How can you become a part of this council?

Yeah, it's as simple as going on our channels and on our website and signing up.

For us, we want this council to...

It's a platform from the club, but also an opportunity for fans to engage with each other and, you know, really collaborate with each other and build, you know, build camaraderie and fan culture and friend, fan teammates.

And for Amway Stadium really to be that, you know, sense of togetherness and sense of belonging.

So we want to provide these platforms for our fans to connect and for them to build that chemistry as well because we want our supporters section and Amway Stadium to be absolutely rockin'.

Uh, from, from day one.

Moving forward, will there be a nickname? Is there a mascot? What happens next?

What do you do as president? Like, what is your role?

Yeah, well, I mean, that could technically fall under.

Other duties as assigned.

Can we keep to hot dogs? I really love hot dogs.

It's still in the job description that was provided to me.

But for me, it's about I'm helping kind of maintain and make sure that the whole scope of the club and business is operating efficiently.

And so really my job is kind of broken down into the two sides.

my

Let's talk a little bit about how maybe that kind of perspective changed shaped those next steps for you and maybe how that brings a certain type of edge to what you're doing particularly with starting a new club

absolutely well I'll take a step back right when I when I retired you know from a professional playing career you know my you know I I tell a lot of people that I had my dream job kind of straight out of college, right? Playing professionally was, you know, was a dream of mine and one that I was, you know, fortunate and blessed to be able to achieve.

But, you know, those days go by so quickly, right? And then I'm like, no crap, like what's next? And for me, I just took some time to really like figure out what did I want the next step to be? And I've always been a big believer of following your passion.

But I wanted to learn the game from the business side.

I've been a part of the competitive side before and the product on the pitch.

But for me, it's like, how do I learn the business side and equip myself with those tools to try to impact the game and grow the game and grow MLS? Because there's tons of opportunity.

And at the time, so much opportunity for MLS and the league to grow.

dragged around so much that i'm always curious what what does that word mean to you of community and then how do you guys looking to connect with that as a club

They may have their team in the Premier League or in Serie A or in the La Liga or L- Liga MX in Mexico, but how can you help get them invested in AC Grand Rapids?

Yeah.

It, it, it's really like f- A, a lot of people ask me, like, "How..." Like, "How are you building a, a club from the, from the ground up?" You know, "What..." Like, "What's the first thing you do?" And, you know, "How..." You know, "How, how is that developed?" And for us, this is really a, a community story just told through the lens of, of soccer through AC Grand Rapids, right? We're, we're telling the story of, of Grand Rapids in, in West Michigan.

Um, and I think that always has to be the, the core and ethos with which how we, um, you know, build a fan base and, and develop a fan base.

You know, we could go out here and do all of these, you know, inorganic and inauthentic activations and things, and just copy X club in English championship and try to bring that and replicate it here, but it would absolutely fall flat on its face.

Like, everything that we-- The, everything that we're doing has to be true and, and connect right here in our own backyard, and I think that's the beauty of it, right? And then if you look across the world, like of course you have domestically, you have MLS here, you have, to your point, the EPL in, in England, you have La Liga, you have Serie A, you have Bundesliga, all of these top leagues around the world.

But, you know, you know, beneath those, or not beneath those, but kinda the, the tier down, you still have your English championship teams and your League One teams.

So if, if we put ourselves in the position of, of today's 12-year-old making that choice of what sporting pathway they wanna take, what can those kids look forward to in, in this World Cup that will inspire them to, to grow up and wanna play at AC Grand Rapids or DCFC or maybe represent the US at, at some point in, in their career? What, what can we look for in that?

But talk about the product here, and this is really next level, not only with the stadium, but MLS NEXT Pro and what exactly that is, because there's a lot of excitement that you guys are gonna take advantage of this summer with what you're doing because of World Cup.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

And that's, I mean, uh, it, it's great to hear you talk about the history of soccer in this, uh, in this great region and, and state, right? And that's something that we want to, to cultivate and, and bring along with us, uh, from the very grassroots level.

Um, this'll be West Michigan's and, and Grand Rapids' professional soccer club, you know, playing right here, uh, in Amway Stadium.

And so, um, we're excited to bring this level of professional soccer to the market.

Um, being connected with the MLS brand and being, you know, a player development league, but a professional league at the same time, I think it's...

So kinda educate the fans on what type of level talent, what age players they're gonna see when you guys hit the field next summer.

What does that mean for you?

Yeah, I mean, I think it means something different, whether you're associated as an independent club like AC Grand Rapids or if you're an MLS affiliated club like, you know, Crown Legacy FC, where I came from in Charlotte.

Right.

I think, you know, the investment from from KKR and Hometown Soccer Holdings to kind of inject some capital to help, you know, you know.

hyper grow the league.

I think that that sticks to the ambition that the league has, right? You know, we want to grow, we want to, you know, be in different markets and, you know, right now it's been tough for MLS affiliated clubs to really kind of grow and capitalize on the opportunity because, you know, you're in the same market as your first team, right? And so I think a great next step and a good hybrid approach is, you know, putting these teams in markets that are, you know, an hour and a half, two hours away from the home market and, in markets that might not necessarily be able to travel, you know, to an MLS match.

Right.

Just from, you know, separate from AC Grand Rapids, what's that like to see it happen?