Welcome to North Texas: Pro Soccer Is on the Attack

Professional soccer has been making a concerted push into the North Texas market in recent years and that appears to be kicking into an even higher gear now, with two new pro teams opening play this year, and another set to open in 2027.

Why here? Why now?

The short answer is simple. When Home Depot opens a new store in your neighborhood, it’s a sure sign that there is a growing population of homeowners around. When pro soccer teams move in, that means people with the wallet and the will have done their homework as well.

For many Americans outside of the soccer bubble, the television series Ted Lasso was like a gateway drug for getting interested in the world’s game. Lasso was an out-of-place American who knew little about soccer yet ended up coaching a team in the world’s most competitive soccer league. While short on the technical aspects of the game, the show is quirky, funny, and emotional in a way that makes soccer seem both fun and relatable.

Overlapping the Ted Lasso run has been the FX documentary series Welcome to Wrexham. American movie stars Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney buy a down-and-out soccer team in a down-and-out Welsh city and try to restore a sense of purpose to both the club and the town. Then, in 2023, Lionel Messi, one of the world’s greatest players, signed to play for Major League Soccer’s (MLS) Inter Miami CF. Yes, the same Miami team owned by British hottie David Beckman and his Spice Girl wife.

In the blink of an eye, many North Texans have gone from not caring about soccer to buying face paint and counting the days until nine FIFA World Cup matches are played at AT&T Stadium in Arlington.

Maybe it’s just World Cup fever, but the current confluence of soccer, celebrity and serious investment money is like nothing the sport has ever seen in this country. The primary organization behind the growth is the United Soccer League (USL), which is where the new North Texas teams come from. The USL does not control MLS or the established women’s top league, the National Women's Soccer League, but they do control much of the professional and “preprofessional” game outside of those two.

In this country, the structure of professional soccer is messy and evolving. If it sounds confusing, it’s because it absolutely is confusing. A basic understanding of the structure of pro soccer in this country is an important part of the story, but if we’re being honest, it’s not the interesting Ted Lasso part of the story. That more fun, colorful part is more apparent after we paid visits to the three new North Texas teams: Dallas Trinty FC, Texoma FC in Sherman and the newly birthed Atletico Dallas in Garland.

Texoma FC

For those of you who have never ventured north of Interstate 635, Sherman is a town located north of McKinney and south of Oklahoma. Driving north from Dallas, you can see all the signs of insatiable urban expansion. Lanes are being added to U.S. 75, high schools are being built, and yes, there is a new Home Depot in Anna. As you get into Sherman, you can see the new microchip factory going up just before you see an icon from a previous generation, the old Bearcat Stadium.

With its bright green natural grass field and well-worn concrete bleachers, this structure screams traditional Friday night high school football, and since the 1930s, that has been its sole purpose—until now. because the historic old Bearcat stadium has a new tenant: the Texoma Football Club.

Remember, now. This is Sherman, TX, USA, not Wrexham in Wales. When the new owners of Texoma FC decided on having a team in Sherman, they weren’t looking at the town’s history; they were looking at the opportunity.

All the investors of the three new teams have a couple of things in common besides putting together investment money. They have strong ties to the local community, and they grew up playing the game. Texoma FC co-owner Simon Keizer is an Englishman but has lived in Texas for 25 years. Ben Watson, his partner, grew up in Sherman and went on to play professionally around the world. Outside of finances, franchises are awarded based on criteria that consider the size of the city and the availability of stadiums. With a deal to play at Bearcat Stadium, Sherman slotted in perfectly.

“When we looked at Sherman, we saw a growing city that basically had nothing to do,” Watson says. “Our goal is to build a sense of community around the team.”

The team’s logo shows the state birds of Oklahoma and Texas, reflecting the club’s hope to draw from their neighbors to the north.

Playing in Bearcat Stadium gives the team a cool, established vibe not normally associated with an expansion franchise, but the results on the field have been more typical of one, thanks to more losses and draws than wins.


After a recent loss, a handful of Texoma players stopped to sign autographs and take selfies with the fans. Texoma FC has created a youth soccer academy with 350 kids in the system, and they were well represented in the stands that night. Everyone understands that they are building something from scratch, and it won’t be easy. Regardless of the result, it was an exciting game.

A couple of weeks later, Texoma FC finally gets rewarded with its first win, and they did it in front of many of the same fans who watched them lose earlier games. Although they are still at the bottom of the standings, they are only a couple of wins and a little luck away from squeaking into the bottom half of the playoffs. More importantly, this means there is hope.

Dallas Trinity FC

Seventy miles to the south of Bearcat Stadium is another bright green grass field surrounded by historic concrete bleachers. And, at least for a couple of years, the Cotton Bowl is the home for Dallas’s first top-flight women’s soccer club, Dallas Trinity FC of the USL Super League. The primary owner is Jim Neil, a Dallas man and former player, and the leadership of the club is headed by family members who are also Dallas-raised former soccer players.

When the Neil family initially looked into buying an expansion team in the existing top pro women’s league, the NWSL, a few years ago, buy-in prices were less than five million dollars. By the time they put in what Jim Neil calls a “very competitive bid,” they found out they had been blown out of the water. Current franchise fees, just to get into the league, had risen to $56 million, and the latest team to join NWSL paid $110 million.

The risk to ownership is a gold rush scenario in which some of these pro sports prospectors will hit the motherlode, and others will come up empty. In the American market, financial success is far from guaranteed for a soccer club.

