Ameer Mussard-Afcari
If you were lucky enough to roam the Empire Polo Club in February, you might have run into Hirving “Chucky” Lozano, a star soccer player for the Mexican national team and the San Diego FC. Marco Reus (formerly of Borussia Dortmund and now with the LA Galaxy) was kicking around. So was Tobin Heath (formerly of the U.S. women’s national team and the winner of two FIFA Women’s World Cups). It was rumored that Brandi Chastain (former U.S. women’s national team star and part owner of the Bay FC – the newest team in the National Women’s Soccer League) was in attendance.
For four years, AEG – the sports and entertainment giant – has hosted spring training scrimmages for teams from Major League Soccer (MLS) and the NWSL. It’s one of the best kept secrets in the Coachella Valley. It started with just a few teams, but the Coachella Valley Invitational has grown to 17 MLS teams. This includes LA Galaxy, New York City FC, Chicago Fire FC, Portland Timbers, San Jose Earthquakes, Real Salt Lake, San Diego FC, St. Louis SC, New York Red Bulls, Minnesota United FC, and Sporting Kansas City. The NWSL clubs participating include Angel City FC, Portland Thorns FC, Bay FC, Seattle Reign FC, San Diego Wave FC, and the Houston Dash. It is now the largest professional soccer pre-season event in North American soccer history, according to the AEG/CVI website.
“Pre-season for MLS starts in January,” Kara Korber, senior director of soccer business development for AEG, says. “A team like the LA Galaxy is fortunate because they can train at that time of the year in our home market, not where it’s 20 degrees and snowing. A lot of teams don't have that luxury – like Toronto, for instance, or the New York teams. Even Charlotte has to travel. They have to go to Spain or Florida. MLS is one of the only professional sports leagues that doesn't have its own pre-season. NFL has very organized football camps; MLB obviously has spring training. The NBA has summer league. Everyone kind [of] has an organized structure, except for MLS. Which is surprising, right?
“So, our CEO, Dan Beckerman, had the idea – why don't we host what we would hope to become MLS spring training here? The weather's perfect. We have the space and the surfaces are perfect. AEG is probably one of the only ownership groups of a professional MLS team that has the operational capacity to do it. We run big festivals, [so] we can operate a pre-season. And that’s how this came to be.”
The Empire Polo Club – owned by the Haagen family – leased the sprawling 1,000-acre site to Goldenvoice, an AEG subsidiary. Goldenvoice has served as producer of the Coachella and Stagecoach festivals since 1993. The company signed a 28-year lease to operate the grounds in 2021. It makes perfect sense that AEG would want to take advantage of their operation of the Club. But, there was an added incentive.
“Quality turf is really important to the game of soccer,” Korber, a former college soccer player for Georgetown who got her start at Sports Illustrated, says. “Fifteen miles down the road here, we grow turf that we export to the stadium [for the LA Galaxy]. We have all this beautiful acreage [of grass] and we thought, ‘Well, why aren’t we using it?’”
There is something very special about the grass at the Polo Club. There is no turf like it anywhere in the Coachella Valley; not even the greenbelt on Highway 111 in Indian Wells comes close. The ground is slightly soft and the grass is dense and luxuriousness; that’s pretty remarkable. It’s not like you want to fall face-first on it like a mattress, but it’s close – very close.
Ameer Mussard-Afcari
Korber says the first year they put on the pre-season event was a test-the-waters invitational. “It was super successful,” she says. “We had five MLS teams come out for … about two weeks and train and play closed-door matches against each other. And it's great for the Galaxy. Instead of us having to fly to different markets or hav[ing] to fly three different teams in at different times and host them at the stadium, we can have other teams fly to us. We take a two hour bus ride [from Los Angeles], park the bus in Palm Springs for two weeks, and we [play] all of the games we need before the season. It's kind of the ideal.”
Twelve MLS teams showed up to scrimmage at the second pre-season invitational. They decided to open the games to the public, but on a limited basis, according to Korber. The teams play on two adjacent fields divided by bleachers. (A third field is used by players to practice and warm up.) The maximum capacity is 4,000 people. Korber says the venue was packed during some of the higher profile MLS games, but they decided to keep the venue small. “The fans out here are great,” she says. “I feel like there's a real sports fan in the desert. They have such first-class events. They've got Firebirds; they've got [the BNP Paribas Open at] Indian Wells. We've seen a really good turnout. I'd say weekends are better than Wednesdays, but it [depends] on who's playing and the players that are coming out. We're north of 20,000 [fans] distributed across the event and hoping to reach 30, but we'll see.”
Nevertheless, one of the prime attractions of the CV Invitational is the intimacy of the experience, according to Korber. She and her colleagues want to do everything possible to maintain that feeling, as more MLS and NWSL teams choose to participate. “I don't think anywhere else can you go stand on the other side of a four-foot, white picket [fence] and be face-to-face with a professional athlete,” she says. “It's a really cool environment. Another thing that I like, in addition to the physical[ly] close proximity, is how much you can hear. If you're a real soccer fan, it's so cool to be able to hear the play develop. That's not something you can typically hear in a stadium.”
Ameer Mussard-Afcari
Korber says the players are more relaxed, as well, due to the intimacy and relaxed setting. They enjoy being able to interact with local fans. “You'll see at the end of the game, all the teams will go over to the fans and sign autographs,” she says. “They'll take selfies with the fans. And that's kind of what it's all about. We want to create this atmosphere where you can get closer than ever to your favorite athletes and your favorite teams.”
