It takes two to tango: Nashville SC courts Latino fans with Spanish merch and cultural offerings at the new stadium

Rachel IacovoneWPLN News

Nashville SC's Latino supporters group, La Brigada De Oro (or the Gold Brigade), leads chants in Spanish in a section with five other groups during the inaugural game at Geodis Park. Many fans who only speak English pick up the Spanish lines after a few bars and join in.

Bilingual fans walking into Nashville SC’s new stadium for their first match Sunday may have noticed something novel for a Tennessee sports venue: how much Spanish surrounded them.

Abel Acosta is cofounder of the Latino supporters group, La Brigada de Oro, or the Gold Brigade.

“(For) Latinos in many countries outside of the U.S., this is the sport — because soccer is truly the only global sport,” Acosta says. “Especially in Latin countries, it’s No. 1. It’s do or die.”

As seriously as Latinos may take the sport, Geodis Park is taking their support just as seriously. Around the stadium, there are banners, and food stands, and team merch, and flags, and fan signs, and even chants — largely led by Acosta’s group — all in Spanish.

The bilingualism of the stadium, for at least the inaugural game, lines up with promises from the team to serve as an international venue. And it’s a promise they’ll have to keep in a neighborhood as multicultural as South Nashville.

WPLN Digital News Editor Rachel Iacovone, who is Latina, went to the first match with This Is Nashville host Khalil Ekulona. On Monday’s episode, they talk about opening day’s atmosphere and the culture shift taking place at Geodis Park.

Khalil Ekulona: So as you walked in, tell me, what were your initial impressions of Geodis Park?

Rachel Iacovone: Honestly, my first thought was probably: “Wow, this looks so much like the renderings that the team sent us a couple of years ago.” I mean, this place is huge. My thighs are still burning from all the steps that we took.

KE: We took a lot of steps.

RI: Yeah, it’s just an expansive place. There’s that field out front. So that was kind of our first impression — were people playing a pickup game of soccer outside of the actual arena where soccer is happening inside.

KE: So, give us a little history of this place. I mean, what neighborhood is it located in?

Rachel Iacovone WPLN News

Nashville SC’s logo when it was in the USL (left) and its current logo since the move to the MLS in 2020 (right)

RI: Well, this has been a long time coming, so I’ll give you some of the breakdown here. Nashville SC kept its original team name from its formation in 2016, but it only recently became a Major League Soccer team. Before the MLS, Nashville SC — back when it had that old round logo with the strings through the N, you might have seen some fans in that yesterday — that was when they were part of the USL. That’s the United Soccer League. That’s professional, but it’s the division below the MLS. Back then, the team played at First Horizon. That’s the home of the Sounds baseball team. Then, with the move to the big time, the team wanted a home for themselves, and the stadium talk began. In the meantime, the team’s been playing actually where the Titans play at Nissan Stadium since 2020 when they became an MLS team. And now they’ve finally come home to South Nashville, which is definitely a strategic choice because that’s the most diverse and definitely the most Latino area of the city.

KE: How much did the stadium cost to build?

RI: $335 million.

KE: Okay, that’s a lot of money. Tell me about the process in getting the site approved by the city and the community. What was that like?

RI: There was definitely some pushback from the community — some in South Nashville and then just around the city, probably because of that bill. There was a lawsuit from Save Our Fairgrounds, and even Mayor Cooper was upset with the team during the stadium build talks for a while there since he wanted them to contribute more to the huge cost. And we saw just this week the most recent drama was the parking concerns. There are 5,000 parking spots for 30,000 fans, plus, as you said.

KE: That’s going to be tough to work. So, that’s really tough to work out. So, you know, answer this for me from what you saw yesterday. Do you get the feeling that the stadium is a welcoming place for all Nashville fans?

RI: Yeah, I think there were some promises in the initial tour with press. One of our reporters, Juliana Kim, went to that and they said, “We want to make this an international place.” But we didn’t really know until opening day what that meant. And when we walked in, we saw so many of the offerings were in, like, Spanish. There were Latino places locally owned that we spotted, and a lot of the signage was in Spanish itself. So that community in particular. But we saw people from all different backgrounds there.

KE: Yeah, and you know, as you mentioned, we’re walking around, we see plenty of vendors and a lot of different options. We also had some really good empanadas.

RI: Yes. I mean, we saw those as soon as we walked in and I know marked, “That’s the place we got to go back to.” There was a long line of largely Latinos, which is always a good sign. So that’s Chivanada. That’s a Colombian food truck that’s actually usually in a converted school bus. But this is a permanent stand that they have there. There’s also Alebrije that we passed, which is usually a pop-up around town. They take over local restaurants. And then, of course, there’s Tempo. It’s one of my favorite coffeeshops in town. Their actual, permanent location is about a mile from there. So, it’s definitely a South Nashville staple. And I mean, much to my pleasant surprise running into that. If you’re asking yourself, though, “Why would you want coffee at a soccer game?” You did not see the line that we saw yesterday. I finally caught up with Zylah Solis in a lull in the never-ending customer line. She’s the owner’s daughter and was working the stand.

