SAN DIEGO — Soccer fans, it’s time to get excited!

The Major League Soccer Commissioner and San Diego City Mayor Todd Gloria are expected to hold a press conference at 10:45 a.m. at Snapdragon Stadium to announce the league’s 30^th expansion team coming to America’s Finest City.

“We’ve shown ourselves to be a great soccer community,” Mark Neville, CEO of Sports San Diego said.

“It’s great to have more opportunities for fans to watch the beautiful game and more opportunities for fans to experience soccer,” San Diego Wave Head Coach Casey Stoney said. “I see the youth game here and it’s absolutely booming, so to have both male and female role models can only be a good thing.”

The Wave will be getting a new roommate at Snapdragon Stadium.

“It really does seem like a natural for MLS to be in San Diego,” Neville said. “I think they are going to be really well supported, I think they are going to be happy with having San Diego as part of their footprint. This is going to be a great announcement for the San Diego region.”

Neville is part of a team that assists with sports tourism in San Diego and is anticipating to work alongside the new MLS team.

“When the Chargers left, it definitely hurt, so to have a brand like MLS in San Diego is only going benefit us, and we’ve seen sports is a huge industry,” Neville added.

“I think they’re going to have a really loyal support group in town and it’s exciting that MLS sees that as well,” Neville said.

Another professional sports franchise in San Diego is going to boost the sports economy and sports tourism economy. Plus, Neville said it will bring a big social boost.

“The community is going to have a lot of exciting times celebrating around this team,” Neville said. “We see it right now with the Padres, we saw it with San Diego State basketball in the March Madness, this is a huge win for the San Diego region.”

Brandon O’Shea was part of an informal group of people that were pushing for an MLS team as soon as rumors swirled that the Chargers were leaving. While hopes faded for the MLS team to share a stadium with the Chargers, O’Shea continued pushing for an MLS team. Now, his hope is coming true.

“With an MLS team in San Diego, we have the chance to have that brand recognition for San Diego worldwide,” O’Shea said. “Looking forward to getting out to games and finally having some representation at the top level of soccer in America.” 

Now the big questions are: what will the team name be? What will their crest look like? And, what colors will they sport?