ST. LOUIS — Major League Soccer commissioner Don Garber recently presented a peek at his crammed schedule and described how a burst of storms in one part of the country could, for example, send him to another game with short notice.
It was on his mind because this season was just getting started, and already an audible had been called.
That said, it would take a mighty big storm to keep Garber from being anywhere but here Saturday for St. Louis City SC's first MLS home game.
"I wouldn't miss it for the world," Garber said by phone. "It's going to be spectacular. Absolutely breathtaking."
And this excitement level, for the sake of full disclosure, was expressed before City SC stunned the league by beating Austin FC on the road in its season opener. However electric the fast approaching home opener against Charlotte FC was going to be, crank up the volume a little bit more now. Garber doesn't have a favorite team, of course, but he's been a champion of St. Louis as a soccer destination for a very long time.
He became MLS commissioner in 1999. For decades, he saw St. Louis as a perfect fit for an an expansion club. Now, finally, it's here — after an additional year of waiting forced because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"St. Louis is one of the great soccer cities in our country," Garber said. "To finally have an MLS team with an incredibly passionate and visionary ownership group, and a facility that will help to transform downtown, is really a dream come true for everybody who loves the game. I can't say enough about how pleased we are with the Taylor family, Carolyn (Kindle) and her partners. They have been focused for several years now on putting together a team that will earn the respect and admiration of everybody in the community."
Garber echoed what the team has said quietly but confidently. While the extra year baked into City SC's launch was unexpected and unfortunate, it was used properly and put the team on more solid footing than most expansion clubs. Kindle admittedly was a soccer novice when taking on the venture. Now she sits on multiple league boards and is described by Garber as an emerging MLS catalyst. City SC has settled in.
"Time is always your friend when you're launching a new sports team," Garber said. "It gives you the opportunity to expand your brand, to get involved with the community, to build a cultural narrative around your team. The club has done a terrific job of executing on that. Having the MLS Next Pro team play (last season) kept the brand alive and helped everyone understand what it means. In a perfect world, you don't have pandemics. But in this case, the extra time is going to be beneficial to them."
It was a trip to meet with the City SC ownership group in March 2019 that Garber holds as his most moving memory — at least until he hears a sold-out City Park stadium roar Saturday. During that visit he was welcomed into a room filled with ownership group members, leaders of the Cardinals and Blues and high-level business officials from across the region. What he heard then and there was less of a presentation and more of a promise.
St. Louis was ready for Major League Soccer. The history showed it, and the future would prove it. The people in this room would make sure of it.
Garber didn't need much convincing, but the early evidence has continued to pile up, the latest being a head-turning first win against one of the best teams in the league last season.
"This is the seventh year in a row we have added a new team, and each one has their unique and memorable dynamic," Garber said. "St. Louis has brought a level of energy and focus and fan engagement that has just taken MLS expansion to an entire new level. Nobody ever dreamed there would be 63,000 season ticket deposits, or that they would be able to develop a multifaceted downtown stadium development project that is going to shock the world. There will be countless events taking place in the stadium in the years to come.
"St. Louis doesn't need soccer to put it on the map. It's such an amazing historic Midwestern town. What I think it will do is help take Major League Soccer and expand our horizons, expand the narrative that this is a league continuing to break new ground."
Garber wanted to drive home one point about that March 2019 meeting, when St. Louis came together to make the pitch to take the pitch.
"It's important to say this," he said. "Everybody has overdelivered. That's just a rare thing, in life. It really is. It's nice to see people say what they are going to do, and then actually do it."
My guess is he will have a new favorite memory Sunday morning.
