Charlotte FC's Front Office on rebuilding fanbase relationship, World Cup 2026, and Summer Transfer Window: "We will be busy in the summer"
- Brian Maurer
- 8 minutes ago
- 7 min read
By Brian Maurer
As the Charlotte FC players and coaches prepare for their home opener on the field, the Crown's General Manager and Tepper Sports Entertainment (TSE) executives have been preparing for the 2026 campaign off of it, whether that is player recruitment, ticket sales, fan engagement, or preparing for a jampacked summer of soccer. There has been a lot of work done, with plenty more to go, but this weekend's match against Austin FC feels like a culmination of high expectations on and off the field.
The club's expectations and goals have never been higher, while off-field changes are coming that have left some fans uneasy, questioning what the 2026 season will be like. The upper bowl will be closed for Charlotte's home opener for the first time in club history. The club's reasoning for this is the atmosphere that was created in two lower bowl games towards the end of 2025, one against Inter Miami and the club's playoff loss versus NYCFC.
"We created a top-end Premier League atmosphere in that game against Inter Miami, and I'm hoping we are going to create two more in the next two games coming," said Charlotte FC General Manager Zoran Krneta. "We all commented, honestly, from the players, to the performance team, to the team manager, everybody was like 'wow!'" he said on how the club reacted to the Miami game atmosphere.
While there has been continued discussion about ticket sales and season ticket member declines, the lower bowl is expected to be full for opening night. "If our normal walk-up crowd just showed today and we didn't sell another ticket from now until Saturday, we'd be sold out," said TSE Chief Revenue Officer Eric Sudol.
The club released a new $26 price point for the lower bowl, which was announced alongside the decision to close the upper bowl. One of the main reasons for these changes was to amplify the stadium atmosphere consistently while also making games accessible to as many interested fans as possible. "The supporters are the heartbeat of this, the synergistic atmosphere, the sense of camaraderie, community, and belonging is the brand," said Sudol. The aim is to have a packed lower bowl for every home game to personify the brand of the club and the fanbase that follows them. "We are not stopping until we have the best atmosphere in all of sports," said Sudol.
Sudol also discussed increasing the club's business-to-business partnerships as another opportunity for the club to sell tickets and establish relationships with more local businesses in the community. "Tell me another platform, at the price points that we have, to garner cultural interest in your company, employee morale, and productivity, every business in this region should have four club seats to Charlotte FC," stated Sudol.
Charlotte's executives have definitely met some pushback from these changes, and they acknowledged as much when they met with the media during a roundtable session. "We were one of five teams in Major League Soccer that went up the rankings in valuation. The expectations are high, as they should be; if they weren't high, I wouldn't want to be here because I want to be a part of the best," Sudol stated.
Rebuilding trust with the fanbase
One concern Sudol and TSE CEO Kristi Coleman aim to address in 2026 is rebuilding the trust between the supporters and the club, which they acknowledged as being more distant than it should be. "Our supporters are our lifeblood," said Coleman. "I'll put it on myself, I need to be more visible, and I see that, I feel that, and listening to fans, listening to the supporters...I've learned that it's really important."
Coleman also discussed the hiring of a new liaison, Fernando Varela, who will be the Manager of Grassroots Marketing and Fan Engagement. Varela's role will be as a connection between the supporters and the club, and he will be someone the supporters' groups should have consistent access to. "We have to rebuild those relationships, and it's being front-facing, it's being out...we will host certain events to make sure that we are all together, it's not just [Varela]...I think it should be a collective effort," said Coleman.
Varela has experience working in MLS with LAFC and the Colorado Rapids, specifically with supporters groups. "I would say open, honest communication is really important. At the end of the day, supporter groups and the front offices have the same goal of building the sport and growing the club. From my perspective, soccer is like a religion to me, and I care so much about developing the game and really building it in a way that slowly solidifies its growth in the sense that like, it's here to stay, instead of just being a trend." said Varela on the key ingredients to the supporters/club relationship during his time working with the Rapids as their Fan Engagement Specialist.
