Newsroom

February 28, 2018 • Local News

El Paso Times: El Paso gets new expansion USL soccer team, will play at Southwest University Park in 2019

El Paso has a new professional soccer team that will begin play next year at Southwest University Park.

The group that owns the El Paso Chihuahuas baseball team announced it has been awarded an expansion franchise of the United Soccer League, or USL, a second-division league one step below Major League Soccer.

"It's clearly the highest level of soccer that we've ever had," Josh Hunt, CEO of MountainStar Sports Group, said in an interview.

The new soccer club will begin play in March 2019 in a season that will run into October, MountainStar Sports Group officials said. There could be friendly exhibition games in February 2019. 

The new soccer team is currently called El Paso USL until it's officially named and team colors and mascot are selected.

Hunt said that the yet-to-be unveiled naming process will be done similar to the name-nomination process for the Chihuahuas.

"It's one of the fun parts of this whole process, getting the input from the community," said Alan Ledford, president of MountainStar Sports Group.

"Soccer fans have a level of passion for the sport and by extension their community that is unrivaled in a lot of communities and we expect that to be the case here," Ledford said. "We are excited about that part of the experience."

The new soccer team's 32-game season — 16 home and 16 road games — will overlap with the Chihuahuas baseball season, officials said. There also are exhibition and playoff games.

The addition of soccer games when the Chihuahuas are on the road means that there will be activities at the Downtown stadium every weekend, Hunt said.

The baseball field will be converted for soccer for USL games, as was done for past exhibition games featuring the FC Juárez Bravos, officials said. MountainStar is part owner of the Bravos. 

The new soccer team will improve the quality of life and economic development in El Paso by providing another family-friendly event to draw people Downtown, Hunt and Ledford said.

MountainStar will look at ways to possibly incorporate the new team's branding into the baseball stadium, officials said.

The soccer games will have the fan-friendly experience that El Pasoans have come to expect at Chihuahuas games, Ledford said.

El Paso called good fit for USL

El Paso — with a young, Hispanic population — is a good fit for the fast-growing USL, which has doubled in size since 2014, MountainStar officials said.

In 2014, MountainStar announced plans to pursue a Major League Soccer team for El Paso. But El Paso didn't meet MLS metrics for a team, including TV market size, and having a certain number of corporate headquarters in the area, Ledford said.

"The communities competing for those very finite (MLS expansion) opportunities are ones that have a significant head start on us in that regard. That possibility is well down the road," Ledford said. "This is great market for a Division II team."

MORE: Despite slight increases, ballpark revenues still short of covering annual debt

The Tampa-based USL has teams in cities similar in size to El Paso and larger cities that often have Triple-A baseball and other professional sports teams. 

USL teams in Texas include San Antonio FC, Rio Grande Valley FC and an expansion team in Austin in 2019.

The USL has 33 teams and five announced expansion teams, including Memphis, Tenn., and Birmingham, Ala. — all set to begin play in 2019. A Chicago team is to begin play in 2020 and an Oakland, Calif.-area team in 2021.

Some USL teams are independent, while some are MLS-owned, such as the LA Galaxy II and Portland Timbers 2. Others are MLS-affiliated teams, such as the RGV FC Toros affiliated with the Houston Dynamo of the MLS.

Soccer stadium

The USL has a goal that by 2020 all its teams will be in soccer-specific stadiums.

MountainStar has been in discussions with city and county officials about building a soccer stadium for an El Paso team, although plans are pending, Ledford said.

“Our ultimate objective as we’ve said is to be in a soccer-specific stadium — obviously, an outdoor stadium in or near Downtown with a natural turf field," Ledford said.

Problems with getting a proposed Downtown arena built are not a factor in trying to get a soccer stadium built, Ledford said last year.

MountainStar has spent the past three years looking at potential soccer stadium sites in and around the Downtown area.

The group also has looked at the former Asarco copper-smelter site, just northwest of Downtown, that the University of Texas System is expected to buy for use by the University of Texas at El Paso.

Other USL teams also play at home at baseball stadiums. 

The expansion Memphis USL team will start play next year at AutoZone Park, home of the Triple-A baseball Memphis Redbirds. Both Memphis teams have the same owners. 

The Tulsa Roughnecks FC play at the baseball park of the Tulsa Drillers of the AA Texas baseball league.

"The best outcome would’ve been being able to start off in an outdoor soccer-specific stadium," Hunt said. "But ownership clearly made the decision we did not want to miss out on this opportunity."

MORE: City's soccer field plan for Central El Paso takes pause

The USL "was expanding rapidly and they are going to stop in the near future and we needed to act now," Hunt said. "And we made that decision to go ahead and get them here, get them to start playing in 2019 as a new franchise before there weren’t any left."

MountainStar officials did not disclose financial costs for acquiring the new franchise.

MountainStar is owned by Woody Hunt and his son, Josh Hunt, who operate Hunt Cos., a national real estate development and property-management group based in El Paso; Paul Foster, founder of the former Western Refining company, which in June was sold to San Antonio-based Andeavor; and Foster's wife, Alejandra De La Vega Foster, who heads the Innovation and Economic Development Department for the state of Chihuahua.

Source: http://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/local/el-paso/2018/02/28/new-united-soccer-league-team-coming-el-paso/379771002/