128. San Antonio FC Is Reaching for the World Stage

Bob Rivard [00:00:03]:
Welcome to Big City, Small Town, the weekly podcast all about San Antonio and the people who make it go and grow. I'm your host, Bob Rivard. Our topic today is football, professional soccer in San Antonio and our hometown team, San Antonio FC. The local team was established here in 2014 as part of the Spurs Sports and Entertainment. We're joined in the studio today by San Antonio FC sporting director Marco Ferrussi and Jose Lizardo, director of Toyota Field and Star Soccer Complex. Let's get into the conversation. Happy to have you guys both on Big City, Small Town. Thanks for coming.

Marco Ferrussi [00:00:41]:
Thank you.

Bob Rivard [00:00:42]:
Let's start by telling our audience a little bit more about each of you. Marco, you go first.

Marco Ferruzzi [00:00:48]:
Well, sure. So now my current role, my capacity as sporting director with SAFC is to oversee the management of the first team and along with that, our academy, all of our staff, and all of the players that are involved with that entire group. I am a San Antonio native. I actually grew up here, went to school here.

Bob Rivard [00:01:12]:
Where'd you go to high school? Because I know you played soccer. We're going to talk about that.

Marco Ferrussi [00:01:15]:
I went to Keystone, basically kindergarten, kinder kindergarten through 12th grade. So can't speak too much about the high school athletics in those days. I think some things have changed. I heard that they got a gym eventually, so. But yeah, soccer was sparse there. While we did play it, it was a lot of club football that I played at that time. So between that and trying out with state team and regional team and national team for youth, that's where I really grew my proglivity for the sport and got some opportunities once I graduated to go play in college. So I left.

Bob Rivard [00:01:57]:
And you went to North Carolina, right?

Marco Ferrussi [00:01:59]:
I did. That's a soccer powerhouse. Yeah, we had. We had. We had a couple of good years while I was there. A couple of years where we wanted more, but definitely good programs there. For sure. Some good players came out of that.

Marco Ferrussi [00:02:11]:
That era. I still do. Um, but yeah, that's kind of when I started my journey outside of San Antonio in terms of playing highly competitive ball, professional, etc. And it essentially took me away from San antonio Till basically 24 when I came back. So in some capacity, I was playing or I was coaching or becoming part of management, and I. I did that for roughly 30 years outside of San Antonio. And when I got a call to come back home and take this project, I was more than ready.

Bob Rivard [00:02:49]:
That's great. Brought you full circle back to. Back to your hometown. And we're going to talk about the team and your Work there a lot here in the next hour. And Jose, what's your story?

Jose Lizardo [00:02:59]:
Yeah, no, mine from saying to you, but I got here. Where are you from? Dallas most of my life. First, I guess 18 years there. I did go to Trinity University here with. To play soccer for Paul McGinley. Yeah. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Still we talk weekly.

Jose Lizardo [00:03:20]:
He's great. He's been a huge help for us and you know, came back, started working with spurs person Entertainment on this project. The different capacity came in kind of managing the sponsorship of the team. Evolved then to the soccer side and was the director of soccer operations for three and a half years. And then the opportunity to. To step in as the leader of all the facilities, soccer facilities came. Came knocking about three and a half years ago and been in that role now kind of, I guess it oversee all the facilities, helping all the business side of it, and work with Marco hand in hand to see how we continue to make this project better every day.

Bob Rivard [00:04:07]:
Well, we should also say that Trinity University has a great Division 3 soccer tradition. You guys are contenders year in and year out. I don't know how you did in the year.

Jose Lizardo [00:04:15]:
Yeah, no, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Paul's got that thing. He's a machine. It's a machine in Division three. And no, no, they've done a great job. Both men and women's side have done a great job and they're maintaining. It's not easy to do every year in, year out and they've been able to do it.

Jose Lizardo [00:04:32]:
So no great people there. Still have a great relationship with everyone there, which is awesome.

