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Nashville billionaire John Ingram and his colleagues made public this week their initial plans for a Major League Soccer stadium in Music City. The move comes not long after more than 100,000 fans turned up to watch a match between Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur at Nissan Stadium.
According to Ingram, the stadium will be a private-public partnership. The preliminary design, by architecture giant HOK, has room for about 30,000 seats, Sports Illustrated reports.
Should it come to pass, the stadium would be at the Fairgrounds Nashville just south of Downtown. The property is owned by Metro and is currently home to a racetrack, a small arena and some other facilities.
Eventually, another tenant might use the soccer stadium for events, and Vanderbilt might use it for football games. Ingram, who is on the board of trustees of the university, has recused himself from any decision about the location of VU football.
MLS will add four expansion teams in the near future, and has said it will name two new clubs in December, which would be the 25th and 26th in the league. One-time favorites St. Louis and San Diego apparently are not in the running, so the race is open. Nashville seems to have a good chance to be admitted with front-runner Sacramento.
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