All great ideas are met with criticism. Shared belief can turn those ideas into a triumphant legacy. This story begins with a regular guy striving to achieve something great despite ridicule and self-doubt. But it's really about the group of people who showed up to prove everyone wrong.
This is the story of Josh Babetski and Austin Anthem.
Reading time: 9 minutes
It Started with a Tweet
December 7, 2013, was one of those rare days in Central Texas when temperatures stayed below freezing amid a formidable northerly wind, sending just about everything in the region to a screeching halt.
Josh Babetski was setting up a Twitter account called MLS in Austin, the digital community that would become Austin Anthem.
His eyes widened as he peered into his bright phone, pausing to proofread the new account's first post. His thumb hovered over the screen as he asked himself why he would do something so absurd. He took a deep breath and tapped the post button anyway.
Josh saw Major League Soccer in Austin.
Everybody thought he was crazy.
Learning His Craft
Josh would have found his way into media and entertainment much earlier in another life. But he started out in technology. He participated in Usenet and Yahoo Groups, online communities that collaborated to solve puzzles in the early days of the internet. He also managed his own digital groups of online gamers and mystery sleuths. These tools leveraged distributed networks, providing a medium for problem-solving and storytelling beyond traditional analog methods.
Josh lived in Austin years ago when the skyline looked much different. He then moved back to his home state of Pennsylvania to work as a software engineer and product manager at the foundational tech giant MapQuest/AOL, where he co-invented two patents. One of them involved user-contributed map data - an early crowdsourcing technology.
His career took him to New York City as Director of Social and Local Products for the audio and video media company Interactive One, but his ultimate destination lay elsewhere. A yard in Manhattan for their young son wasn't easy to come by, so Josh and his wife looked elsewhere for a place to call home. Then Josh connected with an Austin tech company seeking new talent, so they packed their bags and set a course back to Texas. He and his wife fell in love with the community and decided to plant roots.
Josh applied his technical expertise to a series of increasingly complex roles at work. He began reshaping a legacy mobile music platform and later led major client engagements for global giants such as Southwest, FedEx, Dell, and more.
His formative years steering online communities through crafted storytelling proved a powerful complement to his sharp business acumen. In 2020, he founded Quixotic Bravado, a spatial, immersive storytelling and gaming company. He studied screenwriting, playwriting, and Radio-Television-Film at the University of Texas, then co-founded Surprise Surprise Studio, a creative venture that builds fan-driven entertainment experiences. The studio landed a Warner Bros. brand activation in its first year - an advance screening and celebration of the Superman reboot, staged inside the very Hall of Justice featured in the film.
Seeing the Sailboat
Josh wasn't a soccer fan as a kid. He found soccer later in life and was fascinated by the community built around the game. Sharing that culture with his son after moving back to Austin was important, but he found the long drives to Dallas and Houston soccer stadiums difficult to manage. Josh looked around and wondered why Austin didn't have its own soccer team.
He says it was like spotting the sailboat in an autostereogram, one of those pixelated pictures you have to stare at just right to see the image.
"It's never been about me. It's never been about one person's vision. I just happen to be the tip of the spear, or the first one to see the sailboat."
-Josh Babetski
Newcomers with diverse interests and sports backgrounds were arriving in the city, decreasing the local population committed to UT. Major corporations were setting up offices in Austin, including Apple's largest campus outside Cupertino, as well as Dell, Google, and Facebook - exactly the kind of companies that buy stadium suites and naming rights to keep a franchise running.
Josh admittedly felt naive at the time. But it all seemed to fit, even when most people saw Austin as a college football town where soccer would not succeed.
Against All Odds
People openly laughed in his face. Local soccer fans were disillusioned after the Austin Aztex franchise abruptly relocated to Orlando because the owner doubted Austin would support Major League Soccer. And many international soccer fans considered domestic soccer inferior, given the tumultuous history of American soccer over the past few decades.
Josh didn't give up. He immersed himself in the local soccer scene, connecting with other fans to understand their perspectives. He attended watch parties for international teams and took a leadership role with the American Outlaws, the supporters' group for the US men's and women's national teams.
"Build your tribe. There are other people who will support this. There are other people who will believe in this. Anything worth doing generally requires more than one person."
-Josh Babetski
Important clues began surfacing. League growth was accelerating, driven by higher-valued teams. The MLS Commissioner was talking expansion and name-dropping Austin and San Antonio, but no wealthy backer was stepping forward to hold franchise rights. Josh reasoned that MLS wanted to relocate an existing team to Austin rather than grant a new expansion team, with the Columbus Crew as the likeliest candidate, given its aging stadium and declining attendance.
Josh published an article detailing his theory in February 2017, prompting a call from MLS to determine if they had a leak. Josh told them the conclusions were his own analysis of heuristic clues. MLS responded by sending someone to talk with him in person, a positive sign that his efforts could gain traction.
The MLS in Austin Supporters Group registered as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit later that year and looked forward to the challenges ahead.
