Louisville has a new professional sports franchise.
The Louisville Lightning will open play in the Professaional Indoor Soccer League, with an opener set for Nov. 16 at the Mockingbird Valley Soccer Club.
Co-owner Wayne Estopinal, also the majority owner of the facility, says he’s been in talks for two years with various interests about bringing the sport to Louisville. He said he hopes to average about 500 fans for the eight-game season, with ticket prices ranging from $10-$15.
“The Bats have proven what people in Louisville will support. We hope that it will be a lasting sports entertainment in Louisville,” Estopinal said.
Estopinal said his group originally had bigger plans, including joining the Major Indoor Soccer League and bringing a team to the new Louisville arena. But the MISL shut down last year, and Estopinal said talks with the KFEC and Jim Host broke down.
“They’ve got all their ad revenue locked up, and you can’t sell enough hot dogs and tickets at Louisville prices to play in those larger arenas,” he said. “If you can’t sell the tickets you don’t need the larger arena. Plus we’re trying to create an exciting atmosphere and even with 1,500 people there, it’s cavernous. That would be a different environment than we’re looking for and much higher risk.”
The PASL includes teams from St. Louis, Cincinnati and Detroit. It will hold tryouts, and some players on the roster will come from the Austin Aztex, members of the USL outdoor league. Ex-St. X and Centre David Horne, who last year played for Cincinnati, will be the coach.
Estopinal said the ownership group is investing about $200,000 for the team’s first year of operations.
13 responses so far ↓
1 Bill // Sep 16, 2009 at 1:06 pm
This will last a year. This city has a poor record of supporting semi professional sports. Look at the Catbirds, RiverFrogs, Colonels ABA 2 IN 2003, ETC. They couldn’t even find a few hundred thousand dollars to keep the old Colonels of the ABA so they could turn it into an NBA franchise. They thought they could get the Hornets or Grizzlies of the NBA but that failed because they didn’t have an arena.
2 Carter Burger // Sep 16, 2009 at 1:57 pm
Well, I was wrong about the Fire and wrong about the Bats. I didn’t think either of them would last long either. However it seems the Bats have much better of a following than any other minor league team in recent history.
I’ll agree with you, Bill. I’ll give them a year. I just don’t see a market for soccer. I can see a market for hockey before soccer. But like I said, I have been wrong before.
3 RICHB // Sep 16, 2009 at 2:50 pm
I agree the city doesn’t show support for local
sport unless they’re winning. Most importantly
soccer’s boring. Sorry to break the news.
4 Gavin // Sep 16, 2009 at 2:56 pm
The Bats have a great thing going with the Reds. Fans around here can see these guys before they go up to the big leagues. Whenever the Bats have a big time prospect (Jay Bruce, Adam Dunn, Deion Sanders) people come out. Plus, Louisville Slugger Field has to be one of the nicest minor league parks around.
The Fire where running on fumes for a long time, and I don’t expect this team to last either. Doesn’t sound like their expectations are high, but this sounds like a low level league.
5 Steve Bittenbender // Sep 16, 2009 at 3:36 pm
I wish them luck on this endeavor, but I’m not sure I get the math. If they’re investing $200,000, but only expecting $40K-$60K in ticket sales, how can they expect to survive? Or will their costs decrease after the first year?
6 Harold // Sep 16, 2009 at 4:02 pm
I hope it works out for them but that place only has about 80 parking spots..I believe. How are they even going to attract 500 people?
7 fleur-de-gris // Sep 16, 2009 at 7:31 pm
kudos to someone with enough passion and moxie to give this a try.
do they have to break even in the first year? how many times do you have to buy uniforms? certainly the $200k is start-up money with only a portion of that being recurring/annual cost?
enough of the nay-sayers. if it’s not your tax money being spent and it’s good for louisville, why not wish them well? go wayne!
8 Jeff // Sep 16, 2009 at 8:56 pm
There is a substantial market for this product: Louisville’s Mexican, Arab and African communities and Louisville 20-somethings, who’ve grown up on soccer. If operationalized well, this could succeed. Not sure what the ticket price point would have to be, though
9 Bill // Sep 16, 2009 at 10:03 pm
Its just that the city does a horrible job at supporting minor league professional sports for the most part. The Bats have been a different experience though. They do rather well for being in Triple A play. But that has to do with a lot of Louisville being an old baseball town from the times with the old Colonels teams to the Redbirds and now the Bats.
The original ABA did well here for the most part and John Y couldn’t get the funds to keep the team which was a big mistake. It really would have been interesting to see how the Colonels franchise did in the NBA and what kind of notoriety that they city would have had. I have also heard that at one time there was a push get get an NFL team back in the 1960s and Louisville was considered for expansion. So, its just going to take a big push for a pro team and more even for semi pro games. Memphis is a city much like Louisville but probably overall somewhat poorer and it has the NBA but its flagship Grizzlies only drew 7500 fans per game last year to the 3 year old FedEx Forum.
Actually I think that Cincinnati has a better chance of gaining an NBA team than we do but they also have 700 k more in metro population.
The Pacers in Indy are currently one of the bottom teams in the league in attendance. Something that probably rules Louisville out because with the college program here its not going to go much anywhere.
Soccer might be a different thing if you have the support of the 20 somethings and the people from other cultures but overall its not a Kentuckiana thing for the most part. But hey, 200 k for someone with the dough, go for it and you can always take it off as a tax loss.
10 Mark Stanton // Sep 17, 2009 at 9:25 am
I think there is definitely a market, especially if there is direct targeting to that audience, rather than the general market. Having the matches at a place where parents are used to taking their kids will make attending much more viable for families.
As another stated, parking and traffic for a crowd of 500 will be a major headache under the current conditions. Good luck to them.
11 rickredding // Sep 17, 2009 at 10:01 am
just so everyone knows. Estopinal has arranged shuttle parking with a sponsor. As for the price of tickets and making budget, remember the team will be seeking revenue from sponsorship deals, so it doesn’t have to make it just on ticket sales.
I expected this story to generate some additional thoughts on the downtown arena. As Estopinal indicated, the financial requirements down there make it near-impossible for any pro sports franchise to make it there, including the NBA, because all the ways to make money – outside of ticket sales – are already allocated. So who’s going to bring a team in there?
12 Carter Burger // Sep 18, 2009 at 8:19 am
Rick, any idea what the financial requirements for the new arena are?
13 rickredding // Sep 18, 2009 at 8:44 am
Nope, but you can’t afford it. Estopinal told me that if you rent the place, you can’t get any revenue from advertising , parking, etc….basically you get tickets, maybe a small slice of concession revenue. Which makes it really impossible for any sort of pro sports franchise.
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