JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Slowly, steadily and passionately, the vision of the JAX USL soccer is coming together.
The waiting game is the tough part. Jacksonville’s entries into the United Soccer League is still years off, with the men’s and women’s teams pegged to begin in 2025-26.
The passion is easy to spot.
On Thursday, orange JAX USL soccer scarves adorned chairs for a celebration of the area’s newest pro sports team. There weren’t enough chairs to seat everyone, so more were brought in. That’s excitement for a soccer group that doesn’t yet have a name, a stadium or an exact time on when it will begin play. The USL is one tier below Major League Soccer in the soccer hierarchy.
One of the biggest announcements Thursday was that former University of Florida head coach Becky Burleigh was joining the JAX USL organization in an advisory role. Burleigh was a coaching legend, racking up 513 wins in her coaching career, all but 82 of those coming in Gainesville. Burleigh won three national championships (two NAIA with Berry College and the NCAA title with the Gators in 1998) in college.
“It is so cool. Honestly, this is a really exciting and historic day for soccer in North Florida,” Burleigh said. “To see this come to this point is just like, it’s almost like it was a dream way back when, and that’s so cool.”
The ownership group of Tim Tebow, Steve Livingstone, Tony Allegretti and Ricky Caplin announced last August that it was bringing professional soccer to Jacksonville after the USL granted expansion franchises to the city. Details continue to slowly emerge, but Thursday’s gathering was all about recognizing the opportunities coming into focus for female soccer players in the area.
Mayor-elect Donna Deegan said that Thursday was a special moment for her. She won the Jacksonville election on May 16, the same day that the Super League announced Jacksonville officially being awarded a franchise. She was a headliner among the women in the room for obvious reasons and was presented with a No. 1 jersey. Deegan became the first woman to be elected mayor in Jacksonville’s history.
“I’ve had so many moms and young women come up to me since the election and say, they’ve handed me books, they’ve asked me about when they can be the [next] woman mayor, and I think very much the same sort of sentiment about this,” she said.
“It’s great to see some of these young women who were sitting out in the audience today thinking, ‘I can be that one. I could be the next one that’s going to be a professional women’s athlete,’ and I think that’s fantastic.”
The USL Super League announced plans last month to begin play in the 2024 season with eight teams — Carolina, Dallas/Fort Worth, Lexington, Phoenix, Spokane, Tampa Bay, Tucson and Washington, D.C. Jacksonville was one of five other cities to be awarded a team that would begin play in 2025 or thereafter. Chattanooga, Indianapolis, Madison and Oakland are the others.
The next big task — and it’s a gigantic one for the organization — is settling on a location for the stadium. Last August, the organization said its intentions were to have a 15,000-seat stadium that would serve as the hub for its soccer operations. Livingstone said that the process to narrow down potential sites and what works best continues.
“Every day, we’re getting close to the stadium site. You know, every day I wake up, I think, ‘You know, we’re a day closer.’ So, I can’t tell you what day that is, but we’re working on it. We’re working diligently. We’re talking to various municipalities. We’re narrowing down our options,” Livingstone said.
“We want it to be a facility that’s going to play a part in the community. We don’t just want it to be a pro-elite facility. That’s important as well and part of our planning processes.”
Asked if it could be a potential site for the Jaguars, who are exploring options during a stadium renovation, Livingstone laughed.
“Who knows?,” he said. “Nice thought, right.”
The Super League is structured to channel players from their early years to presumptively the top level with several tiers of play. Its W League is branded as the country’s top pre-professional circuit and sits directly below the Super League level.
Beneath the W League are the USL Academy and the Super Y League. The Academy focuses on advanced talent development and the Y which is billed as a premier national youth league.
“It will allow us to bridge the gap between what’s happening here in the youth level,” Livingstone said. “And unfortunately, we’ve got a lot of great talented girls in the market that have to leave the market. So, we’re taking a big step forward and trying to address that today. I’m tremendously excited about it.”
In addition to the two women’s leagues, the USL Academy and the Super Y, the USL has three men’s leagues (USL Championship, USL League One, USL League Two).