Three Boss Levels
Josh knew it was a high-risk gamble. He draws an analogy to clearing three boss levels in a video game. First, you need the league to agree to play in your city. Second, you need an ownership group willing to run a franchise. Third, you need a city council willing to approve a stadium. Failing one of these requirements sinks the entire ship.
The league and owners revealed their desire to come to Austin in October 2017.
Now it was the job of the MLS in Austin Supporters Group to help the city council understand that Austin would provide the incoming team with more support than it received in Columbus.
A chorus of public opposition emerged as the debate over stadium location unfolded. Some cited traffic and neighborhood disruption near any proposed site. Others were NIMBYs (Not in My Back Yard), supportive of the idea in theory as long as it landed away from their neighborhood. And some political actors loudly favored an unrealistic site near Zilker Park, so approving a remediated patch of land near Burnet Road and Braker Lane looked like a hard-won concession.
Josh used the same community-building and storytelling skills he developed in his early internet days and throughout his career to keep everyone focused on the goal. MLS in Austin members flooded City Hall, attending council meetings that stretched past midnight and sometimes until 4 a.m. It was precisely the kind of turnout needed to show commitment to Austin soccer.
The Austin City Council voted 7-4 in August 2018 to move the stadium deal forward, a massive win for the MLS in Austin Supporters' Group.
The group started doing business as Austin Anthem the following month, and Austin FC was officially announced as Major League Soccer's 27th franchise in January of the following year. Austin got Austin FC and Austin Anthem, while Columbus kept its team. Everybody won in the end.
Josh is quick to point out that it could have easily gone sideways, and he admits there were many moments of doubt. The council could have said no, or the league could have easily chosen a bigger market. But it worked, demonstrating the power of a unified community.
A Legacy of Initiative
Austin Anthem continued to build its proud legacy by taking on foundational work typically performed by traditional staff, from providing input on stadium features to contributing design elements for the first-year jerseys in collaboration with Adidas. Austin Anthem is reportedly the only supporters group to have its logo appear directly on its club's MLS jersey.
That's not surprising considering initiative was their hallmark from the beginning. A volunteer on paternity leave designed the logo back before they were a registered nonprofit. Early funding came from scrappy membership kits of custom-engraved Yeti tumblers, pins, a scarf, and hats from the apparel company '47 for $150, even when people in his own group still thought Josh was crazy - but kept showing up anyway.
Giving Back
Austin Anthem now directs that entrepreneurial spirit into the community. They have worked with local soccer programs, including Soccer Assist, Westlake High School, and NASA.
But their philanthropy is not limited to soccer programs.
Austin Anthem has also supported the Austin Parks Foundation and the Laundry Project, which takes over laundromats and covers the cost of washers, dryers, and detergent for families in need of clean clothes and linens.
The group collected thousands of pounds of food for Caritas and government employees during a shutdown. And every year, they run a holiday Toys for Tots drive and support Out Youth during Pride.
What Comes Next
Josh is working on his next project, Collectivus, a new ambient narrative world for second screens. But he still makes time to share his experiences, hoping to inspire the next dreamer bold enough to innovate, even when people openly laugh at their ideas.
A favorite line of his is that wisdom is the thing you get right after you actually needed it. So he hopes his time on the TEDxUTAustin stage or in conversations with junior professionals on LinkedIn will help the next generation as they aspire to take on big tasks.
When asked for a call to action for the people of Austin, Josh challenges us to think about what Austin needs next. He talks about an Austin of 2036, a city that experienced decades of massive growth and now has to decide what kind of community it wants to be, including the infrastructure to support that ideal.
He envisions an Austin that is more walkable, better served by light rail, and offering EV-only districts as gas cars give way to electric vehicles. He sees the Austin of tomorrow as more thoughtful about housing its workers, so that the people who staff its restaurants can afford to live nearby, with more theaters to support the arts, and maybe even more sports teams.
Build Your Tribe
For anyone facing self-doubt or ridicule, Josh's advice never changes: Build Your Tribe. Almost nothing worth doing is a one-person show. You need people to share ideas with. This is how big things get done.
Josh would know. Austin Anthem started with a Twitter account and a supporters group who jumped behind a movement few thought would work. Now Austin has a Major League Soccer team and a stadium that packs over 20,000 roaring fans on game day. That's a pretty big accomplishment.
But the things that really matter can't be measured in ticket sales or Tweets. Fans now stand shoulder to shoulder, cheering through the match, an exuberant energy that flows throughout the concourse and into the streets after the final whistle.
Yet some of the greatest joy is felt outside the stadium before the game, even for those who aren't traditional sports fans. Many attendees are soccer friends. They're the ones you only see on game day, the ones you grab a burger with before kickoff. The game is the anchor. Community is the outcome.
But the deepest reward lands closer to home. There are now at least 17 days circled on the calendar each year for families to spend time together and create cherished memories that last a lifetime.
Josh started something great on that cold day back in December 2013, but it was never about him. It's about having the courage and audacity to chase a dream, and what one stubborn, hopeful idea becomes when enough people strive for it together.
© 2026 Keep Austin Human. All rights reserved.
Austin Anthem is "on a mission to maintain the best, most inclusive soccer supporters organization for fans of verde."
