The name is slightly different, but Minnesota’s pro soccer team – now dubbed Minnesota Stars FC – is still the defending North American Soccer League champions. On Saturday, the team is hosting its season opener at the Metrodome, in what’s inevitably being called the Dome Opener. The team is planning events around the game against perennial rival Carolina, and is hoping to build some buzz around the team for 2012.

Last week, I spoke with Stars CEO Djorn Buchholz about the Dome Opener, the season to come, and the future of pro soccer in Minnesota.

Q: Tell us a little about the background of the Dome Opener.

A: This isn’t an opportunity for us to make a ton of money, it’s more of an opportunity for us to say, hey, for five bucks, come check us out. Give us a shot. That’s all I’m asking people to do. It’s easy, there’s going to be an amazing tailgate taking place on the southeast corner of the stadium in that picnic area starting at 4:30, with Bud Light and a live band and media partners. It’s gonna be a heck of a day. For me, I want this to be the place to be that day. For five bucks, come check us out, and hopefully you like what you see.

Q: How are ticket sales doing for the game?

**A: They’re doing very well. Things have really picked up here in the last couple of days, now that people are realizing, “Oh my gosh, the opener is ten days away.” I expect before we get into the stadium that day, we’re going to be at around six or seven thousand tickets sold, which I think will put us anywhere between about nine and eleven thousand on game day. It wouldn’t surprise me if we got more. I think that’ll be obviously the biggest crowd in Minnesota Stars history, and I think it’ll be a pretty great event if we get ten or eleven thousand people.

Q: Do you feel like it’s had an effect on season ticket sales as well?

A: I don’t know if it necessarily has, yet. What I hope to see is that you get a lot of people in the Metrodome, and you get a lot of people introduced to our product. Hopefully we put on a good show on the field, and then we’re going do to another big season ticket push between Saturday and our actual home opener at the National Sports Center on May 5.

Q: What kind of things do you do to try to convert people from the Dome opener into people who regularly go to Stars games?

A: We’re going to try to gather information about the people that are coming. We did things like Groupon, and sold about two thousand tickets. Those are people that I don’t recognize any of their names. We’re going to try to capture those people.

But I think the biggest thing that we can do is put on a good show and put on a great event. As was evident at the final game we hosted last year, the championship series, people walked out of there like, “I wish I’d have been coming to these things all season.” I think we can create something like that in the Metrodome, and let them know that it’s is even more intimate, a very cool atmosphere at the National Sports Center. We’ll be gathering information, but it’s mostly just putting our product on display.

Q: With a game like this, you’re obviously trying to draw a big crowd. What kind of people are you trying to draw and get them up to a Stars game for the first time?

A: I’m always telling people to come up here to the NSC. One of the things people always say is, “It’s too far. It’s too far of a drive for me.” I think this is an opportunity for us to come out of the gates with a home game, which I don’t think a pro soccer team here has done in probably as long as I’ve been around, because of the weather. We can host a game early, in a central location, where we get rid of that excuse of it’s too far away, and everyone can get there now – by doing the free bus or train rides if you’ve got a ticket in hand. I’m trying to make this game as accessible as possible, just so I can prove to people that it’s worth a drive to Blaine because there’s something very cool here.

Q: Looking past the Dome opener into 2012, what are some of the things that you have in store for 2012 for the Stars and the fans?

A: We’re trying to revamp the whole beer garden situation up here at the NSC. We understand it’s a big marketing and atmosphere piece for us, because we all know that the NSC took down the beer garden about three-fourths of the way through the season last year, to put up a new building. That building is in the process of being completed – it’s not going to be ready for our first game up here, so we’re going to create some other beer garden areas.

We’re just trying to enhance the game experience. That starts as early as people tailgating, and trying to do some cool things out and around there so people want to come out and hang out because it’s the cool thing to do. That’s what we’re trying to do – we’re trying to make this the cool thing to do in town, and put a bunch of elements in place to hopefully achieve that.

Q: What would you say you’re most excited about this year for the Stars?

A: It’s hard to pick. I’m curious, and I’m excited, and maybe even a little bit nervous to see how we come out of the gates after winning the championship. I don’t want to come out of the gates like the Dallas Mavericks did (laughter). The guys on this team have a lot of pride, and they want to keep that trophy in Minnesota. I’m excited about that. I’m nervous about that.

