Detroit, MI
Detroit City FC releases 2024 schedule
There’s still an entire winter standing between Detroit City FC and its next match, but we now know where that next match — and every other 2024 USL Championship contest — will be.
DCFC on Monday released its schedule for the 2024 season, and before we pick off a couple of notes and oddities, let’s explore how the league has changed since Phoenix Rising closed the season as champions.
Two teams have departed the league, both from the Western Conference, San Diego Loyal SC folded and Rio Grande Valley Toros FC. In their place, the league welcomed in a brand-new club, Rhode Island FC, and the reigning USL League One champions, North Carolina FC.
To accommodate the geographical implications of replacing two west-coast teams with two east-coast teams, the league has moved Memphis 901 FC and FC Tulsa to the Western Conference.
The schedule was configured similarly to last season. DCFC will play a home-and-home with all 11 other teams in the Eastern Conference and play each team in the Western Conference once, half home and half away, for a total of 34 games.
DCFC played its season opener last season on March 11. The 2024 season opens on March 16 for DCFC, away at Colorado Springs Switchbacks FC. DCFC closes the season at San Antonio FC on Oct. 26, which is 12 days later than last season’s finale (Oct. 14).
DCFC has two bye weeks on the schedule, but the club can’t be too happy with the positioning. They’ll get a week off after the fourth game of the season, in mid-April, and another in mid-May. From then on, DCFC does not get a break in the action.
Make sure your holiday wish list includes some gear for the elements. DCFC will play three of its first five matches next season at Keyworth Stadium in Hamtramck, including an early look at the league’s newest competition. Le Rouge welcomes North Carolina into Keyworth on April 6. Rhode Island FC plays in Detroit on Aug. 3.
DCFC will play three-game road swings on two occasions, including May 29-June 8 (including a date with Louisville City FC), and from August 10-24 (which includes games at Birmingham Legion and Tampa Bay Rowdies). The month of August presents the biggest challenge, as DCFC will play a total of eight games from July 31-Aug. 31.
Though they don’t have any three-game home stands, DCFC will play back-to-back home games on seven occasions.
After reaching the postseason in its first two USL Championship seasons, DCFC is looking to take a step forward after the hiring of new head coach Danny Dichio. DCFC was 11W-8D-15L in 2023 and qualified for playoffs on the final day of the season before pulling off one of the biggest playoff upsets in league history, 1-0, at Pittsburgh, in the opening round. DCFC’s run came to an end in a 4-0 defeat at Louisville City.
Detroit City FC 2024 schedule
(Home matches in bold.)
▶ 3/16 — (at) Colorado Springs Switchbacks FC
▶ 3/23 — Loudoun United FC
▶ 3/30 — (at) Indy Eleven
▶ 4/6 — North Carolina FC
▶ 4/20 — Oakland Roots SC
▶ 4/27 — (at) Pittsburgh Riverhounds
▶ 5/4 — (at) Loudoun United FC
▶ 5/11 — Phoenix Rising FC
▶ 5/29 — (at) Louisville City FC
▶ 6/1 — (at) Orange County SC
▶ 6/8 — (at) Rhode Island FC
▶ 6/15 — Charleston Battery
▶ 6/25 — Birmingham Legion FC
▶ 6/29 — (at) Miami FC
▶ 7/6 — Tampa Bay Rowdies
▶ 7/13 — Memphis 901 FC
▶ 7/19 — (at) North Carolina FC
▶ 7/27 — Sacramento Republic FC
▶ 7/31 — (at) Hartford Athletic
▶ 8/3 — Rhode Island FC
▶ 8/7 — Pittsburgh Riverhounds
▶ 8/10 — (at) Las Vegas Lights FC
▶ 8/16 — (at) Birmingham Legion FC
▶ 8/21 — (at) Tampa Bay Rowdies
▶ 8/24 — FC Tulsa
▶ 8/31 — Hartford Athletic
▶ 9/7 — (at) El Paso Locomotive FC
▶ 9/14 — New Mexico United
▶ 9/21 — Louisville City FC
▶ 9/28 — (at) Monterey Bay FC
▶ 10/5 — (at) Charleston Battery
▶ 10/12 — Indy Eleven
▶ 10/19 — Miami FC
▶ 10/26 — (at) San Antonio FC
nbianchi@detroitnews.com
@nolanbianchi
Detroit, MI
A hot and humid start to the work week
CBS DETROIT – Temperatures will remain in the 80s for the beginning of the week, with a few chances of storms.