Bob Rivard [00:04:36]:
Well, our original reason for wanting to do this program and do it about now is there's some really interesting outreach that you're doing at San Antonio FC with some of the clubs that we've developed relationships with through our sister cities program.

Marco Ferrussi [00:04:52]:
Right.

Bob Rivard [00:04:52]:
Both in Darmstadt, Germany and Las Palmas in the Canary Islands, which of course goes back to the founding of the city. So talk a little bit about that and where those plans stand today, right?

Marco Ferrussi [00:05:04]:
No, again, it's because of that relationship that the. The cities themselves have with each other that we were able to expand on this idea of making the connection with. With football, with soccer. So Jose, early days got in contact with their board of directors in both clubs and asked if they would be willing to take part in some meetings down here with city officials, but with the pretense of, you know, let's keep it about soccer because ultimately that's who we are speaking in terms of our clubs. Right. But we do share this commonality that we're all sister cities. So, you know, great reception from them. They came to San Antonio.

Marco Ferrussi [00:05:47]:
Both Las Palmas, both Darmstadt. Darmstadt was here recently, as a matter of fact, in Las Palmas, we just finished playing them in a friendly, which took basically about a year to organize, you know, so, you know, right from the get go, they were very much enamored with the idea of bringing back that connection of the sister city, but also how it could apply to football, how it could apply to our soccer. We've gone on visits, we've talked with people in their technical area, basically their coaches, etc. I've gone out and watched their, their teams play and perform with this idea of, you know, we also do share a common product. You know, how do we start integrating that? You know, the one thing about San Antonio is we are one of the best host cities in the world, right? So, you know, being sister cities, right away, Jose starts to think, we start to talk about, let's, let's, let's make this happen like a tournament. Let's, let's do something at the end of the year or let's bring them down one offs. Let's, let's see what we can actually do to kind of make a splash, right? But also on the back end, knowing that basically we go Sunday through Sunday talking about thinking about football. How can we actually work together in making both of our clubs successful as well, continue to be successful.

Marco Ferrussi [00:07:13]:
So we get on the topic of players, we get on the topic of coaching exchange, this type of things, and to be fair, we're still building the products.

Bob Rivard [00:07:21]:
How do we stack up versus clubs and professional clubs in those two European venues? Is there a rough equivalency, talent wise, performance wise? Maybe. How'd you do against La Palmas?

Marco Ferrussi [00:07:33]:
It was a very spirited game. Good game. I think at the end of the day, 1 0, we took a loss. All things being fair, not all of our first team players, not all of their first team players. It was a friendly, it was a friendly, but it was played in a great spirit. And I think the fans that went out there saw a really good game. They saw a lot of hope for the young players on both sides that are coming through, which was also very pleasing for all of us. On the technical side, what I would say is that we have players that definitely translate, you know, and there's definitely players over there that could come over here and have an impact.

Marco Ferrussi [00:08:11]:
You know, the ones that are in the top tier, top scale, they're there for a reason. And those clubs have been in existence for over 100 years. You know, we cracked our 10th year anniversary. It's not going to take us 90 years to catch up. But the game is still evolving, our players are still evolving. But these types of affiliations, partnerships, these types of projects really help us integrate better and get closer to those moments. So when we can get younger players in those environments where they're living that kind of day in and day out and seeing it's a little bit different. It's a little different than, you know, what I'm doing here in San Antonio competition that I'm used to.

Marco Ferrussi [00:08:53]:
This is where we can start to gain some ground.

Bob Rivard [00:08:56]:
So the. You've played Las Palmas. Do you have something on the schedule with the Darmstadt coming up?

Marco Ferrussi [00:09:01]:
Well, we're working on it. Jose is trying to find the third 13th month in the calendar because it again, we were talking about earlier, about that, the time difference between Europe and here in the States, but also the calendar difference of when we're playing games, preseason and etc. But you know, I'm not going to ask you for an update, Jose.

