Page 143 - OVATION Magazine (Issue 1)

“I’m not sure any team has ever played it
smarter than this group did from the outset.”
group did from the outset,” says John Ireland, host of the Mason & Ireland Show and the play-by-play voice of the Los Angeles Lakers.“I started hearing about LAFC over three years ago—before they had a stadium, before they had players, before they had anything. So it was a slow, steady drumbeat of ‘this is coming’ before it was fully formed.”
Officially launched in October 2014, the team an- nounced plans for its 22,000-seat stadium in Exposition
Park the next spring.Their black-and-gold logo was revealed
—JOHN IRELAND
in January 2016, the same year in which the group broke ground on the stadium (a scene that involved Ferrell driv- ing a bulldozer and digging a hole).The venue hosted its first game in April 2018, with LAFC defeating the Seattle Sounders 1–0.
Ireland, for one, attributes much of the club’s early success to its all-star group of owners.“They put together an own- ership group that was not only diverse but from all ages and backgrounds,”he says.Of course,there are potential downsides
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L.A. STORY