Urban Thought City Soccer

It turns out that the interest in investing in the Orlando City Soccer club came not just from the Orlando and the soccer communities, but also from some celebrities.

At this morning’s Urban Thought, Orlando City Soccer President Phil Rawlins said that both Elton John and Richard Branson had expressed interested in investing in Orlando City Soccer.

The investor that Rawlins was looking for at the time ended up coming from what he found to be an unusual place, the youth soccer league.

“One of the coaches came into my office and told me ‘I have a parent you need to meet,'” Rawlins told the crowd gathered at Snap! Space in Mills 50.

Knowing how soccer parents can be, he said he was quite hesitant .

Ten days later he met with Flavio Augusto da Silva, the parent of a thirteen year-old youth soccer player.

Two months later Augusto da Silva was the primary owner and investor in Orlando City Soccer.

Orlando City Soccer recently announced they will be entering the MLS in 2015 in their new stadium. They will play next year’s season at Disney.

Regarding the new stadium Rawlins said the goal is to “make it a passionate place to be and to make this the most difficult place for anyone else to play.”

For example they are focusing a lot on the roof design. He says it’s not there to keep the rain out or provide shade, “the roof is to keep the sound in.”

He admits it may not be the fanciest venue in Orlando “we can’t build the Amway center.” Instead he says “tt will be the coolest place to hangout in Orlando.”

At the event Rawlins also spoke about the impact soccer will have on the community including it’s impact on the downtown area and Parramore.

Urban Thought is moderated by Orlando developer Craig Uster and is put on by the non-profit UrbanThink Foundation (Website | Facebook). Urban Thought happens quarterly to bring “community-minded conversations with Orlando’s biggest thinkers.”

 

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  1. Hm. That seems like they’re cutting it close to finalize a design and construction in 15 months…the season starts March 2015. now that I think about it, I don’t even think they have all the land purchased at the site yet.

  2. No, most interesting was the fact that the Portuguese-language Orlando City facebook page already has over 220,000 likes!

  3. No details other than some design elements…I just updated the article with the conversation he had about the roof.