We bring you this month’s Austin FC happenings including important news, wild speculation, and the hottest links on the Interwebs.

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September 2020

Major hires rolling in for Austin FC; pandemic be damned. David Tenney hired as High Performance Director. David served three years as the High Performance Director for NBA’s Orlando Magic following 11 seasons in MLS, including a long stint with MLS Cup champion Seattle Sounders. Sweet soccer voice Adrian Healey, formerly of ESPN’s MLS coverage, named Director of Broadcast and Content. Regardless of the fancy title, you’ll hear him anchor the English-language coverage of Austin FC matches. Both hires indicate a commitment by the club to build a world-class foundation in human capital.

New domestic beer partner Michelob Ultra announced. Austin FC aims for the Zilker park runnin’, ATX fit demo with this 95 calorie light beer. Expect to see Anheuser-Busch Michelob Ultra everywhere at the stadium, including pre-game activations and the North End Beer Hall and other concessions. Our opinion: we’re all for it. With an additional craft beer option at the stadium, we’re not opposed to mix it up with some ULTRA when the funds are running low come 2nd half. 

Season ticket memberships have sold out. Waitlist is now up for fans to get priority access for single match tickets, merch discounts, and of course future season tickets. Plus, you never know when they’ll add 1,500 new seats to the stadium. During the seat selection process, we gave you the scoop on pricing, a breakdown of seat locations, and more.

Austin FC ups its digital game. For die hard Verde fans, there’s now a full-blown website and custom mobile app. Besides in-depth pages drilling into St. David’s performance center, 4ATX Community, and technical staff, we finally get a detailed player roster. Check out our review of the whole online shebang.

September 22 episode of Capital City Soccer Show includes juicy speculation of El Tri players we want at Austin FC w/ special guest ESPN FC’s Tom Marshall. But that’s not all…this episode is bursting with mas Verde, including BIG Austin FC hires, reax of Austin FC Academy vs. SAFC, and musings about a certain Newcastle player. Do yourself a favor—give it a listen on your podcast player.  

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Coming Up

A Sponsor for Austin FC Stadium is expected to be named in 2020. Who will the sponsor be? That’s the multi-million dollar question. We made our guesses of local and regional companies that could buy the naming rights. (Before you ask, Dell isn’t in our list because they sponsor Dell Diamond down the street.) Looking at current MLS stadium deals, financial and automotive companies dominate, so there’s that… 

DP Signing rumors abound for Austin FC as we’re in MLS player transfer window until October. With the first DP inked, there’s two more available slots open. Now the question is: can Austin FC land a headline-making DP with international experience and name recognition? Coach Wolff had been scouting heavily in South America, but with COVID-19 he’s scouting virtually.

From MLS media day.. Austin FC head coach Josh Wolff is building out targets ahead of their 2021 MLS debut:

“I was in Colombia for the U-23 CONMEBOL tournament, I’ll be part of watching the Concacaf (Olympic) qualifying as well. Looking for young players, international players.”

— Tom Bogert (@tombogert) February 27, 2020

MLS Expansion Draft is coming up for the club. If the expansion draft goes down like last year, then Austin FC can add a max of five players for their inaugural season. A few MLS clubs will be exempt from naming players for the expansion draft, but most others can only protect 12 players on their roster (leaving the others open to being snatched up in the draft). In 2019 the draft was held in mid-November.

Game Jersey Unveiling One of two official game jerseys will be released in late 2020—just in time for the holidays. We already know YETI will have its name on the front. Our biggest question rn—what color will the home jersey be? Given that the adidas training jersey is green it seems unlikely that this color will be an option. And a black home jersey would bake players in the searing ATX sun. Perhaps the jersey will be white with green accents…what do you think?

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HOT LINKS

Imagine a pair of custom Verde Vans for every new season ticket member. Make it happen Austin FC. (art courtesy of @riverbear95)