Jose Lizardo [00:09:22]:
No, no, no, Marco, hit it. It's an ongoing conversation. Again, to his point earlier, the Los Palmas game took us about a year to really plan and execute. So we're talking. I talked to Martin from Darmstead quite often and we're trying to see what date next year works. The goal for us, if we can get everything aligned, is for them to come and play us at some point in 2026. We haven't figured out that date yet, but we're getting closer and hopefully in the next couple months we'll be able to say, okay, this is the date and then the planning really starts. Right.

Jose Lizardo [00:09:55]:
We want to make sure they have an amazing experience here in San Antonio, which we do amazing at the city we know how to host. Like that's one of the things we do well and we want to make sure when they come that they have, yes, the game is the big, you know, highlight, but when they're here, we want them to understand and get to know San Antonio, our history. So working with everybody to make sure that those three, four days they're here is an experience. So they want to come back.

Marco Ferrussi [00:10:20]:
Right.

Bob Rivard [00:10:21]:
We'll watch for that date. Any, any talk at all of taking our team over there to either of those venues.

Marco Ferrussi [00:10:27]:
I think the first iteration is probably sending players, you know, and then also having some coaches go over and getting some auditing, if you will, peer, peer to peer education and sharing of, of just co coaching methodology. But in terms of getting some teams over there, you know, we might get a youth team over there a little bit earlier than we actually get our full professional team over there just because, you know, again, schedule and then maybe the ability to travel at some point during the year when everybody else is, you know, in their proper schedules. But these are all the things that are on the table. And again to the point of Lis, Palmers and Darmstadt, they've been absolutely open to everything. You know, again, every time they come here to San Antonio, we just come up with more ideas.

Bob Rivard [00:11:13]:
That's great.

Marco Ferruzzi [00:11:14]:
Well, and so in that it sounds like they've, they've had some good visits a few times, what were the conversations like about what the goals and objectives were with this partnership for say San Antonio FC and vice versa? You know, what are those clubs hoping to get out of this relationship with San Antonio and what is our club, you know, hoping to, to get likewise?

Jose Lizardo [00:11:35]:
I mean, I think from there, again from the business side is that they're trying to grow their brand in the States. They like every other big European club that comes over, see that the US is a huge market for them to grow and grow their fan base. For us, it's the same thing when we meet with Las Palmas, Darmstadt or any other club that's come to San Antonio visit. It's, that is how do we, how do we engage our community that support them from here? Again, it's been great. We use the sister city connection as that in and that's the real reason is they want to come, they want to learn from us. You know, obviously being and having the backing of SSNE is big. You know, part of the meetings when we get here is we get them in front of some of our leadership. At that point, you know, everyone thinks extremely highly of the spurs and as they should.

Jose Lizardo [00:12:21]:
So they come in, they spend time with our leadership and learn. It's a learning for both. And I think Marco can attest even on the protein side to learning how do we help each other get better in every aspect. And that's what they come in open minded and we sit down like this and we have food and we treat them to some really good Mexican food and ideas just start flowing. Honestly, it's like, hey, what about this? What about that? Things that we hadn't even thought about that by the end of three hours or like, oh, okay, well we can do those things. So yeah, it's open minded and just growing the brand and then learning. What can we learn from each other to get better?

Marco Ferruzzi [00:12:55]:
Well, Speaking along that, too, I'm curious, with those two clubs, one in La Liga and the other in the Bundesliga, with long, long histories, what are their reflections to y' all about San Antonio fc, contextually, the league that, that we're in, what are they saying as maybe here's some really good opportunities for the club to grow, you know, whatever that means, you know, both in performance and as a business and a brand?

