WPSL have hit the six team minimum for the D3 professional league they are slating to start next year. Those six are:
Austin Rise FC, who joined the WPSL in 2023. They finished fourth in the eight team Texas Triangle Conference.
Oklahoma City FC, joined in 2007. They most recently finished fourth of five teams in the Red River Conference.
South Star FC tied OKC. I’m not sure when they joined the amateur league.
Sioux Falls City FC, joined in 2022 and finished third in the ten team Northern Conference
The Town FC, joining as a pro club in Oakland.
Georgia Impact, joined last year and finished third of nine in the Southeast Conference.
It’s hard not to see Sean Jones’s fingerprints on this, since his OKC FC is the oldest organization in this group by a distance. The project director is Benno Nagel of The Town. In case you are unaware, Jones is the current chairman of the WPSL.
Along with a minimum of six teams, Division 3 professional teams are required to play at a stadium with a 1000 seat capacity and to have various mechanisms of financial viability:
“League must demonstrate adequate financial viability to ensure continued operation on a season-by-season basis either in the form of a performance bond or similar instrument for each team in the amount of twenty thousand US dollars, or readily-available league funds representing such amounts. The funds will be used to cover the costs of the teams’ operations (including, without limitation, player and staff salaries and wages, stadium lease commitments and third party vendor obligations in addition to commitments by each team to the league) for a season, should that become necessary. Any team whose performance bond is used during the season will be required to replenish it at least 120 days prior to the next season. ii. Each team ownership group must demonstrate the financial capacity to operate the team for three years. As part of the process of demonstrating financial capacity, each ownership group must provide detailed financial history (if applicable) and projections (including a detailed budget) for the team to the Federation in a form satisfactory to the Federation. In addition, each team must have and its governing documents must designate one principal owner with a controlling interest who owns at least 35% of the team and has authority to bind the team. Such principal owner must have an individual net worth of at least five million US dollars, exclusive of the value of his/her ownership in the league or team and his/her primary personal residence. Federation shall have the right to require an independent audit to establish that the principal owner’s net worth meets this requirement; the cost of such audit shall be the responsibility of the team or league. The Federation will take reasonable steps to protect from disclosure and limit access to financial information provided under this section.”
Honestly, those financial requirements seem a bit invasive but I have to think the millionaires in question have less of an issue with it. By the 2028 season, there must be eight functioning teams, which given the league is advertising a ten-team launch, shouldn’t be outside the realms of possibility.
