has come crashing down.

Earlier this afternoon, Keystone Group - the development group of Eleven owner Ersal Ozdemir - went public with the accusation that the City of Indianapolis was “walking away” from a state-approved $1.5 billion development deal for a stadium project and mixed-use entertainment district. Mayor Joe Hogsett confirmed as much in a presser this evening, citing that he had met with MLS Commissioner Don Garber in New York City on Monday in order to pursue a franchise in that league.

A nameless, faceless MLS bid - a hope and a dream, nothing substantial - has put the Eleven’s future on hold.

From the perspective of Hogsett and his administration, the decision makes some level of sense. He’s running a city, not waging an online soccer war. Like it or not, attaching the name “Major League Soccer” to a club is a massive boon in terms of attention, attendance, sponsorship, legitimacy - you name it. If the parties that are footing 80% of the stadium’s cost want to recoup their losses, an MLS franchise is a surer bet than the Eleven.

Still, “MLS to Indianapolis” is nothing like a sure bet in the first place; to think so is sheer naivety. The league already has an extensive reach in the Midwest, including semi-recent expansion efforts in Cincinnati, Nashville, St. Louis, and Minnesota. Plenty of other cities are preparing bids in competition with Indy to boot. There’s a world in which the Indy MLS effort - of which an owner has not yet been named, let me repeat - fizzles, leaving the entire stadium project for naught.

Stadiums are of vital importance to the future of the USL and its member clubs. Owning your own stadium allows you to control dates, control revenues, and reach fiscal sustainability. When - as the Indy Eleven well know - you’re stuck as a tenant of another organization’s stadium, you take home a lower percentage of revenue at the gate, face limited scheduling options, and likely have to pay for the right to tenancy in the first place.

You can quibble with Ersal Ozdemir’s political leanings or with the probability that he didn’t play ball with other investors for a potential Eleven-led MLS initiative. You can point to the fact that the Eleven have rarely been competitive on the field. None of that makes it hurt any less to see the club you love lose their best chance at a steady future.

The system shouldn’t be like this.

Major League Soccer is allowed to pursue its own interests and fight for its own growth - it’s undeniably at the vanguard of the sport in the United States. MLS’ investment in the game has been an incalculable positive for American soccer, and only the most dishonest of critics would dispute that.

However, when the league oversteps its self-appointed leadership role to cannibalize clubs like the San Diego Loyal or Indy Eleven (or Detroit City and Tampa Bay, for that matter), it baldly reveals itself as profit-driven and unfeeling.

Indy Eleven have been a model operation by most metrics since the start. They drew 10,000+ fans in their inaugural season. They drew 9,600+ last year. Ozdemir and co. - the vital, undersung folks in the front office - have done their darnedest to garner community support and get a stadium bill through the legislature. How can this be the outcome?

The sport can’t grow in this country without protection from above, regulation that might foster the development of a bottom-up pyramid. Why would anyone care to found a club, to invest their time and money, knowing that a behemoth can trample on that work in one fell swoop? Clubs and leagues must be allowed to flourish, and the federation needs to do more to protect that ability against unrestrained capitalism.

At the end of the day, I know that I’m too invested in the Indy Eleven to be a fair judge. I have too many memories tied up with the club and with what it represents in my life.

Put emotion aside, and you can argue in favor of “MLS to Indianapolis.” I’m sure there’s a neat little case to make on the grounds of neutral, uninterested economics.

At the end of the day, Sports aren’t about neutrality or disinterest. Indy Eleven and the game of soccer is about community. The community this club provided and continues to provide is now at risk, and that hurts.