MLS NEXT Pro: Chattanooga FC to play at Erlanger Park on Independence Day

Philip Farrell
6 days ago
3 min read

Credit: Chattanooga Lookouts Communications

NATIONAL SOCCER NEWS: www.nationalsoccernetwork.com

CHATTANOOGA, TN --- The Chattanooga Football Club and the Chattanooga Lookouts baseball team held a joint-press conference today at Erlanger Park to announce that CFC will play a game at the stadium on July 4.

Founded in 1909, a century before CFC, the Lookouts are the Double-A affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds. Just less than a month ago, the Lookouts opened their state-of-the-art new 8k capacity Erlanger Park stadium. Since Chattanooga FC’s founding the two teams have formed a strong relationship and, along with UT Chattanooga, established cross-collaboration at front office level.

Today’s event was also used by the Lookouts to announce that the new stadium had been built with other on-field events, such as soccer, in-mind. “Hosting this July 4th match at Erlanger Park is an incredible opportunity for both of our organizations and for the city we love,” said Chattanooga Lookouts President Rich Mozingo. “Erlanger Park was built to bring the community together, and partnering with Chattanooga FC for a night of soccer, celebration, and fireworks is exactly the kind of experience we hoped this ballpark would inspire. We can’t wait to welcome fans for what promises to be a truly special Independence Day in Chattanooga.”

I spoke with Jason Freier, Chairman and CEO of Hardball Capital and Managing Owner of the Chattanooga Lookouts, and asked him how long these discussions with CFC had been going on. “We started these discussions late in the ballpark’s construction, but the idea to have soccer games played here was something in our plans when we started designing the stadium. We own two other minor league teams and we’ve done events like this in those places. Our team in Fort Wayne has hosted soccer games and our team in Columbia has hosted football games. We designed the venue understanding that we’d only have about 70 baseball games a year, that’s one-in-five weekends. So, to have a venue like this and not figure out how to leverage that and take advantage of it as close as possible to 365 days of the year; would be a missed opportunity. This was all planned for and we have a great relationship with the folks over at CFC so we’ve been talking about this in theory since before the stadium was built and we’ve been talking about it for July 4 since our schedule came out. We didn’t have anything on Independence Day and CFC was gonna be at home, it made all the sense in the world”.

So, would the Lookouts be open to having more soccer games at Erlanger in future? “Yeah, absolutely. The idea with this is to try it out, see how it works for us and see how it works for them.”

For Chattanooga FC’s part, they spoke about the World Cup coming to the United States (with Spain basing themselves in Chattanooga) and the 250th anniversary of the founding of the republic as an opportunity to host a "CFC Summer of Soccer" in collaboration with the City of Chattanooga and Outdoor Chattanooga. This will be a series of events and activities for the community throughout June and July, including the game at Erlanger Park.

"In addition to the high-level soccer on the pitch we offer week-in and week-out, we're thrilled to introduce new and exciting entertainment experiences off the pitch and throughout the summer season," said Chattanooga FC Chief Business Officer Chad Emerson. "We are thrilled to work with the Chattanooga Lookouts to play our July 4th match at Erlanger Park with fireworks to wrap up the evening."

After the announcement, I asked CFC Primary Owner Davis Grizzard if this one-off game at Erlanger could be the initial step to future games being played at the stadium. Naturally, Davis said that this was their only focus of this nature for now but that hopefully it would be a success and they’d go from there. Without wanting to speculate, I can’t help but imagine that future games will be played at Erlanger Park. This may especially be true if MLS Next Pro switches to a ‘European-syle’ calendar in 2027-28 and clashing overlap with the Lookouts schedule is diminished. Time will tell.

The one-off game will be played on Saturday, July 4 at 7:30 p.m. ET against Inter Miami CF II. A fireworks show will take place following the conclusion of the match. Tickets will go on sale to the general public on Friday, May 14 at 10:00 a.m. ET on CFCTIX.com and Lookouts.com.