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Franchises

Louisville's New USL Pro Team Unveiled To Big Crowds, With Financial Support From City

Yesterday's formal unveiling of USL Pro expansion club Louisville City FC saw a "few hundred fans" and members of the media attend the news conference, and interest in the team is "already at a fever pitch," according to Braden Lammers of LOUISVILLE BUSINESS FIRST. TEG Architects President Wayne Estopinal, who is a minority owner in Orlando City SC and was a "driving force" behind Louisville landing a franchise, "pointed to the support the team already has received without playing a single game." He said that as of yesterday afternoon, 278 season ticket deposits "already had been made." Lammers noted the club "will be playing at Louisville Slugger Field" starting in '15. Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer said that $581,000 in his city budget proposal "will go to build a home team locker facility and help pay some of the costs to make the baseball field at Louisville Slugger Field compatible for soccer." The city also "has agreed to help support a new stadium for a soccer franchise if the team achieves specific attendance goals." An additional $2.2M in private money "has been raised by an investor group of about 25 people, a portion of which formed a company called Skyball 11 LLC." Estopinal said that the threshold for fans in '15 "will be 3,500 attendees on average per game and will increase by 500 fans each year for the next two years" (BIZJOURNALS.com, 6/4). In Louisville, Jonathan Lintner notes Estopinal in trying to land a franchise "got a start from a soccer support group called The Coopers, named after bourbon barrel-makers." Estopinal said, "We've got 1,200 season ticket pledges." Lintner reports the number jumped "to more than 2,000" before yesterday's announcement (Louisville COURIER-JOURNAL, 6/5).

SBJ Morning Buzzcast: March 25, 2024

NFL meeting preview; MLB's opening week ad effort and remembering Peter Angelos.

Big Get Jay Wright, March Madness is upon us and ESPN locks up CFP

On this week’s pod, our Big Get is CBS Sports college basketball analyst Jay Wright. The NCAA Championship-winning coach shares his insight with SBJ’s Austin Karp on key hoops issues and why being well dressed is an important part of his success. Also on the show, Poynter Institute senior writer Tom Jones shares who he has up and who is down in sports media. Later, SBJ’s Ben Portnoy talks the latest on ESPN’s CFP extension and who CBS, TNT Sports and ESPN need to make deep runs in the men’s and women's NCAA basketball tournaments.

SBJ I Factor: Nana-Yaw Asamoah

SBJ I Factor features an interview with AMB Sports and Entertainment Chief Commercial Office Nana-Yaw Asamoah. Asamoah, who moved over to AMBSE last year after 14 years at the NFL, talks with SBJ’s Ben Fischer about how his role model parents and older sisters pushed him to shrive, how the power of lifelong learning fuels successful people, and why AMBSE was an opportunity he could not pass up. Asamoah is 2021 SBJ Forty Under 40 honoree. SBJ I Factor is a monthly podcast offering interviews with sports executives who have been recipients of one of the magazine’s awards.

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