Zylah Solis: We’ve been a little overwhelmed, but we did a lot of prep work. So, my parents are here. They’re actually, like, cooking in a separate kitchen and running everything over. So, it’s been a little bit like … there’s my dad. But yeah, mostly we were prepared.

Her dad ran up in the middle there, as you heard, with this giant tray of tacos to resupply the reserves. I actually got coffee at Tempo this morning, and Zylah was still saying how shocked they were by the interest in their food and coffee yesterday.

KE: Looked really good, but that line was way too long. You know, tell me, what was your take on the cultural representation of, you know, the fans at the game?

RI: I mean, we were pretty candidly talking about that to each other as people of color who were there. And it was a largely white crowd initially, probably a lot of those season ticket holders. And then it kind of changed, you know, as the crowd was shifting. They were walking in. It was like 1 p.m., they open the doors, and then the game wasn’t actually until 3. So much closer to actual game start around 2:30, there was definitely a change in the tide, and I think that’s largely with the supporter section arriving. There is a Spanish-speaking group I know you’ll be talking to later in the show, and that group coming in and all the others. We saw Black families. We saw a lot of Asian families as well. And that’s where it was like, “Wow, this could be the host of something like a World Cup.” I know, like, they’re going for eventually.

Actually, when we were walking to the parking lot after the game, a very cheery couple asked me to take a photo of them. And when we got to talking, we realized we were all puerrtoriquenõ, or Puerto Rican. Cristina and Jose Rivas moved from the island to Orlando, and they’ve been fans of the MLS team there for a while. But now, as new Nashville residents, Nashvillians, they’re fully ready to convert, they say.

Cristina Rivas: I mean, this is the opening. The grand opening! It was totally worth it, even though we didn’t win I think everybody did a great–

Jose Rivas: It was a nice experience, a super experience.

Cristina Rivas: It was a great experience.

Jose Rivas: The new stadium, it was amazing. So yeah, we love it.

They were just very impressed with the stadium. They kept telling me that. As a native Floridian with a childhood friend who worked for Orlando City SC for a while, I will tell you the effort here is different. The Latinos find you in Central Florida, but in Nashville, Tennessee, there’s definitely been some more intentional courting.

KE: You know, we’ll be talking, as you mentioned, with a few of those Backline supporters later on in the show. But you and I were hanging out with them for a bit. I was feeling it. What did you feel as they got the chants and all the drums going?

RI: Very at home, you know? It’s a really cool mix of like: yeah, we’re Music City. There’s, like, some of the country influence, but we heard maybe two country songs. And so there’s a lot of just like that — the drum is what really connects us all, right? So there is, like, Spanish chants happening on one side. And, at the same time, to the same beat, the English ones. And it’s just such a unified section for so many different reasons, culturally and language-wise. And standing right there, I mean, I could see you right ahead of me at certain parts, and it’s like we’re both grinning. You can’t help but feed off that energy.

KE: Yeah, you just look around and you see people, and it’s like, “If you’re going to be in this section, you are going to have fun and you are going to chant and you’re going to cheer,” you know? And that section was wonderful, but we had access to a lot of different places that people normally don’t get a chance to check out when they go to sports arenas, like the press box and the post-game press conference rooms. What did you notice about those? What stood out?

RI: Well, you can bring some more, you can court some more Latinos and other groups, you know, to the arena. But that doesn’t change the makeup of the actual press that already exists here and covers sports. I noticed I was one of three women in the room, you know, and there were 17 press members. And of course, there were limited people of color. I think I counted seven. So that is interesting when they’re trying to be an international place. And I’m wondering if the team, as it continues to do better and as they’re doing more events that are not just Nashville SC and courting more international soccer, if we’ll see a shift in who’s actually covering it in the press room. But that does stand out to me.

KE: What else stood out to you? I mean, what are you thinking as the season progresses? What’s your eye looking for?

RI: I’m actually interested in how the crowd will continue to look. I honestly wonder if it’ll diversify even more. You and I were looking at tickets before. I mean, we were covered by a press pass. That’s very nice. But tickets were $90 — for the cheap seats — from what I was seeing. So I wonder if that did keep some people from being able to go in. So diversity in class, not just in race and ethnicity, but more of those South Nashville residents who just want to check out a game. I’m seeing, like, later in the month, those tickets are 30 bucks, so it might change.