Consulting Firm Finds Nashville Supporting NWSL or WNBA Franchise | Sports affairs
A women’s professional sports franchise in Nashville came close to reality on Wednesday when sports management consulting firm CAA ICON presented the results of its strategic assessment of the Women’s Sports Initiative to the Ad Hoc Women’s Professional Sports Committee. of the Metro Sports Authority.
Of the approximately 4,400 online surveys collected by local colleges, professional franchises and management professionals as part of the $ 75,000 assessment, CAA ICON found that 53% of respondents were in favor of the Adding a National Women’s Soccer League or Women’s National Basketball Association team, 80 percent supported a professional women’s team based on sport, and 14 percent did not support City adding a professional women’s sports franchise.
The surveys asked participants to express their interest in six different professional women’s sports: basketball, soccer, hockey, softball, volleyball and indoor football.
“When you look at when the Titans and Predators came to the area, there were 1.4 million people (in the Nashville area),” said Bryan Slater, senior director of CAA Icon. “There are now 2.2 million people. This growth is expected to continue. This is part of the reason for so much optimism about supporting a new team.”
Nate Rau of Axios Nashville reported that the next steps for the initiative include CAA ICON to conduct an Economic Impact Analysis to be presented to the Board of Directors next month to determine how much revenue a professional women’s franchise would bring to Nashville .
An NWSL team seems more likely given that a stadium-sharing deal could almost certainly be struck with Nashville SC to share the use of the club’s new 30,000-seat MLS stadium at the Nashville Fairgrounds – the largest specific stadium in the United States. football in the United States
Finding a facility for a WNBA franchise would prove more difficult financially. Axios mentioned that Bridgestone Arena, which hosts the SEC men’s basketball tournament every year and will host the women’s tournament in 2022, may be too large to accommodate the average WNBA crowd, and the Municipal Auditorium, which used to be used for watering. male and female OVC tournament, would need significant improvements to function as a WNBA site.
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