Brooklyn Football Club appointed Maximilian “Mack” Mansfield as its first president and CEO in December 2023, but he’s no stranger to New York’s lower-league soccer scene.
Mansfield was co-founder and sporting director of the now-defunct New Amsterdam Football Club, which played parts of two tumultuous seasons in the National Independent Soccer Association (NISA). He also launched multiple local youth soccer projects, and will now look to help the new United Soccer League expansion franchise get up and running with both men’s and women’s teams
The Brooklyn FC CEO recently spoke with Hudson River Blue via Zoom to discuss a range of topics related to his new club. Such as: The benefits of calling Coney Island’s Maimonides Park home, how Brooklyn’s men’s and women’s teams will stand out in the local soccer scene, and lessons learned from his rocky stint with New Amsterdam FC.
Note: This interview was edited for length and clarity.
Hudson River Blue: What have the early days been like for you and your new role now with Brooklyn? What has your main focus been in the time since you were appointed CEO, what’s taken up most of your time as kickoff for the women’s side gets closer, now only months away?
Maximilian ‘Mack’ Mansfield: The biggest things we’ve been working on behind the scenes are hiring, just hiring a full-on backroom staff, not as much on the sporting side, but we’re now shifting to sporting, and then making sure our venue meets all the FIFA standards. New York Cosmos were the last pro soccer tenant there, but a lot’s changed in US Soccer and the landscape of pro-league standards since then, so we’re spending a lot of time making sure the products we put on the field and the facility and venue is primed for soccer.
HRB: You started an academy that’s now going to be a part of Brooklyn FC. How do you see that working in terms of actually feeding through to the first team, how quickly do you think internal academy players will break through, and what will make the Brooklyn academy more appealing than, say, those of one of the local MLS teams?
MM: I started Two Bridges because pay-to-play soccer, it holds back a lot of talent. I’ve said before, I don’t think we have a chance at a World Cup, realistically, until pay-to-play is at least lessened or dealt with. Because it just leaves behind so many talents, and Two Bridges will come in, and I think as soon as the first season you’ll see guys from the academy in Brooklyn. I mean, we’ve kind of built, in the soccer scene, a bit of a name, and a lot of the big teams are now helping themselves to players—guys have gone to New England Revolution and NYCFC and Red Bull. But between NYCFC and Red Bull, let’s say for under-19, you’ve got two teams of 20 guys, so that’s 40 spots, right? In a city of millions, but when you look at London, I mean, there’s 24 pro clubs in London, they all have a youth academy, a strong youth academy.
So you’re just not planting enough seeds, investing in enough players, giving them that high-level opportunity. So I think there’s plenty to go around, and I’d say the advantage we have, our path to pro is quick, right? Because we want young guys to be playing professionally and we want young guys to showcase themselves and use this to get themselves into Europe, where NYCFC and Red Bull, their model is a little bit different. They sign a lot of high profile players and it just leaves fewer spots for the young academy players to get in and get game time.
HRB: With the men’s move to USL Championship, now knowing that you’re going to have a men’s team at the highest level of USL and a women’s team that’s in a Division One league, how much of a difference do you think that makes in terms of getting off the ground as an expansion franchise? Will that be emphasized when you guys are making your pitch to fans to try to get them to come support and follow the team?
MM: You could argue on the women’s side, you’d want a little bit more time, it’s a short runway. Eyeballs or attention in Brooklyn and New York City are incredibly expensive and incredibly competitive, just in the sense that, there are a lot of other cool things to do. There are some markets in USL or even in MLS where you’re kind of one of the only three shows in town. So, you know, it’s harder for us to get market share. With that said, I don’t think there’s a soccer fan or a sports fan that can now feel ostracized or feel that ‘This isn’t for them,’ right?
Because we have a women’s side, we have a men’s side, and there’s local talent from our backyard, with good stories. The idea was kind of like, you know, how can we get everybody in? How can we be a conduit for pro soccer, whether you’re, you know, male, female, female supporting male soccer or vice versa, right? I think it’s really important for us to be able to cater to everybody.
