Charlotte FC is an American professional men's soccer club based in Charlotte, North Carolina. The team competes in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference. The team is owned by David Tepper, who was awarded the expansion franchise on December 17, 2019. It began play in the 2022 MLS season as the league's 28th franchise. Charlotte FC plays at Bank of America Stadium, which it shares with the Carolina Panthers of the National Football League, a team also owned by Tepper; the stadium capacity is reduced to 38,000 for most matches.

Charlotte is the most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina and the county seat of Mecklenburg County. The population was 874,579 at the 2020 census, making Charlotte the 15th-most populous city in the United States, the seventh-most populous city in the South, and the second-most populous city in the Southeast behind Jacksonville, Florida. The city is the cultural, economic, and transportation center of the Charlotte metropolitan area, whose estimated 2023 population of 2,805,115 ranked 22nd in the United States. The Charlotte metropolitan area is part of an eighteen-county market region or combined statistical area with an estimated 2023 population of 3,387,115.