{"id":177341,"date":"2025-08-26T15:26:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T15:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/177341\/"},"modified":"2025-08-26T15:26:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T15:26:12","slug":"sporting-jax-brings-optimism-to-jacksonvilles-soccer-future-after-past-hurdles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/177341\/","title":{"rendered":"Sporting Jax brings optimism to Jacksonville\u2019s soccer future after past hurdles"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph sections-franchises \">Sporting Jax President Steve Livingstone hopes the new women\u2019s soccer team in the Gainbridge Super League can \u201cprove that Jacksonville\u2019s fourth time with professional soccer is indeed a charm\u201d within five years, according to Clayton Freeman of the FLORIDA TIMES-UNION. Three years after receiving their USL franchise, Sporting Jax\u2019s stadium search \u201cgoes on.\u201d Livingstone said that the club \u201ccontinues to envision the future site as more than just a soccer venue,\u201d and the \u201cprocess of identifying and acquiring the needed land and clearing related hurdles has encountered numerous delays.\u201d In the short term, Livingstone said, Hodges Stadium is \u201cprobably\u201d the home for the men\u2019s team for the USL Championship kickoff in 2026. The \u201csoccer tide appears high\u201d now for Sporting Jax, which officially \u201creported a sellout ahead of its women\u2019s opener\u201d on Aug. 23. A decade ago, the Jacksonville Armada FC recorded\u202f13,934 fans for its preseason opener and 16,164 for its regular-season North American Soccer League debut on April 4, 2015 at EverBank Field. Over the next two and a half years, the \u201cfervor faded.\u201d By August 2017, with the NASL \u201cheading toward the rocks,\u201d Armada attendances for league matches \u201csometimes dipped below 1,000.\u201d Livingstone said, \u201cThe market has matured a little bit since we launched the Armada. We\u2019ve certainly got more soccer fans in the market.\u201d He added, \u201cIn 2030, we\u2019re in a position where we\u2019re in a new stadium, we\u2019re in a great commercial district that\u2019s built around the stadium and there\u2019s sustainability there\u201d (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.jacksonville.com\/story\/sports\/2025\/08\/26\/sporting-club-jacksonville-steve-livingstone-on-usl-stadium-future\/85731015007\/?gnt-cfr=1&amp;gca-cat=p&amp;gca-uir=true&amp;gca-epti=z116733p000250c000250e009500v116733b0067xxd116765&amp;gca-ft=139&amp;gca-ds=sophi\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.jacksonville.com\/story\/sports\/2025\/08\/26\/sporting-club-jacksonville-steve-livingstone-on-usl-stadium-future\/85731015007\/?gnt-cfr=1&amp;gca-cat=p&amp;gca-uir=true&amp;gca-epti=z116733p000250c000250e009500v116733b0067xxd116765&amp;gca-ft=139&amp;gca-ds=sophi\">FLORIDA TIMES-UNION, 8\/26<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sporting Jax President Steve Livingstone hopes the new women\u2019s soccer team in the Gainbridge Super League can \u201cprove&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":177342,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,392,42903,3188,723,7310,221,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,1707],"class_list":{"0":"post-177341","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-culture","10":"tag-fan-experience","11":"tag-fl","12":"tag-florida","13":"tag-jacksonville","14":"tag-soccer","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa","21":"tag-womens-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115095770473198759","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}