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USL Super League earns top-flight soccer status, but Jacksonville kickoff must wait
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- USL Super League earns top-flight soccer status, but Jacksonville kickoff must wait
The United States Soccer Federation granted Division One status to the new USL Super League for professional women's soccer in the 2024-25 season, the league announced Friday, although the first competitive season for Northeast Florida-based Sporting Jax would arrive no earlier than 2025-26.
The USL Super League becomes the second first-division women's league in the national soccer pyramid, alongside the established National Women's Soccer League.
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The eight inaugural cities for the 2024-25 season will be Brooklyn, N.Y.; Charlotte, N.C.; Dallas/Fort Worth; Fort Lauderdale; Lexington, Ky.; Spokane, Wash.; Tampa; and Washington, D.C. The first season is scheduled to kick off in August.
The league listed Jacksonville among eight additional markets that will begin play "upon completion of stadium projects and other important club development initiatives." Other cities in that list are Chattanooga, Tenn.; Indianapolis; Madison, Wis.; Oakland; Palm Beach; Phoenix; and Tucson, Ariz.
WHEN WILL SPORTING JAX KICK OFF?
Sporting Jax scarves are displayed during the Sporting Jax team name announcement for Jacksonville professional soccer on December 12, 2023. [Clayton Freeman/Florida Times-Union]
The timetable is not a surprise in Jacksonville, where Sporting Jax has yet to announce a stadium site. As of December's team name announcement, co-owner Ricky Caplin said the organization was focused on two primary location possibilities.
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The JAXUSL ownership group was originally headed by Caplin, Tim Tebow , Steve Livingstone and Tony Allegretti, and last November added former Jacksonville Jaguars running back Fred Taylor as well. In August 2022, JAXUSL received a franchise to form a team in the men's second-level USL Championship. Then, last May, the USL Super League also announced Jacksonville as an expansion city for the new women's organization.
In December, Livingstone told the Times-Union that club ownership was preparing for the possibility of first kickoff for the women's team in the fall-to-spring USL Super League in late 2025. Afterward, the men's team would make its USL Championship debut in the spring of 2026.
The USL Super League will be in competition for players, sponsors and spectators with the NWSL, which began play in 2013 and is scheduled to include 14 teams for the 24 season.
In contrast to the NWSL, which has as many members on the Pacific coast (five) as the Eastern time zone, 75 percent of the USL Super League's initial members are in the eastern quadrant. Only Dallas/Fort Worth and Spokane occupy other regions, thus meeting U.S. Soccer's requirement of three time zones for a first-division league.
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Upon kickoff, Sporting Jax's USL Super League franchise would become the first professional women's sports team in a national league in Jacksonville history.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Sporting Jax: USL Super League approved as USSF soccer first division
