Community-embedded Nashville SC Geodis Park

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Ian Ayre has an interesting background – from school he was 10 years in the military and then 10 years in the electronics industry and most of that in Asia and today he is in a top-tier role with the Major League Soccer (MLS) team Nashville SC (US).

In an exclusive discussion with ‘Coliseum’, Ian Ayre, Vice-Chairman, Nashville SC, US, tells that one of the things that he learnt during the build process of the Nashville SC abode – the Geodis Park in Nashville, US, which opened in 2022 – was that “how important it is to be a part of the community and the venue should be such that it fits the neighborhood and it should not tower above the community”. He affirmed that if one visits the Geodis Park today one will realize that it is “very much in keeping with the community”.
 

Nashville SC

The Nashville Soccer Club is an American professional soccer club based in Nashville, Tennessee (US). The club competes in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a Member of the Eastern Conference.
 

Geodis Park

The Geodis Park, known during development and construction as the Nashville SC Stadium and the Nashville Fairgrounds Stadium, is a 30,109-seat soccer-specific stadium at the historic Nashville Fairgrounds in Nashville, Tennessee (US). It serves as the residence of the Nashville SC.
 

Ayre Background

Ian Ayre began the discussions by stating, “My story is a bit unusual. I was the head honcho of an electronics company. We did an Initial Public Offering (IPO) in 1996, about 700 million dollars, and the owner decided to buy a soccer team and asked me to run it. I ran that soccer team with my former boss in the United Kingdom and then again went back to Asia and set my own sports market and business across Asia. In 2006, I was approached by the Premier League team Liverpool FC (UK) and I was very proud and honored to work with Liverpool for 10 years. In 2017, I met up with the Principal Owner of Nashville SC John Ingram and joined the Nashville SC and soon we built the Geodis Park which went on stream in May 2022, built the practice facility and built the academy.”
 

Community First

“One of the things I learnt during the build process of the Geodis Park is that the facility should be community-anchored. When we saw the venue which is the Fairgrounds in Nashville it was a bunch of old market-type buildings. Our conversation with the design firm Populous revolved around aesthetics and the design involved a very deep dig into the bedrock so that the stadium doesn’t tower above the community.”

He also talked about the integration of the community and how important it is to really work in close coordination with the community – “We were unique, we were the first team certainly in Nashville to enter into a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) as part of the construction process. It involved all sort of things right at the outset from selecting the workforce that constructed the stadium that had a lot of diversity, local elements, using local contractors alongside the national and international contractors, it moved into very strong community communications process during the build which ended up being right through COVID. But that actually worked in our favor. During that period the community benefits carried on like buying materials from the local suppliers, continue to do whether its catering product or flowers for the lounges, trying to work with a lot of the local community and it really worked positively for us.”

A Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) in the United States is a contract signed by the community groups and a real estate developer that requires the developer to provide specific amenities and/or mitigations to the local community or neighborhood. In exchange, the community groups agree to publicly support the project, or at least not oppose it. Often, negotiating a CBA relies heavily upon the formation of a multi-issue, broad-based community coalition including community, environmental, faith-based and labor organizations.

Ayre stated that the Geodis Park has been open for few years now and “on an average we built the largest soccer stadium in America – a soccer-specific stadium and 30,000 seats on an average audience and since we have opened it has been 28,000 and I absolutely believe that being the strong community partner has been at the heart of that. We also did a lot of consultations with the community and the different communities around Nashville, the local community as in the neighborhood.”
 

Wrap-up

Ian Ayre wrapped up by stating, “I have been learning. I love to learn. I think you should never stop learning. It has been 18 years in sports and I am a soccer fan my whole life and so I knew a lot about how to run a team, how to operate a stadium. I have been to some of the greatest stadiums in the world and what I have realized is the way people consume sport. European soccer is hugely historic while soccer in the United States is like you can have open seas, go drive things and do things.”

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