St. Louis awarded MLS expansion team

Major League Soccer announced plans to expand to St. Louis on Tuesday, bringing the league to 28 teams.

St. Louis will begin play in 2022 in a new 22,500-capacity stadium in the downtown core, following in the footsteps of fellow expansion sides Inter Miami CF, Nashville SC, and Austin FC.

FC Cincinnati, the league's 24th team, entered competition earlier this year.

The St. Louis franchise will also boast the first female-majority ownership group in MLS history and one of the only ones in professional sports. Enterprise Holdings Foundation president Carolyn Kindle Betz, female members of the Taylor family, and IT mogul Jim Kavanaugh lead the consortium.

"It is with great pride that we welcome St. Louis to Major League Soccer," MLS commissioner Don Garber said in a statement. "St. Louis is a city with a rich soccer tradition, and it is a market we have considered since the league's inception."

The last time St. Louis housed a top-tier soccer franchise was in 1977 when the Stars played in the North American Soccer League.

Currently, several MLS players call St. Louis home, including Seattle Sounders forward Will Bruin and United States international Tim Ream.