Major League Soccer announced on Wednesday that Minnesota has been awarded an expansion team that will begin play in 2018. The new club will be owned by a Minnesota ownership group led by Dr. Bill McGuire, and the team will play in a new soccer-specific stadium in downtown Minneapolis.

"We are proud to welcome Minnesota to Major League Soccer," MLS Commissioner Don Garber said in a league statement. "The ownership group's commitment to soccer and the community, the area's growing millennial population and the region's rich tradition of supporting soccer at all levels in Minnesota were key indicators that this was the right market. The passionate soccer fans in Minnesota will soon have a world-class, downtown soccer stadium that will serve as the home for the new MLS team and become a destination for marquee international sports events."

McGuire, owner of Minnesota United FC of the North American Soccer League, will be joined in the ownership group by a group of investors that is still being finalized but that wil linclude Robert Pohlad, Jim Pohlad, Wendy Carlson Nelson and Glen Taylor. McGuire, a physician, philanthropist and former CEO of UnitedHealth Group, has been actively involved in the Minnesota soccer community since purchasing the Minnesota Stars (now United) in November 2012.