Soccer on the air: Sporting Jax rolls out Jacksonville broadcast plans for kickoff
As the countdown continues for Sporting Club Jacksonville, the soccer club is lining up its broadcast plans for the pending kickoff.
Sporting Jax announced a three-year partnership with First Coast News stations WTLV and WJXX to broadcast games locally once the team kicks off in 2026, part of a multi-pronged media blitz during the summer.
Also included is the beginning of two weekly shows on television and radio, as well as plans for several watch parties for international soccer events in the coming month.
The television Sporting Jax Report, with club broadcasting director Cole Pepper and former Jacksonville University coach Mauricio Ruiz, set to air Saturdays and Wednesdays on First Coast News stations. In addition, the club also reached an agreement with radio station WJXL (1010 AM) for a weekly Monday evening soccer hour-long show covering club initiatives and league news.
Sporting Jax, which numbers former Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Tim Tebow and Jaguars legend Fred Taylor among its ownership group, received approval in August 2022 for a new franchise in the USL Championship at the second tier of men's professional soccer in the United States.
In 2023, Sporting Jax also earned a franchise in the new first-division USL Super League for women's soccer, which has targeted its kickoff later this year on a fall-to-spring schedule. Jacksonville's USL Super League team, which would be the first major women's professional team in Northeast Florida history, expects to begin play in a subsequent season.
Still in the developmental stages are the club's plans for developing a stadium with a planned capacity of 15,000. Last summer, the club took steps toward the construction of a training site in St. Johns County.
By the Sporting Jax kickoff, the club faces potential head-to-head competition for soccer attention on the First Coast with the Jacksonville Armada, which plans to return to the professional game in 2025 in the third-level MLS Next Pro. That league is affiliated with Major League Soccer.
Local soccer has been largely absent from Jacksonville's broadcast television in the years following the Armada's departure from the North American Soccer League. During the Armada's 2015-17 NASL stint, its games appeared on television through outlets including WJXT, CW17, ThisTV and cable channels CBS Sports Network and BeIN Sports.
The Sporting Jax watch party schedule, dubbed the Summer of Soccer, includes Island Wing Company locations on the Southside and Bartram Springs for Saturday's UEFA Champions League final between Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund, as well as Grace Note Brewing in Lakeshore for the United States' Copa America matches against Bolivia on June 23, Panama on June 27 and Uruguay on July 1.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Sporting Jax: Soccer broadcast deal for Jacksonville TV, radio