Marco Ferrussi [00:13:20]:
I think I'll speak on the technical area. I think the feedback that we've gotten is that the brand of football, of soccer is in a very good way, that they see players with promise and talent. I think it's relatable to them. They do have another tier of players and competition that they play in and that they see all the time. And I think sometimes it's hard. It remains very abstract until you actually go spend some time in either place, because as I mentioned before, there are players that are translatable. But, you know, when is the right moment and who are those players at the right time to start to introduce them into that type of environment? And what can we do? And this is kind of the big one, because we have to operate in our own league, in our own market, in our own country in order to be successful. But, you know, many times, you know, and you can, you can do this with any sport, you know, the eyes are usually focused to the top tier of the sport.

Marco Ferrussi [00:14:22]:
So if you're a basketball player in Germany, you might be doing fantastic. But you want to know what is it like to play with the San Antonio spurs, right? So there's a little bit of the reverse always. And since our days of playing way back when, till today, you know, how do we get to that level? What can we do here to continue to raise our standards and raise our game? But in terms of how we're presenting the game on a Saturday, you know, and the competition that we're facing and the way that the fans come in and engage in the game, it's all proper football, 100%. You know, this doesn't look like something foreign to them. They. They sit there and they acknowledge and they say, yeah, you know, I can see some of this working 100%. But it's going to take time. It's always going to take time, and it's going to take stories.

Marco Ferrussi [00:15:09]:
It's going to take those movement of players and those playing of games and just that whole global integration of this game, you know?

Marco Ferruzzi [00:15:17]:
Well, and I. I think for San Antonians, it would be important to know, like, contextually what is the significance of the USL league? I think it's easy to think about, you know, having professional sports teams of any level. And likewise, you know, as you mentioned, always have your eye on the top level. You know, we're used to the spurs, the NBA, a lot of NBA success. What is the revel. Relevance, especially in contrast to maybe the mls, you know, here in the highest league in the US to, to having a USL team in San Antonio fc, which is recently as well won a championship equality, a team in that league. What is the significance of that for San Antonians who might not fully grasp.

Marco Ferrussi [00:15:55]:
Jose, you want to give a broad look since you've been here through all.

Jose Lizardo [00:15:58]:
Yeah, no, no, I think. Yeah, people always ask. It's a question, Ray, what's the difference? To me having been in this thing now for, for almost 10 years, the big difference is on the player side is budget, right? So I think we have a lot of very good players in the usl. We've had players throughout the league get moved to mls, actually be sold to European teams. We have a lot of players that play in national teams. You know, we've got players from our league playing in the Gold cup right now. We've had players on our team that have represented Salvador, Honduras, Trinidad and Tobago, Colombia. I mean, just different things.

Jose Lizardo [00:16:35]:
So it's. I think it's the, the depth is probably the biggest difference that I've seen is. And we were talking about this earlier, you know, we've got a roster size of say 24. We get a couple injuries and we feel those. Right. Whereas an MLS team has 30 and maybe they have a U23 team as well. And that just like in that level goes different. Real Madrid has 40 players, so they lose a pivot and it's nothing.

Jose Lizardo [00:17:00]:
So I think that's the biggest difference. Facility wise, we're very fortunate to have Toyota Field and Enrico Star Soccer Complex. We put that up against anybody, right? There's some things we can improve and yes, we're looking every day how can we improve those? But in terms of facil. Our stadium, again, not because I live it and because I rent, but it's, it's. We're very fortunate. And I think if you compare our stadium, our atmosphere to any of those MLS stadiums, it's on par. And again, yeah, ours is 9,000 and MLS is 18. That's probably the biggest difference.

Jose Lizardo [00:17:33]:
But how we run the teams, how we run game day, it's. It's the same level, honestly. If not, I'd say better. We, we do the Game production very, very well. And again, that's thanks to our, you know, ssne and investing and giving us that support that when you come here as a guest, when we've hold Los Palmas or we've hosted MLS teams or whoever, they leave, we have the national team. The national team gave us probably the biggest compliment we could ever get. The US nationally played here in chambers 24. They mentioned to us after the game that it had been the best experience they've had at a game from start to finish than anything in the last five years, any stadium in this country.

