TST adds eight-team women’s event with $1M prize for 2024

The Soccer Tournament, the 7-on-7, $1 million, winner-take-all event that debuted in the summertime, introduced it would return this yr and embody an eight-team women’s area that will even have a million-dollar prize.

In June, former United States women’s nationwide group star Heather O’Reilly entered an all-women group within the match, which was in any other case made up nearly solely of males, and although the group went winless, it drew important help.

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“We were blown away last year [summer 2023] by the reception that Heather O’Reilly’s U.S. Women team got down in North Carolina,” Jon Mugar, the founder and CEO of The Tournaments, advised ESPN.

“There were a lot of people there cheering them on specifically and getting to know Heather throughout the process, we quickly got to talking about, ‘Hey, what would this look like if we were to break out a women’s bracket with a separate and equal million-dollar prize?'”

The risk was music to O’Reilly’s ears. Even if there had not been the addition of a women’s bracket, there was already unanimity throughout the gamers on her group that they nonetheless would have needed to return again to compete in opposition to the lads.

But the addition of a women’s bracket with a separate $1 million prize modifications the stakes considerably.

O’Reilly’s group — which this yr performed with the title U.S. Women, featured a number of former nationwide group gamers and was coached by Mia Hamm — will go for the prize.

“I’m thrilled to take part again in it this year and I think it’s a huge statement that TST and the organizers have committed to equal prize money,” O’Reilly stated.

“The statement that it makes and the feeling around equality, I think is super special.”

With an eight-team area — versus an expanded 48-team area for the lads — additionally means the possibilities for every women’s group to win cash are, comparatively, significantly better.

“I’m a competitor and I like our chances,” O’Reilly stated. “I’m definitely going to be calling a lot of the household names that everybody can imagine that just retired, like Ali Krieger, Julie Ertz, Carli Lloyd. I can promise that we’ll get some big names there. We’re four hours away from a million-dollar prize.”

Considering the stakes, O’Reilly stated she would not be stunned if the women’s match attracts curiosity from energetic skilled gamers.

The match will return to Cary, North Carolina, and happen June 5-10.

The males’s and women’s championship sport will each be on the ultimate day with a tv accomplice nonetheless to be decided.

This yr, greater than 35,000 followers attended the event, which had a festival-like really feel over 4 days.

Tournament organizers, who additionally run The Basketball Tournament, have fielded important curiosity from golf equipment everywhere in the world and count on the extent of play to rise as groups perceive the model of play on a extra compact area with hockey-style substitutions and a scoring format — goal rating time — that requires each sport to complete on a aim.

After two 20-minute halves are performed, an untimed interval begins to find out a winner by reaching a goal rating, which might be one aim greater than regardless of the group with the lead had on the finish of regulation.

This yr, a group made up primarily {of professional} indoor gamers — Newtown Pride FC — gained the match on a aim from Kelvin Nunes, who joined the group from Brazil. They donated a portion of their prize cash to the Newtown Community Center final month. The area additionally had representatives from golf equipment that included Borussia Dortmund, Wrexham AFC, West Ham United and Wolverhampton Wanderers, amongst others.