Armada Owners/City Talk Downtown Soccer Stadium

[landfall]

So five years and counting for them to build the equivalent of a high school stadium?

No wonder Tebow and co. called their bluff and started their own team.

[pierre]

So five years and counting for them to build the equivalent of a high school stadium?

No wonder Tebow and co. called their bluff and started their own team.

A team that is going to play where exactly?

[CityLife]

I'm not too optimistic about the Armada's prospects. Especially compared to Sporting Club Jacksonville. The MLS Next League they are joining is basically just the reserve teams for MLS clubs. There are only two clubs currently in the league that aren't feeder teams for existing MLS clubs. The primary function of the league is to provide competition for youth players as a test to see which players (if any) are ready to get called up to the MLS feeder teams. But by and large most players in the future in MLS will not even come up through the league. Like in Europe, maybe a few players on the senior teams will have come up through the reserve team.

MLS Next is the third division, while SC Jax will play in the second division in the USL. With the direction soccer is headed in the country, the second division (like in England, Germany, and other European countries) can become fairly competitive and popular. The average attendance in the USL in 2023 was 5,552. This is more than the Jumbo Shrimp drew last year and over 1k more than Minor League baseball averaged. MLS Next games are mostly scrimmages with like 100 people at games.

Lastly, SC Jax is affiliated with Florida Elite, which seems to be the far and away dominant club in Jax now. Armada is affiliated with JFC. When I grew up playing there were basically four competitive clubs in Jax: Clay County, JYS, JFC (which previously had different names), and Jaguars (which predated the NFL team and got a nice settlement). Jaguars are now defunct (RIP), JYS doesn't have travel teams, Clay County and JFC are both weaker than in the past. Florida Elite is a newer club, but is already totally dominating the soccer scene in Jax.

Basically, I would bet a lot of money that SC Jax will be the more successful of the two clubs.

[Tacachale]

So five years and counting for them to build the equivalent of a high school stadium?

No wonder Tebow and co. called their bluff and started their own team.

A team that is going to play where exactly?

Should be announced before too long.

[landfall]

The ultimate losers are as usual going to be the public as two subpar setups compete for the same market. The Armada are a joke, they've spent years pissing about in glorified youth soccer and have been teasing about what is ultimately some high school bleachers on the Eastside, so forgive me for having little trust in them and being sceptical of their capabilities. The USL leadership have way more name recognition and apparent financial backing behind them but yeah, St. John's County hardly whets the appetite.

If the Armada weren't so useless and had just settled for playing in the USL at the baseball grounds I think although not absolutely ideal in terms of having their own home professional soccer in Jacksonville would probably be ticking along just fine whilst a solution to that is identified.

[Tacachale]

The USL stadium hasn’t been announced yet.

[CityLife]

Games at UNF with training facilities in SJC makes the most sense.

[thelakelander]

I'm looking forward to seeing what the reaction here will be when the USL stadium location is announced.

[WAJAS]

I'm looking forward to seeing what the reaction here will be when the USL stadium location is announced.

I'm looking forward to seeing a mirror what happened with the Orlando City Stadium way back when.

[pierre]

I'm looking forward to seeing what the reaction here will be when the USL stadium location is announced.

Will that be anytime soon?

[Jones518]

https://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/news/2025/jan/30/jacksonville-armada-issued-permit-to-build-downtown-soccer-stadium/



Finally!  the Jax Armada have been issued permit to build the stadium.


Idk why I thought they already had the permit.

This will be interesting nonetheless!

[copperfiend]

So five years and counting for them to build the equivalent of a high school stadium?

No wonder Tebow and co. called their bluff and started their own team.

A team that is going to play where exactly?

Should be announced before too long.

This discussion was almost a year ago. And aside from rumors of a possible location on the western side of the Regency property, I have not heard anything about a Sporting Jax stadium.

In the original announcement three years ago, it was stated the men’s team won’t start playing until they have a stadium. It makes me wonder realistically when the team will actually start.

[Jones518]

And Sporting Jax is pretty much in the same position as the Jax Armada were a few years ago… playing games at UNF’s Hodges Stadium… it is cool that they started a women’s team and their inaugural season is approaching though.


https://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/news/2024/dec/03/sporting-jax-womens-usl-super-league-team-to-play-inaugural-season-at-unf/

[Ken_FSU]

So five years and counting for them to build the equivalent of a high school stadium?

No wonder Tebow and co. called their bluff and started their own team.

A team that is going to play where exactly?

Should be announced before too long.

This discussion was almost a year ago. And aside from rumors of a possible location on the western side of the Regency property, I have not heard anything about a Sporting Jax stadium.

In the original announcement three years ago, it was stated the men’s team won’t start playing until they have a stadium. It makes me wonder realistically when the team will actually start.

Last I heard (6 months ago, maybe), they were eyeing something far less exciting than Regency, 20+ miles out from DT Jax.

Who knows what will actually happen, but part of me wonders if this thing was launched under the assumption that tens of millions of dollars in public incentives would be theirs for the taking. Tough to make those numbers work when you’ve got a larger, higher priority football stadium and sports & entertainment district to tackle first.

[CityLife]

Regency is still in play for SC Jax. We should know something in the next couple of months.

Even though St. Johns County is the absolute hot bed of soccer in Jax these days, that location still makes the most sense. 295 and Atlantic makes it accessible from your urban core hipster fan base and the southside/SJC where most of your die hard soccer families are.

NE Florida is a low key strong soccer area. At the youth level, it's probably only fourth best in the state after South Florida, Tampa, and Orlando; but those areas are stacked. Jax still cranks out of a lot of talent and has great participation at the youth level. Even BASL at the adult level gets fantastic participation. I believe it is far and away the best adult league in the state. If SC Jax is run well, I think they can get tremendous fan support and possibly set themselves up for an ascent to MLS in the future.

Off topic a bit, but it's truly crazy how bad boys high school soccer is in Duval these days. Fletcher, Stanton, BK, and Bolles all used to be state powers and now are shells of what they once were. Mandarin is the only historic power that is still strong, and they are stronger than ever. Talent has gotten spread around a lot more, and the new SJC schools all seem to be strong.