It is Boomtown week here at crime
two and we are committed to covering
all the growth that we are seeing
across the region and what it
means for you and your family.
Tonight we turn our attention to the push
to bring professional soccer to Spokane.
Mark Hanrahan had a chance to sit
down for an exclusive one-on-one
interview with the team's owners.
Yeah, month after the announcement
that Mens and women's teams were
coming to Spokane, I talked with
the team's owners about timelines,
tickets and why they think
the United Soccer League is a
good fit for the Lilac city.
What about the Spokane market
was attracted to you for
launching professional soccer?
I mean, Spokane is a sports town, right?
We really felt like putting a truly
professional sports organization
in Spokane was a once in a
generation opportunity for the city.
They're the couple behind the effort
to bring pro soccer to Spokane.
Katie and Ryan Hornito are the faces
in front of a private ownership group
and they are knee deep in everything.
Logistics, rosters,
team names and crests.
Just last month,
the couple announced they're
launching not one but three
United Soccer League teams to
play in the new downtown stadium
slated to be completed next fall.
For folks who are not familiar with
soccer, it's professional soccer.
But kind of where does it fall in terms
of professional soccer? Sure.
So USL has two men's professional leagues.
One is the Championship League,
which is Tier 2, which we right below MLS.
And then Tier 3 is the League
One team that Spokane will get.
Ryan, a Spokane native on Gonzaga graduate,
says the goal is to launch the
men's professional team in April.
2024, a few months later they'll
debut a women's pre professional
team that will consist of college
or even high school athletes.
Then shortly after they'll debut
the professional women's club. We
were attracted to USL from the get
go because they have pay equity,
gender equity, that is part
of their model and that we
believe in that really strongly.
And so for us it was OK.
This isn't about joining a situation
like MLS that's already exists.
This is about us being able to.
To build out something that's right,
the couple says each team will have
about 20 players on their roster.
The professional teams will play
roughly 14 home games per season,
and they tell me they are already
hearing from agents and players
who want to come to Spokane,
the pro teams. Those players are coming
from all over the United States,
and even outside of the United States,
there's a lot of interest in
coming here to play Pro soccer.
It's been a long and somewhat
controversial Rd to get here.
In 2018, Spokane voters approved a
bond measure that included funding to
renovate the aging Joe Albee Stadium,
and in an advisory vote, people suggested
keeping it at its current location.
But after three years of back and forth,
the Spokane Public School Board decided
to build a new 5000 seat stadium downtown,
where the city's local high
schools can play their games.
Then last year, another decision.
Brett Sports,
who owns the Spokane Indians and Chiefs,
pitch springing a Tier 2 Major League.
Her team to the city,
but the public facility districts
board of directors voted to
go at the USL's proposal,
which included a $4 million
investment into the stadium.
It's going to be a very loud
and it's going to be very fun
and you're going to really feel
like you're you're right there.
So I don't think they'll be
a terrible seat in the house.
It's going to be really awesome
in terms of tickets.
You'll sell season tickets
and will the season tickets
be for just one team or for
all the clubs or how's that
going to work? Yeah, good.
Good question.
So right now we have a
season ticket deposit list.
We have about 2300 season
ticket deposits down right now,
so when we release those and
start converting those into
actual season ticket packages
at that point, he says people
will choose between tickets
for the men's or women's team.
Ryan says their intention is to
sell about 34 to 3500 season
tickets and keep about 2000 seats
available per game for the public
to walk up and buy a ticket.
But our goal is to keep it affordable
and that families can go and
that you could get tickets to.
The men's game, a women's game that
you could have a weekend of soccer
and it would be a really great
and affordable family activity.
There was a lot of work to get
done in the next 18 months.
The Hornitos say they're still looking
for corporate sponsors to partner with.
There are coaches to hire,
rosters to fill and a ton
of logistics to iron out.
And then there's the pressing task
of deciding team names and crests
that the community can rally behind.
It has been late night phone calls.
It's been crowdsourcing.
It's been voting with our.
Kids, it's been that this has
been a monumental process.
Yeah, so we we, we hope to be
able to roll out the crests and
the team names before the end
of this year. That's our hope.
So, Ryan mentioned they have more
than 2000 season ticket deposits
that have already been made by fans.
Those deposits are $20 per seat on
the USL SPOKANES website right now.
And Ryan says if you are interested,
he recommends getting one sooner
rather than later because
they are certainly going quick.
It's very exciting to have this caliber
of sporting events here in our town.
It'll be interesting to see how it all
unfolds and to see what the stadium
looks like when it's done right.
Lots of excitement there for sure.