You might ask why anyone smart enough to make a chunk of money would be crazy enough to turn around and invest it in American pro soccer. Here in North Texas, there is an easy answer: all three ownership groups love the game and sincerely believe the sport is primed to take off in a big way.

As a professional women’s team, Dallas Trinity FC needs another trend to keep accelerating as well in order to be successful. They hope fan interest in women’s sports will keep growing. Thanks to the success of the U.S. Women’s National Soccer team and the increasingly high profile of the WNBA, thanks largely to new stars such as Caitlin Clark and Dallas rookie Paige Bueckers, women’s pro sports is experiencing historically high interest.

To hopefully maximize its potential fan base, the USL Super League made a key decision by opting to run its season on the same general timeline that most of the rest of the soccer world uses. The schedule begins in the fall, takes a short winter break, and then resumes in the spring. According to Neil, this allows players to coordinate time off for national team duties and aligns the new league to international transfer windows. Pro leagues here in the US traditionally start in the spring, play over the summer and into the fall. Although there is some overlap, Trinity’s schedule means they don’t have to compete head-to-head with the MLS and the existing women’s pro league, the NWSL.


Neil and his sons, Charlie and Trip, are all former players, and realized that in a league of startup clubs, the teams that jelled first would have a huge advantage. They looked to add veteran players who could help establish cohesion and team identity and they targeted players with a North Texas connection. In fact, the current roster is something of a North Texas all-star team with players from Rockwall, Dallas, Southlake, Irving, Garland, Coppell, Frisco, Celina, Midlothian, and Grapevine.

Arlington’s Allie Thorton is among the league leaders in goals scored, and on a recent Saturday, Sealey Strawn, who just finished high school in Prosper, nailed the go-ahead goal. Mansfield’s Camryn Lancaster, who also played college ball at TCU, is a more recent addition to the club, having signed a contract during the winter break. According to Lancaster, she walked into a tight, cohesive locker room. “The team was great. Everyone welcomed me in, and we got to work”.

The Trinity roster reflects the reputation that North Texas has for developing soccer talent on both the men’s and women’s sides. Players with ties to the area are now sprinkled throughout pro soccer both in the States and increasingly on European teams. Still, it’s fair to ask if all those youth players, and all those college programs and all that pro talent will bring in the fans that are needed to build a sustainable game. Dallas isn’t a small town in Wales that lives and dies with each match. We are big and new and rich and often suffer from attention deficit disorder. But all too often, the answer to any big question is “follow the money.” These days, especially around these parts, the smart money is pouring into soccer.

Atletico Dallas

Just to the east of Fair Park is Downtown Garland. There is no bright green grass field or historic concrete stadium. At least, not yet. There is, however, a surprisingly attractive town square surrounded by vintage clothing shops, a barber shop, a record store and a guitar shop. Atletico Dallas was introduced at a Cinco de Mayo party in that very downtown square. If Texoma FC and Dallas Trinity FC are one-year-olds, learning to walk, this stage of the area’s newest pro soccer club is more like that first ultrasound, where you can see the baby’s little hands and feet.

One look at this team and you can see this newborn will be quite the sparkplug. The team’s crest features southwestern takes on a wolf and a snake. Its motto is “Glory from Dust.” A team promotion video features four bare-chested, ripped young men having an all-out soccer battle in an empty gravel yard. But make no mistake, the team isn’t looking to ply its craft in such a rustic manner. Last week, Garland city leaders announced they are looking at a potential $70 million training facility and youth soccer complex that the team would lease for 20 years.

Sitting on a patio overlooking the square, Garland council member Carissa Dutton explains local history and the city’s relationship with the new club.

“They have been awesome, doing things like bringing new soccer equipment to one of our underserved schools,” she says.

When Dutton points out that the city is over fifty percent Hispanic, the combination of Cinco de Mayo party and soccer brand reveal starts to make a lot of sense. Famous Spanish language radio personality Armando “El Chiquilín” Ulloa hosted the event and is also a minority stakeholder in the new franchise. The entire presentation was given in both English and Spanish, and all their press releases feature both languages as well.

Atletico Dallas co-founder Sam Morton tells us that he and partner Matt Valentine grew up playing soccer together in Arlington, and they are looking to “build a community around the team.” We’ve heard this phrase from the other clubs as well, but it especially seems possible here on the square in Garland. Of all the new teams, Atletico perhaps seems the most like Wrexham, without the 100-plus years of soccer history, of course.


Garland is a blue-collar town, and soccer is a working-class game. It can be played anywhere, from the bright green grass fields of Wales to the warm sands of Brazil. It can even be played in an empty gravel yard if you’re brave and bare-chested enough.

Each of the three teams has unique challenges and opportunities. As an entertainment option in the U.S., soccer has never competed well against the big four pro sports. The good news is that they aren’t really competing for attention against the Dallas Cowboys. Dallas Trinity FC is looking to tap into the growing interest in both soccer and women’s sports, while Texoma FC and Atletico Dallas are looking to generate local pride on a smaller, sustainable scale.

They all speak of building a community around the team, and with good reason. At this level, community is not a luxury for the new clubs, but a necessity. Here at the Observer, we are big believers in shopping local. Eat at the neighborhood restaurant, drink at your local dive bar and go see your favorite Dallas band when they play live. Let’s add one more thing to that list: Consider supporting your local 11. It’s cheap, it's fun, and you have more choices than ever.