Jeff Berding is the President and General Manager of FC Cincinnati, the professional soccer team he co-founded in the summer of 2015. Originally launched as a United Soccer Leagues franchise, FC Cincinnati played three seasons in the USL (2016-18) before being awarded an expansion berth in Major League Soccer for the 2019 season in May 2018.
In its final USL season, FC Cincinnati had a record-setting campaign, capturing not only the USL Regular-Season Championship with both record wins and points, but also saw the club sweep most of the league's top awards including Most Valuable Player, Coach of the Year and Defender of the Year.
In 2018, FCC averaged 25,717 fans per game, a figure that more than doubled the second-place USL team, but also would've been the fourth-highest average attendance in MLS. FCC also set USL records for merchandise sales, averaging $1.75M in sales its last two years in the league. On the sponsorship side, the club signed more than $2.5M in partnership agreements in its final USL season, a total that led the 34-team league.
Prior to his August 2015 founding of FC Cincinnati, Berding served for more than 19 years as an executive with the Cincinnati Bengals where he led sales and public affairs efforts for the city's NFL franchise.
While remaining a full-time executive at the Bengals, Berding was elected to his first term on the Cincinnati City Council in November 2005, and was re-elected in 2007 and 2009. He chaired Government Operations Committee and was vice-chair of the Finance Committee.
Berding is a fifth-generation Cincinnatian, born and raised in Westwood where he attended St. Xavier High School. He graduated cum laude from Miami University, and earned his master's in business administration with honors from Xavier in 1999. He has three children: Allie, Jack and Grace. With his wife Lindsay, the family resides in the city neighborhood of Mt. Lookout.