Jose Lizardo [00:18:16]:
And they've played in the biggest stadiums in this country. And they said, and that's not just me, it's our staff that we have that take the pride. We don't see it as a second division, we see it as a professional soccer team and we operate to be the best, no matter what level. When again, when they told us that, again, unsolicited, it was like, really? I was like, you know, you played X X, X. And they're like, from the time we landed, the time we left, top notch. And that's what we hang out of that. You know, when we go and try to recruit players, go try to bring Los Palomas to play, it's that we're going to take care of you, are going to treat you like you're the best club in the world from the time you get here. It's been a great recipe for success so far.

Marco Ferrussi [00:18:56]:
Mind you, that was coming off of a loss too. So, you know, they're usually not glowing.

Jose Lizardo [00:19:01]:
After a loss, but that's true.

Marco Ferrussi [00:19:02]:
They were happy.

Bob Rivard [00:19:04]:
You guys are off to a good start this season. You're in third place in the Western Conference of the USL. There's 20 teams there. This may be a little bit off topic, but in contrast to how they operate in elsewhere in the world, in soccer leagues, we don't have relegation in the United States. Is that ever a possibility that the 20 teams in the USL will be vying for one of the. I think there's what, 30 markets in the MSL right now? More or less correct.

Marco Ferrussi [00:19:34]:
In the MLS right now in USL, we have 12 markets in our league, one division which is just below us, and then we have 24 in in our division. And as we speak, the, the conversations are talking about adding another premier division above ours, which would in theory include some of the clubs that play right now in USL Championship in order to start a promotion relegation system as it exists everywhere else, really in the world. So what that would mean is that at some point in time, the teams, the league below us, League one would potentially promote two teams up into the next division, which we would call USL Championship. And in theory, two teams from USL Championship will move down. And the same thing for Division 1 and championship, moving up Division 1, sending two players or two teams down as well. So it is. There's a lot of things to work through. We have a target idea of 27, 28 trying to launch this.

Marco Ferrussi [00:20:44]:
There's a lot of talks going on between ownership groups, board of governors, technical committees. There's a great appetite for it, for the people that really just consume football as fans, you know. Yeah. And this is exciting to hear. It's appealing. I mean, even if you didn't come from that, all of a sudden, it makes October a lot different. You know, even if your team's not making the playoffs, is your team surviving? You know, and then those games become more watched sometimes than six playing five in the table, you know, so all of those things take on merit and then the, the idea of every game, every weekend takes on a whole new urgency. Right.

Marco Ferrussi [00:21:29]:
So we're right now in that process and the general feedback is overwhelmingly positive, pushing for that. But it's a new experiment here because again, you know, questions that come back to us is, so what are you going to do about playoffs? Well, you get relegation playoffs, you know, it's not quite the same, but, you know, are you willing to accept that the best team for the entire year is your champion? If they won the most points, you know, technically they're the champion. I think what we're used to doing here a lot is we'll call them champion, but we still want playoffs. And then they could be double champions and they could be conference champions and, you know, you know, trophies for everybody. But so that part will take a little bit of, you know, enculturation. You know, it's going to be a process. Right. But I think most people, like I said, have an appetite for it.

Marco Ferrussi [00:22:20]:
What we're trying to do is put presented in a way that it's not only sustainable for all the markets that we're talking about, but it's also appealing and accepted by the people that want to consume it.

Bob Rivard [00:22:33]:
That's exciting. And can I assume that soccer is still a, a growth sport in the United States at every level, and that that's one of the things that's fueling the change and, and, and the expansion and, and that that could drive it?