HRB: One of the things I’ve been interested to learn about from talking to Brooklyn owner Matt Rizzetta, is learning about the multi-club model that he and his North Sixth Group have built. What is it like entering that sort of setup, and collaborating with staff from other teams over in Europe? How can people following Brooklyn expect to see that relationship translate when they go to a match at Coney Island?
MM: I think it’s twofold. I don’t think if you went to a Brooklyn game, you’d make the connection to Campobasso or Ascoli, I think it’s more the foundations and the principles, how the club is built. That will come through, this European model of being super inclusive, kind of like ‘soccer for all,’ playing in local towns, telling these underdog stories.
I think what I’ve learned, and I’ve gone over a couple of times now to our portfolio of clubs and visited them. It’s just like, you know, they do a really good, really, really good job of bringing in community, making everybody feel like this is theirs, this is for them. They give them a voice, they let the ultras, you know, speak their minds to the ownership after the game. There is a direct connection, and I just don’t think you see that anywhere else, not in England, not in MLS.
That’s been the most impressive to me, they’re really open to collaborate. They want feedback, on ticket prices, they want feedback on formations, on everything. I think making people feel like this is as much ours as it is theirs is a foundation that, you know, this multi-club group has as used across their portfolio.
HRB: How direct of a player pipeline will there be? Covering NYCFC, part of the biggest one of these models that exist, there’s long been talent coming from other places in the group that show up in New York playing for their team. Would that kind of thing be expected in Brooklyn, players with experience with the teams already under your umbrella coming over?
MM: I think it’ll be the reverse move, a lot of movement from us outgoing to the rest of our portfolio, right? Ascoli is in Serie B, Campobasso is in Serie D, but they’re in first place and probably are going to get promoted. And we have a player, or we had two players from Two Bridges go over to Campobasso, sign there, one of them plays there, and I think that’s the move.
I think it generally sets us backward, in MLS or in USL, when we bring over the aging European star or even a journeyman. I don’t think there are many, at least for me in USL, players that would move the needle for me in terms of fan engagement.
So I would say the same for many MLS teams, the Messis of the world are complete outliers, and can’t be brought into this thinking. But I’m thinking of Emil Forsberg, an incredible player, but I don’t know if he moves the needle for me in terms of fan engagement, and also takes the spot of, you know, he’s an age, I think he’s 32 now, but he takes a spot of somebody younger who could maybe fi into that role.
Not pointing out that transfer per se, but I just think the business mindset of it should be here-to-Europe, not bringing aging guys back to move the needle, that’s the way I see it, to move guys out and to be an export more than an import.
HRB: You’ve had experience with a non-MLS club launching in New York that didn’t take off and didn’t keep going, New Amsterdam FC of NISA. What from that experience do you draw from as the thing that you learned the most, what kind of lessons did you learn that you’re taking into this new endeavor?
MM: I would say with the old project, just know who you’re working with, know who you’re getting into business with, that’s super important and something to learn from.
Then I would say on the plus side, there is an appetite for the alternative, for the ‘dark side’, for the smaller David vs. Goliath. There is certainly an appetite for that, the, I don’t associate myself with New York Red Bulls for whatever reason, not an NYCFC fan, maybe it’s location, maybe it’s club setup, whatever it is, this is something we can latch onto.
I think Detroit City FC is a good example, they’re the alternative, the other, really authentic and celebrate the imperfections of lower-league soccer and what it is right now.
We’re playing in a baseball stadium, what’s more American soccer in 2024 than playing soccer in a minor league baseball stadium? I think it’s the perfect analogy of where minor league baseball may be going, and where minor league soccer may be heading. It gets us in market. And, you know, hopefully we build our own stadium in two, three years, that soccer-specific stadium. I think on the heels of the World Cup in 2026, that’s not out of the question, but for now, we’re playing, we’re here, and let’s celebrate that.
HRB: Playing at Maimonides Park, how do you think it’ll go, how do you see it developing as your home? And how do you see it going with the women’s team playing on the European schedule, playing over the winter months?
MM: I learned a lot from the New York Cosmos. I followed the Cosmos for a bit, and they did a lot of really good things. I think one thing that hurt them is they kept bouncing around, they were in Long Island and then they were in Brooklyn and then they were at Columbia. New York, as you know it’s so hyper-geographic, so hyper-local where people don’t go out to Red Bull games from New York. I’ve done that trip, it’s not a bad trip, but people are just hyper-local, they’re spoiled.
