No, the Utah Royals (probably?) aren't relocating. But a new pro women's soccer team may soon call Salt Lake home
No, the Utah Royals (probably?) aren't relocating. But a new pro women's soccer team may soon call Salt Lake home
Within one of the proposals for Ballpark NEXT, Salt Lake City's post-Bees plans for the Ballpark neighborhood and Smith's Ballpark, is a note pointing to a new club coming in 2025.
This is not a newsletter about city planning or urban development, and we don’t want to dive too deep into that world.
But from time to time, professional sports intersects with the development sector, specifically in the form of stadium developments. And one intersection came together through Ballpark NEXT, Salt Lake City’s intent to decide what to do with the 14,500-seat Smith’s Ballpark — the home of the Triple-A baseball team Salt Lake Bees until they leave for Daybreak in a year — and the surrounding Ballpark neighborhood near downtown Salt Lake.
This proposal first caught our attention with this compilation from KSL.com, so go there and read more about Ballpark NEXT and the current steps that Salt Lake City is planning for the area. You can also read about each planned proposal in detail here.
But we want to touch on one plan — dubbed the “professional applicant 1.”
This group wants to re-imagine the Ballpark neighborhood by keeping it consistent with sports, but in a very different light than the 30-year-old minor league baseball team that has called Smith’s Ballpark home. Instead, the group wants to re-imagine the Ballpark as a hub for women’s sports and female athletes.
“Our city can take a historic step toward addressing this disparity through the realization of a creative yet feasible vision,” a proposal signed by contact Tess Arneson reads. “A field suitable for soccer, rugby, ultimate, and football would fit in the existing field footprint with only minor initial renovations, with virtually no period of inactivation of the stadium after the Bees depart. Further renovation to improve stadium sightlines, adjust seating, and incorporate peripheral micro-retail spaces could happen in phases as demonstrated by similar conversions of stadiums previously used for baseball.”
The proposal goes on to say that additional investment could help provide for a retractable roof or removable dome over the current stadium for wintertime use, a decked parking lot next to the stadium to “offer opportunities to incorporate more greenspace, street sport courts, food truck lots, and festival space,” and diagrams further development around the current stadium.
The group also reportedly has partnerships with several women’s sports teams and leagues around the Salt Lake Valley, including the Utah Falconz (football), Utah Vipers (rugby), Utah Wild (ultimate discs) and the Utah Girls Tackle Football League, according to the proposal, which adds that it would also “envision the stadium as a place the Utah Royals may choose to utilize for many of their events.”
The NWSL reportedly has a new rule preventing its teams from playing in baseball stadiums — every team in the 12-team league plays in a soccer-specific stadium except two, Seattle’s OL Reign and San Diego Wave FC, which play in the “multi-purpose” Lumen Field and Snapdragon Stadium, respectively. The Kansas City Current are planning for a first-of-its-kind, 11,500-seat women’s soccer-specific stadium near downtown Kansas City, as well.
Besides, you all remember what happened when two league teams tried to play on a shamefully narrow baseball stadium as recently as 2016? The NWSL probably doesn’t want that to happen again.
Several sources from Utah Royals FC were unaware of the proposal, as well; so it seems say to assume — from everything we’ve heard — that the team that will rejoin the National Women’s Soccer League in 2024 under the ownership of David Blitzer, Ryan Smith and others is more than content playing at America First Field in Sandy alongside its MLS counterpart Real Salt Lake.
The new ownership group is currently renovating the stadium formerly known as The RioT, from locker rooms to media areas to recently installing a safe-standing zone in the south bleachers; so why would either club, both the one that plays in MLS or the one that will soon play in the NWSL, want to vacate that 20,000-seat soccer-specific stadium in suburban Salt Lake?
But does a professional women’s soccer team in Utah to play in the stadium have to come from the NWSL? Not necessarily.
Again, from proposal:
“That desire is shared by the Women’s Premier Soccer League, which has several pro-am teams in our community and intends to have a Utah-based squad as part of a fully professional league it will launch in 2025.”
Say, what?
It’s true that the WPSL, which bills itself as the largest women’s soccer league in the world and the top amateur league for women’s soccer in the country, has several clubs from Utah that play in the league’s Mountain conference (Wasatch division): Utah Surf, Utah Red Devils, Utah Avalanche, La Roca FC and the recent expansion Griffins FC.
Among the league’s executives is commissioner Kendra Halterman, a Utah native who helped found the now-defunct Real Salt Lake Women semipro club as it transitioned from Salt Lake United.
That league also has plans to launch a Division III professional women’s league, tentatively planned to kick off in 2025, to expand the organization’s umbrella (this is different from the USL-owned Super League, which will launch in eight markets in August 2024 and is working to obtain Division I status from U.S. Soccer that would put it on par with the NWSL.
WPSL Pro plans to launch with 10 teams and grow to more than 24 by 2030, according to the league’s announcement from this past February, with potential “soccer activities” beginning in some form “as early as 2024” under the organization that has provided playing time for thousands of female soccer players from the high school to collegiate to amateur ranks since 1998.
“The WPSL has long been recognized for the large number of its athletes who advance on to professional soccer whether to the NWSL or top global professional clubs and leagues,” said Halterman at the time. “The WPSL has clearly established itself as a playing environment that can prepare players for the highest levels of the game and the launch of this new league now enables us to provide even more women’s soccer players with those viable avenues of growth.”
The league hasn’t confirmed anything else about WPSL Pro besides referring interested applicants to a form on its website. But it does seem like one of the 10 markets at launch could be Salt Lake City — perhaps, at least, if one plan for the next iteration of Smith’s Ballpark is approved.
We’ll keep our ear to the ground on potential further movement on this story. For now, subscribe to the Salt City FC newsletter on Substack to get further updates, and other coverage of soccer in Utah, delivered straight to your email inbox.