Local Entrepreneurs Launching Professional Women’s Soccer Franchise in Tampa Bay
Inaugural Women’s Professional Franchise Announcement
TAMPA — A bunch of native businessmen will try to buoy the bay space’s feeble observe document of making profitable professional soccer franchises. The United Soccer League (USL) Super League introduced Tuesday {that a} Tampa Bay membership can be amongst its inaugural girls’s skilled franchises set to start play in August 2024. Local entrepreneur Darryl Shaw, Bern’s Steak House co-owner David Laxer, and former BluePearl Pet Hospital chief info officer Jeff Fox are co-owners of the Tampa franchise, which has an internet site however no house venue but.
Building Community and Inspiring Success
The USL, headquartered in Tampa, additionally oversees the USL Championship males’s skilled league, which incorporates the Rowdies. “This is about inspiring, energizing, and uniting our Tampa Bay neighborhood,” Shaw stated in a press release launched by the USL. “We’re prepared to construct a group that not solely wins on the sector but in addition makes a optimistic distinction off the sector. To us, success comes whenever you develop into a part of the material of your neighborhood.”
USL Super League Initiatives
The USL Super League, anticipated to characteristic 10 to 12 groups, payments itself as “the best stage {of professional} girls’s sports activities to ever area a group with Tampa Bay on its jerseys.” It just isn’t but sanctioned by U.S. Soccer as a Division One league however aspires to finally “rank on par with different prime skilled sports activities leagues and have gamers who signify their international locations in worldwide competitions such because the FIFA Women’s World Cup and Olympic Games.” The league can be held from fall by spring, permitting gamers to steadiness their commitments to their membership and potential worldwide groups.
Local Support and Impact
“Today, girls’s sports activities are exploding in recognition, and our new group will put Tampa Bay on the forefront,” Tampa mayor Jane Castor stated in the assertion. “This announcement is the beginning of one thing particular — for our metropolis, for our area, and for thus many women and boys who’ll get to see superb new function fashions proper right here in their hometown.”
Team Facilities and Community Engagement
If the native group begins play in August 2024, it initially will compete in a brief house till a everlasting, soccer-specific stadium at an undetermined website will be constructed, in accordance to the discharge. The group intends to use the ability as a year-round venue to be used for a variety of actions, together with alternatives with youth and neighborhood soccer leagues and non-soccer occasions.
Super League Expansion and Accessibility
“This dedication to carry top-tier girls’s skilled sports activities to Tampa Bay, in a brand new stadium the place it could actually shine, represents a honest funding in making this nice neighborhood even stronger for the long run,” USL Super League president Amanda Vandervort stated. “The Super League is pushed to make world-class skilled girls’s soccer extra accessible for extra gamers, followers, and communities throughout the U.S., and Tampa Bay’s new group is a key a part of that effort.”
Challenges and History of Soccer Franchises in Tampa Bay
History says the potential franchise will wrestle to achieve traction in Tampa. While some incarnations of the Rowdies have prospered domestically in the final half-century, the Tampa Bay Mutiny (one in all 10 Major League Soccer constitution franchises) principally hemorrhaged cash earlier than folding in 2001 after a half-decade of existence. Additionally, the Tampa Bay Terror of the National Professional Soccer League lasted solely three seasons (1995-1997), and the way forward for the Tampa Bay Strikers males’s and ladies’s indoor groups — which started play in January — seems extremely unsure.
Contact Information
Contact Joey Knight atjknight@tampabay.com. Follow @TBTimes_Bulls
Conclusion
The launch of an expert girls’s soccer franchise in Tampa Bay signifies a brand new period of sports activities leisure and neighborhood engagement. With the backing of native entrepreneurs and the assist of the USL, the group goals to not solely excel on the sector but in addition make a optimistic influence off the sector, bringing inspiration and unity to the Tampa Bay space.
FAQs
1. When will the Tampa Bay girls’s skilled soccer group start play?
The group is ready to begin enjoying in August 2024.
2. What initiatives are in place to interact the neighborhood?
The group plans to use its future stadium as a year-round venue for varied actions, together with youth and neighborhood soccer leagues and non-soccer occasions.
3. How does the USL Super League purpose to elevate the standing of girls’s skilled soccer?
The league goals to develop into a prime skilled sports activities league, that includes gamers who signify their international locations in worldwide competitions such because the FIFA Women’s World Cup and Olympic Games.
