TACOMA, WA— All signs are pointing to the arrival of professional soccer in Tacoma as the Seattle Sounders and Tacoma Rainiers have announced a press conference for Wednesday night at the City of Destiny’s most famous soccer bar, Doyle’s.

A few weeks back SounderAtHeart.com broke the news that Sounders FC 2 (S2) were planning to move to Tacoma for the start of the 2018 United Soccer Leagues (USL) season.

The Sounders and Tacoma Rainiers of Triple A baseball’s Pacific Coast League have been in talks for a while now about moving the Sounders reserve squad to Tacoma.

In May of 2017 the two parties released a statement in regards to plans for a soccer-specific stadium to host S2.

While the stadium is not yet under construction, it seems likely that tonight we will be hearing that S2 are moving to Tacoma anyway, perhaps to play at Cheney Stadium until one can be built.

The last time Tacoma had fully professional outdoor soccer was back in 1976 when the Tacoma Tides played at old Cheney Stadium for a single season.

MLS, USL searching for authentic ‘soccer sweet spot’

There are plenty of questions about the way the Sounders and Rainiers will handle the Sounders Community Trust and its connection with S2. Originally the side was meant to be another way fans could show their support of the Sounders. However interest and attendance in S2 dropped drastically after the first season. In 2017 S2 averaged 1,097 fans per match at Starfire Sports Complex in Tukwila. That was 26th-best in a league of 30 teams.

MLS clubs are mandated to have reserve teams in the USL, but the trend is for those clubs to be elsewhere and branded differently. Just recently Vancouver’s USL side, Whitecaps 2, were revealed to be moving and rebranding to Fresno, California.

A case of trying to ‘get it right’ from a place and branding concept are Bethlehem Steel FC. They are the USL (reserves) entry of the MLS Philadelphia Union. However they took the name of a famous Pennsylvania side and were planted in a different town in efforts to establish their own mark and soccer credibility outside of ‘reserve status.’

Tides and Tide

Tacoma does have its own outdoor soccer history. While the Tacoma Stars of indoor soccer are the most famous club from the city, the earlier mentioned Tides were followed years later by the Tacoma Tide, a club that represented the city from 2006-2011 before they were rebranded as the Sounders U23 and moved to Sumner.