Marco Ferrussi [00:22:49]:
I, I think it's not slowing down. Yeah. Like right now. And then on the business, San Jose, far more versed on this than. Than I am. But, you know, right now, the numbers, and we've always talked about the numbers of inclusion of, of kids playing, playing soccer and trying to continuing that all the way through their high school years and beyond. Those numbers haven't slowed down. And then obviously the popularity on the women's side as well, and then the, the leagues that have come professionally for them as well, for on the women's side, all of it has just shown that there's, there's a big appetite and there's a lot of players playing and that there are places for, you know, finding the right structure for these leagues, the right way to broadcast those things.

Marco Ferrussi [00:23:35]:
All, all of those things clearly matter. If you want to survive, if you want to be sustainable, the, the, the interest and the idea to do it, it's definitely, you know, it's definitely there. That's not slowing down, doing it in a proper way so that it doesn't turn into something that was here today and then gone tomorrow and two years and then people, oh, that's, that's what happens with soccer. That's why it's not as good as X, Y and Z or that's why it doesn't work here. It's working here. It already is. I mean, we're 30 years into our top league, USL, some version of it has been around longer. You know, so the markets that are stable are stable and the interest that is there.

Marco Ferrussi [00:24:16]:
You know, we're talking about ourselves as, you know, a major city in the United States. You know, there's, there's more for us to. More people for us to even serve, for sure.

Jose Lizardo [00:24:25]:
I think really quick on that. I'll give you a little note. We had the privilege of working at FC Dallas together back my first job out of college, and I had again, Lamar Hunt, who was pretty much the godfather of soccer in this country in his last year or so. He was always. He worked out of our office at FC Dallas and he always spoke to everybody. It was amazing. Like he knew all my name. And one of the things that he, he mentioned to us, and it's something that I've always leaned on and talk about this growth of soccer.

Jose Lizardo [00:24:55]:
Is it still growing? He mentioned back then? Yes. Everyone keeps saying soccer's coming. It's been saying it for 30 years, it's coming, and it really hasn't taken a jump, but it is, it's coming. And one thing he mentioned to his dad, and again, it's always stuck with me is he Looked at me again. I was 22 at the year, 22 years old and the rest of the cells when I was. He said, when you guys are the breadwinners and making the decisions for your family is when soccer will be the top in this country. We're there now. And why is that important? Because for the first time, as I guess in our history, the people my age that have families, soccer is now first choice.

Jose Lizardo [00:25:34]:
And not football, not baseball, not basketball like our parents. Right. For the first time. Now myself, I'll give you a perfect example. I have three kids. If FC is playing or the spurs are playing, yes, we're spurs fans, but we're going to an S. AFC game first. And that's never been the case in the US Where a lot of the.

Jose Lizardo [00:25:53]:
Look at all the stadiums there. There are people that are in. It's a young crowd. It's. It's 25 to 40 years old. And for the first time ever, that decision maker at home is a soccer fan. They grew up playing soccer. Yes, they grew up playing baseball and everything else, obviously.

Jose Lizardo [00:26:08]:
But soccer was the first choice and that's why now soccer with this World cup might take that next leap finally, because all the disposable income is with soccer fans for the first time and not football fans and baseball fans like it's been in the past.

Marco Ferruzzi [00:26:25]:
Well, and what do you all see as the opportunities to. To grow SAFC's audience within the San Antonio market? Like how are our attendance rates currently? And where do you see opportunity to get people more aware and more invested in games and following the season?

Jose Lizardo [00:26:43]:
No, no, again, we're fortunate. We've got an amazing support so far, but there's opportunity for growth. We're not sold out every game, so there's definitely room, you know, we, for us, something we pride ourselves in and, and Marco is a huge help for this is, is we have to get in the community. We really believe that. I know a lot of teams say it, but we, we, we do everything we can to help. We do, you know, 10 to 20 clinics throughout the city of San Antonio for free. And we go and just, just to introduce kids, not just sac, but soccer and how easy. All you need is a soccer ball.

