Soccer’s stars shine in new stadiums
MLS All-Star Game latest in high-profile matches this summer in Bay Area
SAN JOSE – One major soccer event after another in the Bay Area this summer has created a scheduling squeeze for one busy mother of two. But she wouldn’t have her plate of futbol served any other way.
“It’s never enough,” Brandi Chastain said with a laugh. “Never.”
Copa America? Check.
The Major League Soccer All-Star Game this week? Check.
The International Champions Cup this weekend? Hmm.
“I’m going to try my best to get to that one,” said Chastain, the former U.S. Women’s National Team star. “It’s been an amazing summer.” The summer of soccer. A blockbuster list of names has been on display at Levi’s Stadium and Avaya Stadium the last two months: Lionel Messi; James Rodriguez; the U.S. national team, along with those of Argentina, Colombia, Chile and Mexico; European powers Arsenal, Liverpool and AC Milan. And now the MLS All-Stars, who will face Arsenal on Thursday at Avaya Stadium (4:30 p.m., ESPN and UniMas).
The star power has helped bolster the Bay Area’s reputation as one of the nation’s premier soccer hubs — so says the greatest men’s player in American history.
“It’s no coincidence people want to come here,” said Landon Donovan, the seventime U.S. Men’s National Team player of the year. “They want to come where they know people will support it.”
Donovan spent four seasons with the Earthquakes and returns to the Bay Area at least once a year. He’s coaching the MLS Homegrown Team against Mexico’s Under-20 team on Wednesday in Avaya.
“There’s a reason you see the passion in this area: Soccer’s in their blood now,” Donovan said. “It takes generations. You don’t start liking soccer five years ago and all of a sudden have a passionate fan base. This has been developing for years.”
With its moderate climate and diverse population, the Bay Area has supported soccer for decades, drawing large crowds for big events at Candlestick Park, the old Stanford Stadium and even Spartan Stadium. But the opening of Levi’s and Avaya in the past two years provided two stadiums worthy of major events, with Copa, the most prestigious tournament in the Americas, the biggest of all.
Domestic power brokers, international marketers and the world’s top clubs all want a piece of the Bay Area turf.
“The combination of the two stadiums, which can host really big games or midsize games, is really phenomenal,” said Gary Stevenson, the president of MLS Business Ventures.
Levi’s Stadium, home of the 49ers, hosted four matches in the Copa America and will feature two giants Saturday when AC Milan faces Liverpool in the International Champions Cup, a tournament played at various venues in the U.S. and on multiple continents. The match comes right on the heels of Avaya Stadium, home of the Earthquakes, hosting the MLS All-Star Game and its attendant events.
And Stanford Stadium — not to be forgotten — is serving as Liverpool’s training ground for 10 days, just as it did for the U.S. Men’s National Team prior to the 2014 World Cup. (Stanford also hosts the California Clasico, the perennially sold-out match between the Earthquakes and archrival Los Angeles Galaxy.)
Wednesday it was announced that San Jose will host another famous team, Chivas de Guadalajara, for an exhibition Oct. 7 against Liga MX rival Monarcas Morelia.
“I can’t think of another location that has so much high-quality soccer at all levels,” Earthquakes President Dave Kaval said. “And we’re selling out. That’s a credit to the community. It’s so diverse, and it supports the most global of sports.”
The relationship is decades in the making.
Professional soccer arrived in the Bay Area in 1974, in the form of the San Jose Earthquakes of the North American Soccer League. The team was popular from the start and would eventually add one of the greatest players in the sport’s history, George Best.
The legion of Best’s fans included 12-year-old Brandi Chastain, whose family had Earthquakes season tickets. Chastain still has her game programs from the original Earthquakes franchise.
“When I was a little girl playing soccer, people asked, ‘Why do you play? It’s a foreigner’s sport,’” she recalled. “I didn’t understand what that meant.”
Chastain just knew she loved the game. The Earthquakes franchise would leave and return, change its name (to Clash), change it back, fold, reform and eventually toil away in aging Spartan Stadium. But the large-scale dynamics steadily shifted in soccer’s favor.
Kids exposed to the game at a young age — many of them part of the millennial generation — retained their fondness for the sport, while the region’s population grew more diverse as a result of the tech boom.
“The Bay Area is most representative of what we call the new America, especially when it comes to multicultural millennials from disparate backgrounds,” Stevenson said. “They’re a hard group for marketers and TV networks to reach, because there are so many media points.
“But one thing we’ve found interesting is that at least a cross section of the group likes soccer. They played as a kid, they watched as a kid. And as the group grows up, it becomes a wave across America.”
But the Bay Area was lacking one thing as the millennial fans came of age: first-class facilities.
“That had always been the limitation,” Kaval said. “We had a facilities constraint. We were in a wasteland. Spartan Stadium was OK, but then it got passed up.”
Levi’s and Avaya solved the problem. Located six miles apart, they opened within a year of each other (in 2014 and 2015, respectively) and are each suited to serve two audiences: Levi’s (capacity: 68,500) hosts major international teams and tournaments, while Avaya (capacity: 18,000) is perfect for domestic events. Add refurbished Stanford Stadium to the mix — it was renovated in 2006 — and the region morphed from facility wasteland to heaven.
“New stadiums drive entertainment,” Donovan said. “When you have beautiful stadiums in this part of the country, combined with these demographics, with the Hispanic community here, then it becomes a nobrainer.”
It becomes the summer of soccer.
And there are more coming.
“It’s not a one-time phenomenon,” Stevenson said. “It’s here to stay.”