MAJOR LEAGUE SOCCER

Charlotte FC president Nick Kelly, who started work on Feb. 1, considers putting together a one-year plan before the franchise's first year a priority. He's given himself a 45-day window to get the job done.

Nick Kelly’s first 45 days will set the tone for his time as Charlotte FC president.

Kelly, who began on Feb. 1, reports to Tom Glick, president of the club’s parent company Tepper Sports and Entertainment, while working in tandem with the club’s sporting director Zoran Krneta. Kelly controls the business side, while Krneta takes care of what happens on the pitch. 

“The first 45 days are a priority for us,” Kelly said. “It’s getting a one-year plan in place. When you think about the middle of February, we’ll be one year out from kickoff. We’ll have one year to get it right.”

The goal is to be able to show businesses, media and supporters groups what to expect by March.

“We’ll literally be able to tell you milestones of when we’re going to unveil our kit,” Kelly said. “We’ll give you milestones of ‘we expect to start signing some players in this time period. We hope to have a coach in this time line,’ and also clear community initiatives of what we’re doing, not what we plan to do.”

Part of the plan also includes converting ticket deposits into seats. The club had 10,000 season ticket deposits for 31,000 seats as of Dec. 15, and the seat selection process is underway. Seating is split between supporters’ section, general and premium. Deposits can be placed for the latter two: $75 for general and $100 for premium. Fans can purchase supporters seating for $521.24, or 10% down, which is $52.12. A $50 supporters section fee, the equivalent of a PSL, will be charged in the fall. Kelly said they decided to add the PSL to give fans a sense of ownership, as the fee will be used to reinvest in the stadium.

“If you look at it from a price standpoint, it’s not an extremely daunting number,” Kelly said. “It also allows us to work to reinvest in the stadium so that they get more of a soccer-specific venue. We’re looking at upgrades to a tunnel club, the supporters gate, supporters’ section and even the costs that are associated with creating a supporters and soccer environment. We want to make sure we are doing the best version of that. With that comes the PSL strategy we have in place.”
Kelly has been very active on Twitter during his first week, engaging fans and encouraging them to share feedback on where the club is and where they would like to see growth.

“A lot of the feedback in the time I’ve been here and even leading up to it is, ‘we’ve heard a lot about what you’re going to do, but what are you doing?’ It’s making a lot of this a reality,” he said.

Kelly described their approach leading up to kick off as “aggressive.”

“It’s aggressive to build a full business from then,” he said.

COVID-19 forced MLS to push Charlotte FC’s inaugural season back to 2022. It also complicated plans to launch the brand.

“COVID-19 has put us in a tough spot,” Kelly said.

Kelly said during his introduction in December that his priority was to be visible, and he intends to stop by Charlotte Soccer Academy games this weekend. The intention is to be as visible as possible, without putting anyone at risk for COVID-19. Expect to see more Charlotte FC representation at youth soccer tournaments.  Creating more community events is also part of the 2021 plan.

“You’ll see us start pulling together a lot more community events that again are stuff we should be doing, and it’s not to be visible in a way of, ‘please come be a fan,’ it’s visible stuff we need to be there to understand,” Kelly said. “We’re working on everything now to have people hold us accountable.”

Kelly already faced his first brush with people holding the club accountable. On Feb. 5, local soccer supporter Ben Goshorn tweeted an image of an MLS multi-use decal, which included the club crest and colors on an American flag. The colors made it resemble the flag often used in support of former President Donald Trump, which has become synonymous with hate groups.

“The way this happens is we have licenses through the MLS with Fanatics and a lot of other partners, and while we try to keep a close monitoring on everywhere that our brand our marks go, sometimes these things, it’s just out there,” Kelly said.

Other clubs have similar merchandise, featuring a varying number of stars, the club crest and club colors for the stripes.

“There are a lot of other sports franchises with the exact same thing,” Kelly said. “As you can tell, they basically created a piece of creative and then threw every team in the league on it, and we were one of those teams. We are working right now to have conversations with Fanatics, but I don’t know that I have a full blown answer to what the next step is going to be.”

The decal was removed within the next hour.

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