Professional soccer team eyes far north Fort Worth as a potential landing spot
Fort Worth could be getting two professional soccer teams as a DFW-based ownership group looks for a new home for the United Soccer League Championship team Austin Bold FC.
A group led by former Dallas Mavericks general manager Donnie Nelson, Texas Rangers president and chief operating officer Neil Leibman, and motorsports executive Bobby Epstein bought the team in December with an eye toward relocating it to “another major city in the state of Texas,” the USL announced in December 2021.
Fort Worth is a contender for the relocation, but District 4 city council member Cary Moon said the group is not yet sold on the city.
“We have to compete to get their business, and that’s what I’ve been working on for the past two years,” he said.
The city is conducting a survey to gauge residents’ interest in supporting the construction of the stadium, the relocated Austin team, as well as a women’s team as part of the newly formed USL Super League.
The survey is asking questions about residents’ knowledge of the soccer league, how likely they are to attend games, and whether they’d be willing to attend other events like trade shows or food truck festivals. It’s meant to measure interest as well as see how financially practical a new stadium would be.
The women’s league is scheduled begin play in 2023, and if selected, Fort Worth would be one of the inaugural cities to host a professional women’s soccer team in the new league.
The potential site for the teams’ home stadium would be at the northeast corner of Interstate 35W and Basswood Boulevard. The Basswood site could also host a youth soccer academy run by a “prominent European soccer club,” according to the city’s survey.
Professional soccer clubs in Europe and the United States run soccer academies to recruit and train players with the goal of preparing them to play professionally.
It’s the equivalent of having the Dallas Cowboys run an academy to teach football, Moon said.
The survey’s focus is separate from a proposed youth soccer complex that would have up to 20 fields.
Under plans outlined in July 2021, the 20-field complex would be built at Basswood through a partnership between the city, the Keller school district, and private developers. It’s estimated to cost $150 million.
Under that plan, the Keller district would get access to the sports stadium, and a performing arts center to be built on the site.
However, there’s some concern that the professional soccer academy and team could would take up a larger part of the Basswood site, Moon said, so the city is considering building a smaller 10-field complex to accompany the stadium at Basswood, with a separate 20-field complex to be built somewhere else in Fort Worth.
The Keller school district would still get access to the smaller 10-field complex, Moon said.
The district remains interested in partnering with the city on the project, and is looking forward to the results of the survey, a district spokesperson wrote in an email.
Youth sports are seen as a potential economic driver for Fort Worth. A 20-field youth soccer complex could could bring as much as 100,00 visitors annually and $16 million to Fort Worth, according to a 2019 estimate by Visit Fort Worth.
Youth sports is a $24 billion per year market, and the city needs to tap into that resource, said Jason Sands, Visit Fort Worth’s vice president of sports, in an September 2021 interview with the Star-Telegram.
These events are driving hundreds of thousands of visitors to our market, and the national and international exposure it brings us is unparalleled, Sands said.
Moon said the soccer stadium at Basswood Boulevard is part of a larger movement to improve access to soccer and youth sports throughout the city.
“Once people see this overall program, I think they’re going to be impressed,” Moon said. He estimated the city would have more to share about that program within the next two weeks.
This story was originally published February 14, 2022 at 5:11 PM.
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