St. Louis City Soccer Club (stylized as St. Louis CITY SC) is an American professional soccer club based in St. Louis. The club competes in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the Western Conference. City SC was established in 2019 as an expansion team; the team began play in 2023. The team plays its home matches at Energizer Park, a soccer-specific stadium across from Union Station in Downtown West.
Soccer has had an established history at both the professional and amateur levels in Greater St. Louis for more than a century. In 2007, St. Louis was considered a possible destination for Real Salt Lake after the club founder announced he would sell the club if a new stadium was not built. From 2008 to 2009, St. Louis lawyer Jeff Cooper led a group of would-be owners who attempted to bring an MLS expansion team to Greater St. Louis, only to have the bids turned down in favor of other cities. Despite approved plans to build the $600 million Collinsville Soccer Complex, MLS was unimpressed with the bid’s financial backing and suggested Cooper expand his group of investors. Cooper instead launched a second division men’s club and a Women’s Professional Soccer franchise. AC St. Louis played only one season in Division 2 before folding in 2011; the Saint Louis Athletica folded midway through its second season in 2010.
In late 2014, the city announced plans for a new stadium to host both American football and soccer. MLS commissioner Don Garber said in January 2015, “St. Louis has got a lot of activity going on with a stadium that they’re trying to get done for the NFL’s Rams. There’s a big soccer community out there and we’d love to see a soccer stadium downtown like they’re thinking about a football stadium”. In May 2015, Garber visited St. Louis to talk about a possible new multi-purpose stadium that could host soccer games. Garber cautioned that any possible expansion to St. Louis would occur after 2020. On January 12, 2016, the Rams moved to Los Angeles after playing in St. Louis for 21 seasons. The Rams’ move initially accelerated the talks of an MLS expansion team.
In 2017, MLS began to consider adding a team in St. Louis, beginning in 2020. The proposed ownership group sought public funds to help build a $200 million soccer-specific stadium next to Union Station in downtown St. Louis. On January 26, 2017, a funding plan was approved by the city’s Aldermanic Ways and Means Committee, and later by the entire Board of Aldermen, that would have directed $60 million in city tax revenue to the new stadium. Voters rejected the plan in an April 4, 2017, referendum, leaving the city’s MLS future in doubt.
2018–2019: Expansion bid
In September 2018, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that officials with the Missouri Department of Economic Development and MLS representatives had met and discussed a stadium proposal; St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson later confirmed that a new group was trying to bring a team to St. Louis. St. Louis’s MLS bid was effectively re-launched on October 9 of that year, with Carolyn Kindle and other heirs to the Enterprise Rent-A-Car fortune as the primary investors. The stadium location remained near Union Station in the same area as in the original 2016 bid. This bid did not seek public funding through taxes or from the city and was not required to be decided in a public vote. On November 28, 2018, the Board of Aldermen’s Housing, Urban Development, and Zoning Committee voted 8–0 to approve the stadium plan.
On April 18, 2019, the MLS announced plans to expand to 30 teams, up from the previous plan of 28. The league, then at 27 teams, advised the Commissioner’s office to advance the discussions with the Sacramento Republic and St. Louis bids, who would make presentations to the expansion committee. Two days later, the St. Louis group unveiled their stadium plan with a design produced by HOK and Snow Kreilich Architects. All 22,423 seats would be within 120 feet of the field and under a canopy.
On August 20, 2019, MLS announced it had approved St. Louis as the league’s 28th franchise, with play expected to begin in the 2022 season. The ownership group, led by Carolyn Kindle Betz and female members of the Taylor family, is the first female majority-owned team in MLS.
On October 19, 2019, the ownership group released new plans for the planned soccer-specific stadium. The area was extended to encompass a 31-acre (13 ha) plan and would likely exceed the original $200 million cost estimate. The ownership group agreed to purchase and own the land along with the stadium and will not seek tax revenue or public financing. The Missouri state government had promised $30 million in tax credits for the stadium project, but withdrew their offer in December 2019. The Missouri Development Finance Board instead approved a package of incentives worth $5.7 million in tax credits to help with construction of the $458 million stadium and surrounding area. Site preparation for the stadium, including demolition of highway ramps, began in early 2020 and continued through the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.
On August 17, 2020, former Fortuna Düsseldorf managing director of sports Lutz Pfannenstiel was introduced as sporting director of St. Louis City SC. Bradley Carnell, a former assistant coach at the New York Red Bulls, was named as the team’s first head coach in January 2022.
On February 25, 2023, St. Louis City SC played in their first MLS match and defeated Austin FC 3–2 at Q2 Stadium in Austin, Texas.[32] The team won their first home game 3–1 against Charlotte FC on March 4 at CityPark.[33] St. Louis City SC became the first MLS expansion team team to win their first five matches; they also matched the points record to open the season set by the Los Angeles Galaxy in 1996 and Sporting Kansas City in 2012.[34]
On April 1, 2023, St. Louis City SC lost their first game in their history against Minnesota United FC with the score 0–1 in CityPark. The club broke the record for most wins by an MLS expansion club, defeating Sporting Kansas City 4-1 and reaching 17 wins in September. At the end of their inaugural season, St. Louis City SC finished first in the Western Conference and qualified for the 2024 CONCACAF Champions Cup. They were eliminated from the MLS Cup Playoffs by eighth-seeded rivals Sporting Kansas City in the first round after losing the first two games in the best-of-three series.
St. Louis City would begin their 2024 campaign with a five-match undefeated streak, but only won one match. On July 1, 2024, the club fired head coach Bradley Carnell, citing the club’s poor performance through the first half of the 2024 season. John Hackworth, the club’s Technical Director, was named as the interim head coach.
