Racing Louisville FC, Kentucky’s newest professional sports team, looks to impact NWSL landscape early
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BVM) — It has been a long time since the state of Kentucky has had a professional sports team among the top-tier league of the sport. In fact, the last team within the state’s borders to do so was the American Basketball Association’s Kentucky Colonels, who ceased operations back in 1976. But the long wait for the state’s next top-tier sports team is now over.
On July 8, the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) unveiled its newest expansion franchise, Racing Louisville FC. The expansion, which was announced in the fall of 2019, will give the NWSL 10 teams and Racing Louisville FC will become the sixth NWSL team to affiliate with a men’s pro soccer team, in this case Louisville City FC.
Our club ➡️ https://t.co/H2kbLpdCsz pic.twitter.com/3CywJkoUB6
— Racing Louisville FC (@RacingLouFC) July 8, 2020
“We are very excited to welcome John Neace and Louisville City FC into the NWSL,” Former NWSL president Amanda Duffy said in a 2019 NWSL press release. “With the club’s growing, passionate fanbase, coupled with its strong ownership group, and its significant investment in a soccer specific stadium in a downtown location, we are thrilled to bring the highest level of women’s professional soccer to the area.”
The announcement was the last step in what was a yearlong process for the franchise. Beginning in March 2019, the ownership group looked to create an exciting new experience for a city they believed deserved a professional sports team.
“It’s a sports town,” team president Brad Estes said. “It’s a town that’s been starved for professional sports. When we ran the demographic numbers and we looked at the way the University of Louisville supports its women’s sports, it’s first class. … So we knew that there was an appetite for sports, an appetite for soccer and an appetite specifically for women’s sports.”
The team is thrilled to be joining the NWSL, a league it feels will only gain more of a following into the future. By joining the league early in its creation, the team feels it can only help the league grow with its insights.
“We do feel very fortunate,” Estes said. “It’s an exclusive club at this point, we’re the 10th team so we feel very fortunate to be included. … We have the opportunity to get in relatively early and help shape the way the league is run and that’s a fun place to be.”
James O’Connor, the team’s vice president of development, thinks that by joining the NWSL, the team will be able to untap some high amounts of excitement in the area. Not only will the team be giving Kentucky citizens a professional team to cheer for, but it will do so by bringing some of the top soccer players from around the globe to their stadium. With a number of NWSL players playing for the world-renowned U.S. Women’s National Team, this is an opportunity the team is excited for.
“I think for us the opportunity to have some of the allocated players involved in the national team, some other international players and then to have such a high level of talent coming in week in, week out throughout the league like past World Cup winners coming in and showing off what they have in our city is a huge achievement for us,” O’Connor said.
The unveiling of Racing Louisville FC was the first time the public was able to see the team’s name, colors and crest. The name Racing is used in many international soccer leagues for teams near famous racetracks in auto, horse and cycling. With the team’s close proximity to the famed Churchill Downs, home of the Kentucky Derby, the name was an obvious homage to the city’s rich racing heritage.
In addition to the name, the crest also shows honor to the city of Louisville. To express the city’s French heritage, the team uses fleur de lis on its crest, four total in a cross formation, to show the city’s placement as a crossroads area. The team’s colors, lavender and midnight violet, show the team’s relation to its men’s team which wears a deep purple, but also makes it stand on its own as the only professional sports team to use lavender as a primary color.
Ownership couldn’t be happier with the overall look and feel of Racing Louisville FC.
“I love it,” Estes said. “I think it’s a great name. I think (designer) Matthew Wolff has done a phenomenal job putting together not just a logo, but a color palette and a crest and a story that ties together very well. It’s a brand as opposed to a logo you just stick on a shirt. … We hope that people look at that logo and they see Louisville.”
“I think it gives a great sense of pride and it brings a lot of joy to have the reaction we have had,” O’Connor said. “When you put in that amount of work, your hope is that it’s going to be very positively received which it has been.”
Introducing … ⚜️ pic.twitter.com/UTNgQS61m5
— Racing Louisville FC (@RacingLouFC) July 8, 2020
The team has received mostly positive feedback from its launch, garnering many retweets from top-flight NWSL athletes and fans. Estes estimates that the feedback has been about 98% positive with negative feedback being the true outlier. This has also helped push the franchise to already being able to surpass 1,000 people signing up to become season ticket holders.
“We felt really good about this brand,” Estes said. “The support we received locally and around the country was unbelievable.”
O’Connor feels that the organization’s work to share the branding ideas with supporters was key to the success of the launch.
“The big thing for all of us was to make sure the supporters were heavily involved in the process,” O’Connor said. “I think the most pleasing aspect to me personally was the involvement of the supporters to see their passion and enthusiasm for the branding. … The response has been off the charts to the logo, to the branding, it couldn’t have gone any better.”
The team will share Louisville City FC’s Lynn Family Stadium, a soccer-specific field able to accommodate over 15,000 fans, as its home field while also sharing a brand new multimillion-dollar practice facility featuring seven soccer fields and a 30,000-square-foot-building with the team for its practices.
Although the team will not begin play until the 2021 season, owners from Soccer Holdings, LLC are excited moving forward with the team and hope its new, top-notch facilities will be able to attract players for its inaugural season.
“I think that the biggest thing for any coach or any player is you want to improve on a daily basis,” O’Connor said. “I think the ability to be able to go to a training center that is world class and allows you to get better that’s the big thing we now have. … It’s a phenomenal opportunity for any young player to be able to develop and that’s the key piece for us.”
Next on the agenda for the team is determining who will be the organization’s first head coach. Interviews are currently being held and a decision will be made soon according to O’Connor. Following this, the NWSL will host its expansion draft for the new franchise while the team will also be able to use the re-entry wire and college draft for next season.
“I think over the next couple of months there will be some real excitement around the technical staff that leads into the expansion draft which then leads into the collegiate draft,” O’Connor said. “So there will be a number of announcements over the next couple of months that will garner some more momentum and certainly more excitement.”
Although 2021 may mark the team’s inaugural season, ownership is not viewing it as a building year. They are looking to build a team that not only can win games, but compete for a championship early in its existence.
“We have so much more work ahead of us, but the reward will come down the road when we lift trophies,” Estes said. “Our expectations are to come in and compete right away. That’s what we do. We focus on winning. We’re not here to simply have a women’s team in the league and have 12 home games, we want to compete right away and that’s our goal. What does that mean? We want to be in contention for the championship right away.”
