The City of Milwaukee has a diverse soccer history dating back to the early twentieth century. Of Milwaukee's several youth soccer clubs, the Bavarian Soccer Club has been in existence the longest since being founded in 1929 under the name "Fussball Club Bayern" (Bavarian Soccer Club). The Milwaukee Kickers Soccer Club founded in 1968 has grown to be the largest soccer club in Wisconsin with 8,000 members, more than 650 teams, and 1,300 coaches (Milwaukee Kickers Soccer Club). FC Milwaukee split from the Milwaukee Kickers in 2000 with the intent of building a nationally recognized program. Today, FC Milwaukee competes in regional play, as well as international friendly matches. For the past two years the owner of the Chelsea English Premier League Club, Roman Abromovich, invited the FC Milwaukee U16 Boys to train and play friendly matches against Chelsea's youth feeder teams at the Chelsea facilities in London, England (FC Milwaukee). In addition to these three clubs, many of the various suburbs in the Milwaukee metropolitan area have their own soccer clubs adding to the number of soccer players in the region. At the collegiate level, both the University of Milwaukee-Wisconsin and Marquette University have NCAA Division I soccer teams with strong fan bases, while neither school has an NCAA football team demonstrating the prominence of soccer in Milwaukee.
At the professional level, Milwaukee has had a professional indoor soccer team, the Milwaukee Wave, since the inception of the American Indoor Soccer Association in 1984. "The Milwaukee Wave recently eclipsed the 3-million-fan mark and became the first indoor soccer franchise in North America to win 500 regular season games. Now in 2008-09, the club plays its 1,000th game and celebrates its 25th anniversary" (Milwaukee Wave). This history makes the Milwaukee Wave the longest continually operating professional indoor soccer team in North America.
With the popularity of soccer in Milwaukee and the planned expansion of the MLS, the development of a Major League Soccer stadium with additional supporting entertainment uses would correspond with the growing number of entertainment venues throughout the Menomonee Valley and the Historic Third Ward. A stadium provides the potential to draw people from local, state, and regional levels giving them a reason to visit this highly visible site despite access limitations. A large iconic use will support the development of a variety of other uses throughout the Historic Fifth Ward.