High-level pro soccer is coming to downtown Milwaukee's new entertainment district, but fans will have to be patient
Milwaukee-area fans eager to see high-level pro soccer up close will get their chance. They’ll just have to be patient.
An agreement is in place for Milwaukee Pro Soccer to join the second-tier USL Championship for 2025, representatives of the franchise and league announced Wednesday at the site of the team’s future stadium.
“We’re fortunate to have a team, a platform in Madison, a division down from this division, so we’ll be using that as a starting point and eventually there’ll be synergy between the two teams,” Conor Caloia, chief operating officer for the Forward Madison FC and the new Milwaukee team, said after the announcement.
“From a sporting perspective, we’ll be 18 months out, that’s when we’ll really start hiring the staff, scouting and looking to develop a team. Really the work now is building a community, building a stadium and getting ready to get to that sporting part.”
Where will the new team play?
The expansion franchise will be the anchor tenant for Iron District MKE, a sports and entertainment district running from 6th to 10th streets along Michigan Street on the south edge of downtown.
Plans for the Iron District were announced earlier this year by Kacmarcik Enterprises and Bear Development. Preparation is under way on the site, purchased from Marquette University, with the start of deconstruction of the former Ramada Inn hotel at 633 W. Michigan St.
In addition to an 8,000-seat stadium for the new team and the Marquette soccer and lacrosse teams, Bear Development plans to build a 3,500-capacity indoor concert venue, 99 apartments and a hotel, as well as other amenities.
The franchise wouldn’t exist without the accompanying development, said Jim Kacmarcik, chairman and CEO of Kacmarcik Enterprises.
“When you have a sport like this that has lower attendance, one of the key things to make it viable is you need to have non-game opportunities, you need to have a synergistic place that works,” Kacmarcik said. “You wouldn’t take a soccer stadium, something like this, and put it far, far away. You want to put it downtown in a city, and you want to surround the soccer piece with hotels and restaurants and music and all the different things we’re doing here in the Iron District.
“When you ask which came first, wanting a soccer team, that’s an issue and a desire and a want. How do you go about being successful long-term, it’s a blessing to have a tract of land like this in a city like this, it’s just shocking, and then you have an opportunity to put the pieces around it to make it a beautiful part of the city. That’s what we’re excited about.”
Who is behind Milwaukee Pro Soccer?
Kacmarcik, who owns the USL League One team Forward Madison FC, has been interested in bringing pro soccer to Milwaukee for years. He is the second-generation owner of Kapco Metal Stamping and chairman and CEO of Kacmarcik Enterprises, as well as a minority owner of the Milwaukee Bucks.
Wisconsin has not had soccer at this level since 2002, when the Milwaukee Rampage folded. The Rampage played in the A-League, a precursor to the USL Championship.
Caloia will lead the day-to-day business for the new team as he does with Forward Madison, a franchise that leads its league in attendance.
Milwaukee Pro Soccer has launched a “Name the Team” campaign to help with the team’s crest and colors, as well as its name.
The overall Iron District MKE project is the purview of Bear Development.
Where does the USL Championship fit within pro soccer?
The USL Championship is the second tier of professional soccer in the United States, after the Major League Soccer.
The league had 27 teams in two conferences this season, with each team playing 34 matches from March to October, plus playoffs lasting into mid-November. Early this year, USL Pro Iowa was given the go-ahead to begin play in 2024 with home games in a stadium to be built in Des Moines.
The cities closest to Milwaukee with teams playing in the USL Championship are Indianapolis and Detroit.
Although it is the second division, he USL Championship has not traditionally been a feeder to the top level of U.S. pro soccer, with MLS teams typically relying on their own academies in the MSL Next system.
Average attendance for USL Championship games this season has been just over 5,000, according to soccerstadiumdigest.com, a website that covers the industry.
Where will new team fit into the Milwaukee sports landscape?
From the standpoint of competition for the sports entertainment dollar, the schedule largely runs concurrent with the Milwaukee Brewers, as well as summer festivals.
The USL Championship season also will overlap with the beginning and end of the Milwaukee Bucks’ and college basketball seasons and to a lesser degree those of the Milwaukee Wave MASL indoor soccer team and Milwaukee Admirals AHL hockey team.
“The games are going to be on Saturday nights, mostly, some are going to be on Wednesday nights,” Kacmarcik said. “There’ll be a lot of friendlies and a lot of opportunities for people to come. The thing that I strive to do with things is I try to collaborate with people, try to figure out how we schedule things at an appropriate time frame so the community can choose what they want to do.
“What a blessing Milwaukee has to have the Bucks, to have the Brewers and of course to the north to have the Green Bay Packers, and now we’re bringing professional soccer to the heart of Milwaukee.”
What are the business complications of the Iron District MKE development?
The Iron District project has run into some opposition.
Backers of the proposed FPC Live concert venue complex, to be built next to Fiserv Forum, have raised questions about whether the Iron District's soccer stadium would need city financing or other public funds.
That FPC Live project, to be reviewed by the Common Council's Zoning, Development and Neighborhoods Committee at its Oct. 25 meeting, is privately financed and would compete with the planned Iron District concert venue. The two projects are separated by just seven blocks.
“We love this city, and this project will help this city,” Peter Feigin, president of the Milwaukee Bucks and the Deer District, said in a message to the Journal Sentinel. “Cities across the country have been hit hard. We are looking for ways to keep people coming downtown, to keep coming to their office. These are the kinds of projects that help with this.
“Our music venue is 100% privately funded. It’s part of betting on Milwaukee’s future. We are fully supportive of these projects and hope that the Iron District folks and anyone that loves this city would be supportive of our project too.”
FPC Live supporters say the soccer stadium might seek city financing help through a tax incremental financing district. That district, which would need council approval, would generate cash through the new development’s property tax revenue.
One Iron District component, a 99-unit affordable apartment development planned for its western end, is receiving $1.8 million in tax district financing. TIF districts are often used to help finance affordable apartment buildings.
Tom Daykin of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee Pro Soccer gets USL Championship team for 2025 season
