Atlanta United Is Trying to Meet the Moment in a Pivotal Year for Atlanta Soccer
- Jason Longshore
- 4 minutes ago
- 6 min read
With the World Cup drawing closer, the club is looking for ways to connect more deeply with supporters and the city around a historic moment for the game.
As Atlanta gets closer to the center of the soccer world in 2026, Atlanta United is trying to do more than just be part of the noise around it.
The club is trying to make sure it matters in that moment.
That was the clearest thread from Senior Vice President and Chief Business Officer Sarah Kate “Skate” Noftsinger’s appearance on SDH AM with Jon Nelson. Whether the conversation was about the Spirit of ’96 Collection, founding member access to World Cup tickets, the United We Dream collaboration with the Atlanta Dream, or the GA 100 mini-pitch initiative, the through line was clear. Atlanta United sees 2026 as more than a big year for soccer in the city. It sees it as a major moment for the club’s business, its brand, and its place in Atlanta’s broader soccer story.
That starts with how the club sees the city itself.
Noftsinger pointed back to the long-discussed idea of Atlanta as “the epicenter of soccer in North America,” then tied that to what is happening now: a World Cup year, U.S. Soccer putting deeper roots into the region, and a city where the game keeps growing in every direction.
That matters because years like this are not just about spikes in attention. They are about position. They are about whether a club can strengthen its place in the market while the market itself gets bigger. Atlanta United is not just trying to exist alongside the World Cup buzz. It is trying to make sure its identity is part of how Atlanta experiences this soccer year.
That is why the Spirit of ’96 Collection felt like more than a merch hit.
Yes, supporters responded immediately. The quarter-zip moved fast, lines formed at the team store, and the collection clearly connected. But what stood out most in Noftsinger’s comments was not the sales reaction. It was the thinking behind it. “The most special part or the part that brings us the most joy from a front office perspective is, in a sense, we didn’t have anything to do with 1996,” she said. “We were kids that were inspired” by that moment.
That is an important distinction. The collection was not built around borrowed nostalgia for its own sake. It was built around a real understanding of what 1996 meant to Atlanta and what 2026 could mean next.
Noftsinger called 1996 “an iconic moment for the city of Atlanta” that “changed its trajectory for the next 30 years.” Then she tied it directly to the year ahead. “I hope that all of us... thirty years from now, somebody’s gonna look back and celebrate this year the way that we’re celebrating ’96,” she said.
That is bigger than apparel. That is a club trying to connect itself to the city’s memory and to the next chapter of the city’s soccer identity.
It also did not happen overnight. Noftsinger said the idea had been on the club’s radar back in 2019 and 2020, and that the real development process with Adidas began in 2023 and 2024. “People think you can snap your fingers or just take a month or two and create a jersey,” she said. “When you really need to put all the thought in, there’s so many different details that go into it. The process does take a very, very long time.”
Atlanta United did not stumble into something supporters happened to like. It spent years building a collection meant to hit at the right time and in the right way, then watched fans confirm that the idea worked.
Noftsinger connected that success to something larger inside the club. “We’ve talked about internally, how do we go out and kind of reintroduce ourselves to the city of Atlanta?” she said. “Because things haven’t been easy the last couple years. They haven’t been.”
That helps explain why these efforts feel connected. Atlanta United is trying to strengthen its relationship with the city at a time when soccer’s visibility in Atlanta is about to rise in a massive way. That does not mean pretending the results do not matter. Noftsinger addressed that directly: “Would I like to see more wins than jackets? Absolutely.”
And that is fair. Results still drive everything, even if they can never be guaranteed. But results are not the only thing that shapes a club’s standing in a market. Understanding supporters, responding to what they care about, and creating meaningful ways for people to connect with the club beyond results matter too.
The founding member World Cup ticket effort is part of that.
Noftsinger was upfront about the reality. Atlanta United does not control World Cup ticket inventory. “Even though it’s our building, you don’t control that. It’s FIFA-driven,” she said. But she also described a long process that eventually led to an opportunity to secure a block of tickets for founding members.
What stood out there was the balance in the approach. “We were very clear of, like, don’t know what we can do. We don’t think we can do anything, and it’s better to set that bar there and then be able to surprise people than promise it and not be able to deliver,” she said.
That is smart business. It is also smart relationship management. The club understood the limits of what it could promise, especially in a FIFA-controlled process, and chose to be careful rather than oversell.
At the same time, Noftsinger made it clear there was real urgency behind the push. “We’re gonna go get as many as we can. I don’t care how much we gotta put up on the table to do this. We gotta make sure that our people have the opportunity to get them,” she said. Later, she made the obligation even clearer: “It would be, like, almost a disservice to the people of Atlanta that helped build this and helped even put Atlanta on the map... to not be able to get them the opportunity.”
That is not just about tickets. That is about loyalty, access, and making sure the people who helped build Atlanta United still feel seen in the biggest soccer year the city has had in a generation.
The same wider thinking showed up in the United We Dream collaboration with the Atlanta Dream.
On the surface, it is a collaboration around apparel and visibility. But Noftsinger described it in broader terms, as part of the club’s effort to “elevate women, giving visibility to women, and giving opportunity to women year round.” She made it clear that launching during Women’s History Month mattered, but was not the entire point. “This isn’t something, it just happens to be launching during Women’s History Month, but we’ll continue to celebrate and move the needle forward throughout the year,” she said.
That fits with the broader pattern. Atlanta United is looking for ways to place itself inside bigger cultural conversations in the city, not just the soccer calendar. It is an effort to make the club feel more present in Atlanta’s sports landscape and civic life.
GA 100 belongs in that conversation too.
Noftsinger described it as far more than a build-and-leave project. “It’s not just build a pitch and hope people show up,” she said. “You need to find the right partners and build pitches in the right places, so that then they can be programmed regularly.”
The initiative has stretched well beyond metro Atlanta, with a footprint that now reaches across the state. With roughly $4.8 million invested, 52 sites identified, and 12 more in development, GA 100 reflects a club that wants its reach to be felt across the state, not just inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
That matters in a year like 2026. Atlanta United is not only trying to be visible during a major soccer moment. It is trying to show that its place in Georgia’s soccer landscape runs deeper than match days and downtown activations.
That same mindset showed up when Noftsinger talked about the upcoming U.S. men’s national team match against Belgium, which Atlanta United is folding into its season ticket packages as the 18th match. In a World Cup year, it is another example of the club looking for different ways to add value for its audience and connect Atlanta United supporters to a larger soccer event in the city. “Just because you’ve done things the same way for so long doesn’t mean you should always do them that way,” she said. Later, she sharpened it even further: “If something hasn’t been done, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it.”
That line probably says it as well as anything.
Atlanta United cannot control the whole conversation around soccer in Atlanta this year. The World Cup is bigger than the club. The city’s soccer identity is bigger than the club too. And the results on the field will still shape how a lot of people feel about all of it.
But the club does get to decide how it shows up.
It can connect itself to Atlanta’s history. It can reward the people who built its foundation. It can create new entry points for supporters in a year when attention around the sport will be higher than it has ever been. It can make sure its reach is felt not just downtown, but across the state.
In a year when Atlanta is stepping deeper into the global soccer spotlight, Atlanta United is trying to do more than stand next to it. It is trying to earn its place inside it.