Mending the relationship with season ticket members
A concern among season ticket members has been their ticket valuations, as well as access to STM perks such as All-Star Game ticket presales. Emails for different STM presales have been sent out notoriously at the last minute over the past year or two, and the recent All-Star Game presale was a recent example. The presale email went out 30 minutes before the start of the presale, according to multiple STMs.
Another issue reported by STMs is a delay in receiving their yearly gifts from the club. "We've got to be proactive versus reactive...when we have slip-ups, or when we haven't listened historically well, or we need more infrastructure to make sure we are responding, trust me that hits me right to my core," said Sudol in response to these STM concerns. "We are going to get it right."
Sudol continued by reiterating that one of his top concerns is making sure STMs feel they receive more value than their cost. "Season ticket member value is high, high, high on my list. Yes, we talk about new sales, we talk about the B2B thing, we talk about selling regionally. At the end of the day, your number one customer is the one you already have, and so retention around that, and ensuring that price and value, where value exceeds price, is huge on my list."
The 2026 World Cup's impact on Charlotte FC
Not only does Charlotte FC have high expectations for the 2026 season, but all of North American soccer does with the 2026 World Cup being less than 100 days away. Charlotte will be the basecamp for the Scottish National Team as they prepare for their first World Cup since 1998. "The media is huge in Scotland...they'll be talking about Charlotte, and they'll be talking about Scotland here in Charlotte," stated Coleman. "It puts Charlotte on a global scale."
Coleman also spoke about how impressed Scotland's delegates were with the facilities, as they were one of the primary reasons they chose the Carolinas as their home base. "They loved the facility, and they loved the weather," said Coleman.
Having Scotland here will also be an asset from a player recruitment side, as players from very high-profile leagues will be living in Charlotte and using the facilities for several weeks, giving those players a first-hand account of what it would be like playing and living in the Carolinas. "We do have good connections in Premier League, in Championship, in Scottish League, so for us it's one of the leagues that we are really interested in trying to source the players, it's the perfect moment to show ourselves and the city," said Krneta. "I was really happy when we got Scotland."
Krneta said that if Charlotte were hosting a country like Brazil, it would have been more difficult from a recruiting perspective because players on the higher-echelon national teams would not be making an immediate jump to MLS. With a team like Scotland, some players could, and since the Crown already has well-established connections throughout Scotland and England, there should be ample opportunity for more connections to flourish.
There have also been some questions about some host cities not being able to host their scheduled World Cup games, but Charlotte would not be an option as a backup host site. "We would not be able to be a backup host city," said Coleman. Bank of America Stadium has concerts running through the summer, and the logistical challenges of a last-minute change, even if there was an opening in the summer schedule, might have been too difficult to manage. Hosting World Cup games would also require city approval.
Post-World Cup and the new summer transfer window
This season is going to be a new experience for all MLS clubs, as players are required to have 18 days off during the WC break, and several players around the league could require more time depending on how far their national team goes. "After that, it's a mini-preseason...it's a little bit novel for all of us," said Krneta.
The summer window will be another interesting wrinkle as it will line up with the summer window across all the top leagues around the world. "It's going to be an interesting window...this window when it stops...we'll have 19 games, so there will be a much bigger impact on the team and performance potentially for the incoming players in the summer...we will be busy in the summer," said Krneta.
This summer window will be the new standard as the MLS calendar shifts to a fall-to-spring schedule in 2027. "The schedule change is going to be huge, for [Krneta]'s sake, for transfer windows, but then also pulling in eyeballs in May for playoffs at our biggest time, instead of competing with football and other sports at that point, college in particular, I think that's huge. Then, also, the Apple deal is a step in the right direction to take a paywall off," said Coleman. "We have all been in favor of the changes that have been made so far."
There are a lot of expectations riding on this season, this summer, and the new calendar shift in 2027. All Charlotte FC fans' eyes will be on the team's performance this Saturday, but those eyes will shift to the front office and executives if they feel like the high expectations of the gameday experience and team results aren't met, making this year feel like a crucible moment in the longevity phase of the Crown.