This morning the Kansas City Current inaugurated a unique stadium in the world, the first built expressly for a women’s team. The CPKC Stadium has cost 117 million dollars, has a capacity of 11,500 spectators and before the season started it had already sold out all the season passes (more than 10,000).
A total success for a complex designed for its women’s team: “When you use someone else’s facilities, there is always someone who goes first and someone who goes after. We wanted the women’s team to be the priority,” Angie Long, owner of the club, explains to La Vanguardia. Together with her husband Chris Long, she recently visited the facilities of Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, ??where they also witnessed a training session for the women’s first team.
The Kansas franchise is a great example of what the NWSL, the league in the United States, is capable of. The team finished sixth last season, but their average stadium attendance was around 11,000. In their new home they wanted a capacity that would allow them to always have season tickets sold out, with a small number of tickets on sale at each game. A goal that they surpassed before starting the season as they have posted the ‘sold out’ sign for all season tickets and there will only be about two thousand seats on sale for each game.
“Everyone needs to have their own space,” explains Angie Long to this newspaper. “Our team played on one field, trained on another, had a different location for the gym, a box as a dining room… We didn’t have a home and we wanted to give them one that covered all the specific needs of the team.” This was the main argument that led Angie and Chris Long to build the stadium, but not the only one. This couple, owners of a millionaire investment firm, are convinced that it is also the best economic solution for the club: “It is more expensive to play in someone else’s stadium and you have fewer income opportunities: sponsorship, ticketing, profits on sales. of food and drink… all this.”
Their 15 years of experience at the head of a major investment company in the United States, added to their love for sports, led them to get involved in the Kansas City project. Angie Long is clear about the formula for success: “The math part is not very complicated: you make money in tickets, sponsorships, merchandising, and television and image rights.”
“It’s a good deal, there are many opportunities to generate income,” insists the owner of the Kansas City Current, who assures La Vanguardia that her facilities have hosted events practically every day in the months prior to the start of the soccer season. And the CPKC Stadium has been built expressly for a women’s team, but not exclusively. Its owners intend to fully exploit all forms of income that this facility can offer by hosting concerts and private events of all kinds.
Kansas City, coached by former United States coach Vlatko Andonovski, also counts among its owners Patrick Mahomes, the NFL star, and his wife, Brittany. It was one of the eight founding teams of the NWSL in 2012 and went on to win two League titles (2014-2015) before disappearing and transferring all its players and assets to the Utah Royals. Three years later, the team has returned home under the name Kansas City Current and in their new home and stadium, they will try to fight to succeed Gotham FC on the throne this season.
