OL Reign moving pro women’s soccer out of Tacoma, back to Seattle to play at Lumen Field
Tacoma is losing its professional women’s soccer team back to Seattle.
OL Reign announced Wednesday it was moving its home games out of Tacoma’s Cheney Stadium to Seattle’s Lumen Field. The change to play games at the home stadium of the NFL’s Seahawks and Sounders of Major League Soccer begins with the start of the 2022 season in the National Women’s Soccer League.
“We are grateful for the support of the community in Tacoma, and especially for the efforts of all the individuals and organizations who worked so hard on the new stadium project,” OL Reign CEO Bill Predmore said in a statement the team issued Wednesday morning.
“In particular, the support of Mayor Woodards — who from the start was our biggest fan in Tacoma — will always be appreciated by our organization.”
The team previously known as Seattle Reign FC relocated to Tacoma and Cheney Stadium, home of Triple-A baseball’s Rainiers, in January 2019.
Prior to that, the Reign played home games at Memorial Stadium under the Space Needle at Seattle Center.
The decision to move to Seattle two years ago “was made with the expectation that Cheney Stadium would serve as an interim solution while a soccer-specific stadium was designed and constructed in Tacoma through a public/private partnership between the Seattle Sounders, Tacoma Rainiers, City of Tacoma, and Metro Parks Tacoma,” the Reign said in its statement Wednesday.
“The new soccer-specific stadium was envisioned to be ready for the start of the 2022 NWSL season. Work on the stadium project was suspended in early 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“In 2021, in an effort to revitalize the project, OL Reign took the lead on revising the feasibility study to assess the viability of a larger, 10,000 seat stadium that could accommodate the anticipated future growth of the club. Given the results of the revised feasibility study from both a cost and timing perspective, it became clear that developing a 10,000 seat stadium in Tacoma was not a viable option at this time.”
Reign coach Laura Harvey said her aim was always to have her team play in Lumen Field in Seattle.
“This has been the goal since my first day in Seattle,” Harvey said in a team statement. “To see how far this team and the league have come in nine years is incredible. We may not have always had the resources, but we always had the vision, the ambition, and the drive to be something special. Coupling the club’s historic DNA with the support that OL provides has resulted in something magical. I am so happy for the players that they’ll finally have the chance to show the city what they can do in a stadium worthy of their talents.”
The team said it concluded moving now to Lumen Field would give its fans the best possible match-day experience for the 2022 season.
Lumen Field has a maximum capacity of 68,740 seats. The Seattle stadium and OL Reign have agreed to open the stadium “gradually in conjunction with the attendance starting with seating on the lower east stadium bowl. Club seating, suites, and other premium seating options will also be available,” the Reign statement said.
This story was originally published December 15, 2021 at 11:31 AM.