So I think just saying, ‘Hey, this is our home. We will be here for the next three years,’ I think that will be super important, that there’s some consistency. We are always here, whether Coney Island is where you want to go in the middle of November, that’s a different topic. But hopefully, at that point, we’re putting on displays exciting enough that you say, ‘Hey, I still want to get out there.’ Maybe it’s a daytime kickoff, be a little bit more clever in how you package it.
But certainly, the December and February kick-offs in Coney Island, I’m begging the league, please, for everybody’s sake. You don’t know what this wind chill is like, let’s be on the road then. And they’ve been pretty good about it, so it’s just having a good relationship with the league.
HRB: Brooklyn was considering joining MLS NEXT Pro at one point, and MLS NEXT Pro has developed a, I wouldn’t say it’s a symbiotic relationship with USL Championship, but there’s been a lot of talent going between NEXT Pro and USL Championship. Do you think you’ll be paying attention to the local MLS NEXT Pro landscape as a place for potential signings when you guys turn to building the men’s team?
MM: I think there’s going to be guys that, at NYCFC II, that don’t break into the first team that are going to be obviously talented players and I think it’s inevitable that there’s going to be some synergies there. I’m sure there’s also going to be guys from us who will go the other direction.
It was the same at the last club I worked with, you’re kind of all in the same backyard, so obviously there’s going to be synergies, so I’m not shying away from that, and I think it’s going to be an important part of how we build this.
I don’t love positioning it always like us versus them. Even on the women’s side, us versus Gotham FC—I think we’re all here to grow the game. Certainly it would be nice if in, say, a US Open Cup game, we got to play one of them, I think fans would get really excited, but this whole narrative of us against he world is, is a little extreme. I think we want to play nice at least in the first couple of years.
HRB: Question about the women’s soccer in New York. Gotham, just won NWSL Championship, your Brooklyn team starts this summer along with the whole league, the USL Super League. NYCFC has also talked repeatedly about wanting to get into women’s soccer themselves when their stadium opens. How do you view the landscape of women’s soccer here?
MM: I’m super optimistic on the women’s side, I think there’s so much upside to it. And that’s part of the appeal of playing at Maimonides Park, that we could play this summer, right? We don’t have to wait three years, even if it’s not the same as a huge new stadium.
I’m super optimistic and excited, and we definitely want to build out in the girls’ soccer space, to kind of be the pipeline into the academy. Because again, if I’m a, you know, Long Island is a huge soccer hotbed for women, right? Going from Long Island to Harrison, New Jersey, that is, you know, it can be two hours each way.
Not to say that Gotham doesn’t have a great product, but it’s going to take a lot of convincing for somebody to do that trip consistently, where I would like to think that if we can tap into Long Island and maybe even in our player signings, get some homegrown players that are bigger names on Long Island, I think that’s a huge fan base that’s been deprived of pro soccer for, you know, almost forever.
HRB: General USL question, they’ve added a lot of teams to the Championship, they’ve been very open about discussing potential promotion and relegation attempts down the line. Does that influence what you guys are doing at all?
MM: I think USL has done a great job in letting teams maintain their own identity. I would say that’s what’s really appealing and exciting, that everybody can just grow organically and decide what they are and optically what they are. I think the pro-rel side is super exciting, but how to implement it, geez, like that’s, you know, that’s probably above my pay grade.
Obviously, I’m for it, I was born in Europe, I’ve supported a European club all my life, so I understand what meaningful games mean, what that concept is. I think USL has done a great job of entertaining it and doing the research on it, while being really careful to say you don’t just say you’re going to do it, or do it overnight, there’s a lot of thinking that goes into it.
You know, if you bought a franchise in this league and then a year later you are in this league…you’ve got to think about, how do you manage fan bases’s expectations, right? Like if I was USL Championship for the past five years and now I’m relegated, these fans have never dealt with that ever.
They’ve not even had the threat or the thought of it, and how are they going to react to, you know, playing in X-stadium versus playing in this one? I don’t think anybody knows the answer, but I think the fact that they’re looking into the data to support it and what the implications would be is, you know, at least they’re entertaining it.