There is a marginal chance of severe storms moving in both Monday and Tuesday afternoons. Be prepared for the possibility of heavy rain, wind gusts, and hail.
We could also see a near-record high temperature for Monday.
More chances for showers and storms arrive on Wednesday, but once that system moves out we will dry out and see cooler temperatures to end the week.
Detroit, MI
President Joe Biden speaks to Detroit NAACP dinner: How to watch
President Joe Biden is getting set to speak Sunday evening at the Detroit Branch NAACP’s annual Fight for Freedom Fund dinner at Huntington Place in his first visit to the city this campaign season.
Because it’s being considered a campaign event, the White House website won’t be carrying the event live, but there are a couple of places you can watch it, including here on freep.com, courtesy of a link from C-SPAN.
You can also watch it online at cspan.org and WYXZ Channel 7 will be carrying it live on its website, wxyz.com.
The speech to the annual dinner comes at a crucial time in Biden’s campaign for reelection with several swing state polls showing him trailing former President Donald Trump in a rematch of the 2020 election. Michigan is expected to help determine which man gets reelected in November.
Meanwhile, Biden is trying to shore up support among Black voters, who are vital to his reelection hopes. Earlier Sunday, Biden delivered the commencement address at Morehouse College in Atlanta, a historically all-male Black institution, before traveling to Michigan.
Come back to freep.com for more coverage of Biden’s visit to Detroit.
Contact Todd Spangler: tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @tsspangler.
Detroit, MI
Megan Thee Stallion brings swagger and spice to LCA in first Detroit headlining show
Megan Thee Stallion signs distribution deal with Warner Music Group
Megan Thee Stallion has signed a distribution deal with Warner Music Group but will retain her independence as an artist.
Bang Showbiz
She may be just three shows into her first-ever headlining tour, but Megan Thee Stallion looked all the part of a seasoned star onstage Saturday night at Little Caesars Arena.
Five years after breaking big with “Hot Girl Summer,” the Grammy-winning rapper has embarked on a transatlantic arena tour of that same name, with Detroit an early stop on the run.
A sellout crowd was there to greet the 29-year-old Houston hitmaker for what was a girls-night-out kind of affair, with many fans arriving at LCA in their own variations of the curvaceous body suits and flesh-baring monokinis Megan Thee Stallion would embrace onstage.
It was a night writhing with snake imagery, sexual bravado and near-nonstop booty shaking. The show was as much about Megan’s confident, assertive presence as it was her ever-growing repertoire of kinky hits — a salvo that started Saturday with her latest chart-topper, “Hiss,” and its barrage of cleverly barbed celebrity shade.
Joined by eight dancers who at one point joined the star for a synchronized twerking number, Megan Thee Stallion kept the pace upbeat and the downtime minimal. The only extended pause for breath came with a mid-show segment in which she invited groups of excited fans — her Hotties — onto the stage for their own personalized dancing exhibitions.
Amid the extravagant raunchiness that often bordered on camp, that was a touch of come-one, come-all togetherness and accessibility, much like the assorted selfies she snapped on audience members’ mobile phones throughout the night.
As a rapper, Megan Thee Stallion is formidable — she built a name via her electrifying freestyles, after all — and her rapid-fire rhymes accentuated songs such as “Sex Talk,” “Kitty Kat” and “Stalli.” Elsewhere, numbers like “Thot S—” rode high on catchy hooks, with the likes of “Big Ole Freak” becoming arena-wide chant-alongs and “BOA” serving up her distinctive brand of side-eye.
After reported technical glitches on the tour’s opening nights, Saturday’s mix was crisp and full, and the star’s mouth-twisting vowels and spicy wordplay were only occasionally lost in the sonic boom.
Megan Thee Stallion’s trademark, defiant swagger did give way to a little vulnerability with the recent single exploring her battles with depression, “Cobra,” which wrapped up the concert’s opening segment.
“Wanna Be,” with guest Glorilla, and the 2020 Cardi B smash “WAP” helped the show start a crescendo that finished with the biggest hit of Megan’s career, the Beyoncé-featuring “Savage.”
For all the night’s energy — and props to the likable Megan, that rarely flagged — the show threatened to become a monotonous affair, offering few variations in sound, movement or expression. At a crisp 85 minutes, it clocked out probably exactly when it needed to.
Rising rapper Glorilla had kicked off the evening with a 45-minute set of Memphis-fueled hip-hop and her own brand of self-empowerment.
Contact Detroit Free Press music writer Brian McCollum: 313-223-4450 or bmccollum@freepress.com.
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