MLS In Nashville: Vendors Worry About Flea Market's Future

NASHVILLE, TN -- That Nashville will be awarded a Major League Soccer expansion team seems like its virtually a foregone conclusion following the Metro Council's approval of a financing plan for a stadium at The Fairgrounds Nashville. League officials have praised the Music City bid and the bettors - if there are people who bet on such things - give Nashville short odds to be one of the two cities awarded a team when the MLS makes its expansion announcement next month.

So perhaps it's a bit quixotic that vendors at the city's monthly flea market are urging the city to reconsider locating the stadium at The Fairgrounds.

"I feel like we wouldn't have anywhere to go. Having a soccer stadium would tear us apart," vendor Tomeka Bogan told WSMV.

"I think they could find another place," Preston Mulvene, another vendor, told the station. "The Nashville Flea Market has been here for quite a while. There are a lot of us who depend on it for our livelihood."

The Nashville Flea Marker Vendors Association doesn't oppose the soccer team per se - signs at the market this weekend said "Right City, Wrong Place" - but after the association endorsed Megan Barry during her mayoral campaign, some members now feel like she's "forgotten" about them, the association's president told WSMV.

The Mayor's office told Channel 4 it will work with the vendors during construction to provide temporary accommodations, though it's impossible to predict how the market can be properly accomodated if there's a soccer game scheduled coincident to the flea market.

Images via HOK/Nashville Soccer Club Holdings