Chicago Red Stars schedule summer match at Wrigley Field

Wrigley Field, the long-lasting baseball stadium and residential to MLB’s Chicago Cubs, will host a National Women’s Soccer League match for the primary time on June 8 when the Chicago Red Stars play Bay FC.

Hosting a match at Wrigley Field is a part of an effort to make the Red Stars “more accessible to sports fans in Chicago,” the workforce mentioned in a press launch.

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Since 2016, the Red Stars have performed residence video games at SeatGeek Stadium in Bridgeview, Illinois, 15 miles southwest of downtown Chicago. They averaged 4,848 followers in 2023, the worst within the NWSL. MLS’ Chicago Fire moved out of SeatGeek Stadium — which was primarily constructed for that workforce in 2006 — after the 2019 season in an try to revive its fan base.

Laura Ricketts, of the Ricketts household that additionally owns the Cubs, grew to become majority proprietor of the Red Stars in August as a part of a $35.5 million buy of the workforce. She mentioned then that the stadium scenario wanted to be addressed.

“The stadium and the location is one of the biggest challenges slash opportunities for this team and absolutely something that we’re going to be looking at,” Ricketts mentioned at the time, noting that the workforce’s lease there ran by means of 2025.

“The ideal place would be much closer to the city, perhaps in the city. These are all things we are going to look at. It’s definitely a challenge slash opportunity — perhaps the biggest challenge slash opportunity for this team. It’s going to require work. It’s not daunting to me at all because of the experience that I’ve had with the Cubs, but it will be work and it will take time.”

Ricketts and new Red Stars president Karen Leetzow have not too long ago lobbied for the workforce to be a part of any conversations round public funding for brand new sports activities stadiums, that are presently being sought by Chicago’s different MLB workforce, the White Sox, and its NFL workforce, the Bears. The Fire additionally wants a longer-term answer after transferring again to Soldier Field.

The Red Stars have reportedly achieved preliminary analysis into potential stadium websites inside Chicago.

“Women’s sports need to have a seat at the table,” Leetzow instructed the Chicago Tribune. “We need to be in the mix because otherwise we’re just going to end up chasing our tail around how to grow women’s sports.”

The most notorious recreation in NWSL historical past was a one-off recreation performed on a minor league baseball area in Rochester, New York, in 2016. The Western New York Flash (now the North Carolina Courage) hosted the Seattle Reign on a 58-yard-wide pitch that was squeezed into the outfield. The match drew world scrutiny and sparked outrage from gamers and coaches throughout the league.

The Kansas City Current performed a full season of residence matches at a minor league baseball stadium in 2021 after launching the franchise just a few months earlier. Last month, the Current opened a largely privately financed $120 million-plus stadium that’s the first constructed solely for an NWSL workforce. The Seattle Reign additionally performed in a minor league baseball stadium in Tacoma from 2019-2021.

Wrigley Field has hosted different sports activities with combined success, together with a 2010 faculty soccer recreation that needed to have all offensive performs transfer towards one finish zone attributable to security considerations over the tight confines.

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The final time a soccer recreation was performed at Wrigley was in 2012, when Italian males’s aspect AS Roma performed a pleasant match there on a slim area. The pitch was reportedly 62 yards vast. A Red Stars spokesperson instructed ESPN that the sector format shall be introduced sooner or later. FIFA recommends a pitch that’s 74 yards vast and 115 yards lengthy.

One-off video games have been uncommon thus far within the NWSL. In 2022, the NWSL’s Orlando Pride hosted a recreation on a brief area constructed over the racetrack’s pit row at the Daytona Speedway. The recreation drew fewer than 8,000 followers.

The Red Stars hope that June’s match is the beginning of constructing a bridge to a Chicago soccer market that’s nonetheless largely untapped.

“We look forward to representing our great city and showing Chicago fans and the country how talented this club is and the intense level of competition that exists on the pitch every week in the NWSL and in Chicago’s backyard,” Leetzow mentioned in an announcement.

Red Stars captain Alyssa Naeher added: “Wrigley Field is one of the most iconic sports venues in the country. This is a unique opportunity for us to bring further visibility to our team and women’s soccer.

“Chicago has at all times been an unimaginable sports activities city with such a wealthy historical past; I can not wait to compete on the sector, beneath the lights, in entrance of our devoted Chicago followers from each a part of town!”