The Major League Soccer club down the parkway wants to bring professional teams, plus a youth academy, to Baltimore.

The catch? They’d need a pitch.

D.C. United Co-Chairman and CEO Jason Levien and Mayor Brandon Scott expressed support during a Thursday news conference for a top-flight women’s team and a minor league men’s team in Charm City. The women would compete in the USL Super League and the men in MLS Next Pro.

Baltimore is one of the nation’s few major cities without a professional outdoor soccer team, and soccer-starved residents have long pined for one.

The teams would need a stadium, though, and Annapolis lawmakers introduced legislation this week that would pave the way for $217 million in state bonds to fund a stadium at the city-owned Carroll Park Golf Course.

Whether those bills get passed amid a tight budget remains to be seen.

Gov. Wes Moore was not at Thursday’s news conference, but spokesperson Ammar Moussa said the governor is excited about United’s interest in bringing teams to Baltimore.

“Our office is monitoring the legislation that has been introduced, and look forward to learning more about potential revenue sources for the proposed soccer stadium,” he wrote in a statement.

Despite funding uncertainty, vocal backing from the city and United represents the most concrete efforts to install a Baltimore soccer team in many years.

“We’re a sports town. We’re a soccer town. Baltimore is a city that knows how to rise together,” Scott said.

The Baltimore Blast, an indoor team, have been a staple for decades, and the city had a men’s minor league outdoor team, Crystal Palace Baltimore, until 2010. That year, the Maryland Stadium Authority studied the potential of building a minor league stadium in the Carroll Camden Industrial Area or a new home for United in Westport. Neither came to fruition.

In 2022, the state and the city asked the authority to analyze the potential of soccer locales. A preliminary study followed by a more comprehensive one cost roughly $500,000 in total, half of which was publicly financed and half paid for by United.

Now comes the real money.

The authority’s study found that a 7,500-seat stadium would cost about $200 million. Levien described the stadium’s funding model as a “public-private partnership,” but the bills in Annapolis — one introduced by Sen. Antonio Hayes and the other by Del. Mark Edelson — suggest the state would pay the lion’s share.

“We’re in those discussions now about how we’re going to get this funded,” Levien said.

He did not specify a construction timeline, but the study last year found, if design began in summer 2026, a stadium could be completed by the end of 2028.

In addition to the stadium, Levien said he envisions a robust youth academy facility, which the team would finance. Long term, he’d like to add residences.

“One of the reasons we love the Carroll Park site is the campus feel,” he said. “It’s over 80 acres, so we’re going to put an academy, a 40,000-square-foot building that’s going to have classrooms, a weight room, locker rooms, a cafeteria, all of that on the site.”

Carmelo Anthony, the Baltimore-raised basketball Hall of Famer, would be part of the teams’ ownership, Levien said, and the facility would have an indoor basketball gym.

Carroll Park Golf Course has a rich civil rights history. An on-site plaque erected in 2022 highlights that the century-old course was originally open only to white people but Black golfers gained access after “much persistence.”

However, it’s been identified in recent years for alternative uses. When the authority most recently studied potential stadium sites, it focused on Carroll Park and the former Baltimore Sun printing plant at the Baltimore Peninsula.

Levien said that, according to Scott, Carroll Park is the least used of the city’s golf courses.

Some community leaders, who said they have raised concerns with United regarding the culturally significant golf course and traffic impacts, said they were shocked by the news Thursday.

“I’m kind of speechless,” said Casey O’Neill, president of Citizens of Pigtown.

Friends of Carroll Park is “opposed to the stadium being built at the historic” site, President Camille Greaney said.

Kim Lane previously met with United officials when she was the executive director of Pigtown Main Street. On Thursday, she pointed to Swann Park, a smaller site, as a better option, and said sporting venues do not necessarily provide a massive economic boost to local businesses.

“The games do not have the large impact that people think,” she wrote in a text message.

Many economists argue publicly financing stadiums operated by privately held teams is a bad investment, but they generally find themselves shouting into the wind. Elected leaders, citing economic impact from teams and events, often allot public dollars for venues.

That includes Oriole Park at Camden Yards and M&T Bank Stadium. State coffers will soon pay for a new Pimlico Race Course, too.

Maryland is facing a billion-dollar budget hole, although any stadium funding would likely be paid over decades, limiting its immediate budgetary impact.

The push for the ”beautiful game” comes as Baltimore is set to host one of the greatest soccer players in history when 38-year-old Lionel Messi and Inter Miami face United at M&T Bank Stadium on March 7. Scott proclaimed it “BMORE United Day.”

D.C. United formed in 1994 — the same year the men’s World Cup was first held in the U.S. — and this summer, the world’s most-watched sporting event will return to American soil.

Baltimore narrowly missed out on hosting World Cup games; the nearest ones will be in Philadelphia.