Andre Swanston, a tech entrepreneur who co-owns Connecticut United FC with his wife Michelle, took some time this week to speak with Westfair Business Journal about the future of the nascent soccer franchise as it prepared to play its home opener at Morrone Stadium Saturday, April 11 on the University of Connecticut campus in Storrs. The team lost to Columbus Crew2, 3-1.
For its first season, the team will also play home matches at Reese Stadium on the Yale University campus in New Haven.
While the MLS NextPro team has had to deal with the loss of $100 million in state funding for a new minor league stadium in Bridgeport’s East End, Swanston and the Connecticut Sports Group have moved forward with their inaugural season having split their first four games – all on the road. Swanston told Westfair that he and his team are excited about eventually earning a professional Major League Soccer franchise that will represent Connecticut.
- How do you feel about the team’s start so far?
We’re 2-2. Importantly, we won the first game, it felt like we won the Super Bowl. In the first game away, the excitement, the years of planning, the scouting the team and the staff and going into Cincinnati. What’s interesting is that we have the toughest first month schedule in the history of the league. We’re the second team ever to play their first four games on the road. But we’re the first team where those first four games were against playoff teams from the previous year. We also take it as a badge of pride that we had one of the oldest clubs, 30-year-old club, in the league, a multi-billion-dollar organization, in the New England Revolution II that brought the house to face us in our fourth game ever. (They won 2-0, but we outshot them.)
- What do you expect for your first home opener, not only for your club and how you’ll fare but having to sell the season tickets, get people to show up to the game and all the logistics that goes into that?
Overall, we’re really excited about the home opener and the slated schedule in general. One of the things that is both exciting for us and where there is trepidation and nervousness for us is playing across multiple venues. The positive about it is when we talk about our ambition to go to Major League Soccer and galvanize the state around one club is Connecticut really needs to be one market. Fairfield County by itself or New Haven County or Hartford even, there’s no one city by itself. As a single market, you’re talking about 3.6 million people, more Fortune 500 companies per capita than all but one market in America. It’s the highest soccer-viewing market in America when you combine with a market that doesn’t have a team.
- What was the thinking behind choosing those two venues?
It was specifically about looking for college communities, although college communities are great. It’s a couple of things. One, you have to go where the facilities and the venues are. There really aren’t any venues in Connecticut. The state of Connecticut has really underinvested relative to sports infrastructure compared to states around us. We’ve made some repairs of existing older stuff. We haven’t made any meaningful investments relative to new facilities to do this.
- What made the difference with the venues at UConn and Yale?
In terms of UConn and Yale, you have two of the nicer and recently redone soccer facilities in the state. UConn also has a lot of nostalgia for my wife and I. We both ran track at UConn. Our head coach, Shavar (Thomas) was a soccer player at UConn. Our newest co-owner of the club, Stephon (Castle), literally was a national champion at UConn. New Haven has a rich history of soccer and culture. Pele played there and the Italian national team played there. It was also close to Bridgeport, where the team originally wanted to plant our flag.
- What’s the capacity of the stadiums?
Give or take, 5,000. They both have standing room only capabilities.
- For the Bridgeport stadium, you’re looking at what, 10,000?
7,500 was in the original specs, expandable to 10,000. But for full (a) MLS (team), it has to be 20,000.
- You’re one of the three independent clubs in the whole MLS NextPro league?
That are playing this year. There are already 6 or 7 that have been purchased and playing next season, such as Long Island (Nassau County), Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Jacksonville, Florida, and Cleveland, Ohio. (The other two playing their first season this year are Carolina Core FC and Chattanooga FC.)
- Would you ever look at becoming an affiliated club?
No. We looked at the opportunity in the past. We want to own the rights to the players to buy and sell players (contracts) and control our staff as well as make our own decisions relative to the team. We do this with the idea of being able to go up to MLS. If you are an affiliate of an MLS team, you have no actual assets. You just operating the game day and the fan stuff. You don’t have any players or IP (intellectual property). We want to be Team 31 or Team 32.
- What about developments on the permanent stadium? I know the rug got taken out from under you guys. Is there any progress?
Those are your words, or everybody’s words?
We’ve had other cities in the state and outside the state when they saw what happened to us, saying we would love to have your project come here. We are committed to Connecticut. We haven’t entertained those opportunities outside of the state. We have announcements we can make in the next 30-45 days relative to the stadium plan.
- Are you satisfied with where the team is heading as far as an organization as a MLS NextPro team?
Absolutely. What we’ve said from the beginning is that we want to build a foundation both literally and figuratively to be the next MLS team No. 31 or 32. The first phase for that is that if you look at the pyramid was having a youth academy. So, we launched the only fully professional funded youth academy between here and Boston. At every age group, we have beaten New England Revolution, NYFC and NY Red Bull and Montreal. Our youth-15s just beat Portland Timbers last week down in Florida. We’ve shown already in our second year that we can compete with the best clubs in Major League Soccer with kids pretty much where 80% are from Connecticut.
- What about other stadium projects in the MLS?
We think we are pretty much on track except for the stadium. If you look at NYCFC, they’re opening the big stadium in Queens next year. That’s 12 years after they were founded. The Red Bulls built a stadium 12 years ago in 2008. They were founded in 1996. New England Revolution announced their stadium in Everett, Mass., that is going to start construction in the next year or so. They were also founded in 1996. They have played in a football stadium. We’re on track to be way faster than everyone else in the Northeast historically.
- What kind of marketing campaign do you have for the team?
There’s billboards. Right now, most of the marketing is up near UConn. There are tens of thousands of built-in followers and email lists that are built up in Fairfield County and New Haven. We feel confident for the demand. You’ll start to see billboards and advertising down near Fairfield County by May. (Additionally, the team is live streamed on One Football app, as are all MLS NextPro teams.)