I’m also excited about continuing to build this thing.  It’s no secret that we need to find an owner for this team. The more that we can build our season ticket base, and our sponsorships – I’m excited about the future of this club. I’m excited about finding the right owner to come in and take this over and ensure the long-term viability of the organization.

I would say the third thing that I’m excited about is the custom uniforms that we’ve created, that we’re launching Thursday night at Brit’s Pub. They are unbelievable. The away kit that we’ve done this year is something that I don’t think anyone else in the country, maybe even in the world has done before. So I’m excited about the reactions and I’m excited to have these guys wearing these uniforms. I just saw them completed today and they’re unbelievable.

Q: You mentioned winning the championship last year. Do you feel like it’s a struggle to get local fans and local media to take notice of that?

A: During our championship run last year, in my experience it was the most that we’ve been out there in the community and the public from a media standpoint since probably David Beckham came. Even when Beckham came with the [Los Angeles] Galaxy, people were talking more about the Galaxy than the Thunder.

The media paid great attention to us. But it took us winning, and getting in the playoffs and making a run. Fair enough, I get it, we’re in a cluttered sports market and it’s hard to be heard. But going into the home opener, I actually feel as we’re reaching out to the media outlets – I think we’re going to get a decent amount of coverage, more than we’ve had leading into any previous season than I can remember, and that comes down to being a championship team.

Q: When I go to games, I kind of get the sense that it’s families on one side of the field and fanatics on the other. Do you feel like it’s a struggle to try to have those two separate groups?

A: I actually don’t think it is. I think they’ve done a fantastic job, and by moving the Dark Clouds [the fanatics group] over to the east side of the stadium, I think it actually enhances the experience for people on the west side. Now they’re not sitting next to them, the yelling and the chanting – now they’re on the other side, and it’s that group over there that creates the atmosphere. I think that has actually enhanced [the experience] for the families and the individuals that sit on the west side.

Q: What’s the ownership situation as we head into 2012?

A: We’re a league-owned team right now, and in all reality, the league doesn’t want to own this team forever. I think last year was the year some of us got brought back in to kind of fix this thing up, put a new roof on the house, new shutters on the house, mow the yard, and get it to a point where it needs to be attractive for somebody to come in and take over. I think this year is really about going out and finding the right group and the right ownership group. Do we have that person yet? No we don’t. We’re having discussions. We’re still actively looking for somebody to come in and take this club over.

Q: How do you feel when you hear Zygi Wilf talking about bringing Major League Soccer to Minnesota?

A: I certainly don’t think you’d ever see a situation in which there’d be two pro teams in town. Anytime the media’s talking about soccer, it’s good for us. Whether it is Zygi and the Vikings talking about an MLS team, a lot of the time the article at least makes a mention of the current pro team that we have here, and I’m okay with that.

As people are thinking MLS, there’s been a proven track record of four of the last five teams that have moved to MLS have come out of this league. And there’s a proven track record of getting the right people involved and invested in this level that’s not nearly as expensive as MLS, so that when you do make that transition to MLS, it’s a lot easier than starting from the ground up. You’ve got a foundation.

There’s people out there that are interested in an MLS team, and I encourage them to take a serious look at this organization. It’s coming off a championship, it’s got a great facility – although not always in the most ideal location. Somebody coming in and building this thing up to make an easier transition to MLS makes a lot of sense.

Q: Obviously the NSC has been a great home over the past few years – but in a perfect world, where would the Stars play their home matches?

A: I think you see where soccer is succeeding in this country, when you think about Seattle and Portland and Toronto and even in Vancouver now – it’s taking place in the heart of the city. And ideally, for this thing long-term, it makes sense to be in the heart of the city.

There are some options. We’ve got the beautiful Parade Stadium facility down there, but it needs some upkeep. It would need bleachers. It would need all of that stuff that it doesn’t have right now. So if there’s somebody that wants to come in, I think that would make a lot of sense for somebody to look at, okay, I’m going to take this team, what are the other options to play in? This facility [the NSC] is great, but it does have its limitations, and has its excuses for some people to not make it to the game. There’s a lot of people in the southern Metro, and I get it. It’s an hour drive to get up here, but a lot easier to get downtown. I think ideally at some point in the future, this organization needs to make its way downtown.