Milwaukee’s new pro soccer team will kick off its first game in 2025

For the primary time in twenty years, skilled outside soccer is coming to Milwaukee.

In keeping with an announcement earlier this week, Milwaukee Professional Soccer is ready to affix the United Soccer League Championship in 2025, the second-highest tier {of professional} soccer within the U.S. 

“This has been within the works for a number of years,” stated Justin Papadakis, the chief working officer and chief actual property officer at USL. “And we knew that we needed to do it in Milwaukee.”

Milwaukee “is aware of its sports activities,” Papadakis stated. However the metropolis hasn’t housed an expert outside soccer group since 2002, when the Milwaukee Rampage disbanded. 

“So it is actually thrilling for our followers to get to see a number of the finest gamers from around the globe and finest golf equipment from around the globe proper of their hometown of Milwaukee,” Papadakis stated. 

The group will play in a brand new 8,000-seat stadium in Iron District MKE, an 11-acre sports activities and leisure growth that can be constructed alongside the south fringe of downtown. Marquette College’s soccer and lacrosse groups will even play within the new venue.

“That can be a spot the place all of Milwaukee can come week in, week out and never solely see improbable skilled soccer, however it is going to even be an incredible venue for the scholar athletes at Marquette, together with so many different concert events and different reside leisure,” Papadakis stated.

Alongside the stadium, the district will even home an indoor live performance venue, flats and a lodge. 

“We hope that 20 years from now, when folks discuss in regards to the Iron District and our professional soccer group, they discuss in regards to the optimistic affect we have had on the neighborhood as a lot as they speak about us hopefully having a successful report,” stated Conor Caloia, the CEO of Milwaukee Professional Soccer. 

The group has launched a “Identify the Staff” marketing campaign, which is asking neighborhood members to submit concepts for the brand new membership’s identify.

“We view this as far more than a soccer membership,” Caloia stated. “We hope to construct a neighborhood across the membership and success for this mission is actually primarily based extra on having a optimistic affect in the neighborhood than it’s the rest.”