Jose Lizardo [00:27:15]:
Literally you can make a go out of anything. And that's kind of what our message is. Hey, play keeps people active. It's healthy, keeps everyone healthy. But San Antonio is literally getting on the community and just being in front of kids. Right. We've got an opportunity to shape these kids, I guess minds if we go out there. Yesterday, we had actually a clinic for a school for 40 kids with two players.

Jose Lizardo [00:27:39]:
They go out there, and now those kids, through our foundation, are going to get some tickets to the game. And you know what? They want to go see Luke, who was the coach, who was their coach, who's one of our players. And now they come to the game and they're here. They may not know SAFC, what it is really, but they know Coach Luke, and now they're a fan of Coach Luke. And God forbid Coach Luke scores a goal, and now it's fandom. Now that's their player, and that's how we grow it. And again, we. We've.

Jose Lizardo [00:28:04]:
We. That's. Our approach is very much in the community using. Our biggest asset is our players. Marco's done an amazing job of recruiting players that are good people, like amazing people.

Bob Rivard [00:28:16]:
That's the spurs tradition, too.

Marco Ferrussi [00:28:19]:
No. Yeah, that's part of the SS and ethos, you know, being in the community and giving something back. So it comes very natural, you know, just to be part of that ecosystem. And again, the people that we. We hire and that we work with, not only do we try to model it, but, you know, we invite people to come and be a part of that because it does have that, you know, constant ripple effect. You know, this is how, at some point in time, all of us got engaged into, if not this game, into something, you know, because people, you know, there was outreach, you know, so, yeah, being in the community, as Jose said, it's. It's something that has never looked lightly on. It's.

Marco Ferrussi [00:28:56]:
It's something that's always appreciated from both sides. And I think, you know, the dividends will only show down the road. You know, how many more people are invested and committed to, you know, either follow this sport or be a part of this sport or take the journey a little bit further. But, you know, I also just happen to think it's great for, you know, our young players, our young, young professionals to also do that and give back. They were. They were. They do remember, they were seven years old once.

Bob Rivard [00:29:29]:
Well, also, Jose, a big selling point for you has to be affordability, because a family can go to a San Antonio FC game and afford to go with the kids and everybody.

Jose Lizardo [00:29:38]:
Yeah. No, no. And that's part of it, right? We want to make. We want to be accessible to everybody. We. Last thing we want to hear is that I can't bring my family because I. I can't afford it. That, to us, is a blow.

Jose Lizardo [00:29:47]:
That's not what we're about. We want you to experience it. We want this to be a team again. I keep saying community, but it's. It's on everything we do. We hosted a three to one night, which is the pricing of certain Items. So like $3 popcorn, $2 sodas, $1 beer. We have those kind of themes throughout the.

Jose Lizardo [00:30:03]:
The course of the season to be able to be more affordable. Right. So we want a family of four to be able to come to a game for $60, which is what we spend at a movie theater these days. Right. And. And that's part of it. Absolutely. We, again, if we ever hear a family that says they can't afford it, we're not.

Jose Lizardo [00:30:20]:
We're not doing something. Right. Yeah.

Marco Ferruzzi [00:30:23]:
Is there any talk of, like, formalizing into some sort of youth academy? Are those clinics just individualized or is it something that, you know, kids will end up playing for an SFA fc?

Marco Ferrussi [00:30:35]:
Yeah, no, great question. We have both of those things, and they're both separate. So our SAFC Academy has actually existed now for going on 10 years. Okay. I believe in 2016 it was formalized. What we have right now is essentially about 220 players between ages of 12 through 19. Okay. That are in our academy pipeline.

Marco Ferrussi [00:31:00]:
And many of them train with our first team.

Jose Lizardo [00:31:04]:
Wow.

Marco Ferrussi [00:31:05]:
Yeah. Which is, which is a great thing. Great experience. The idea being, you know, this could be for you. The other idea is, you know, maybe you're not ready yet. And the next pathway is something else. University, you know, know, Trinity Saint Mary. We have guys going to, from our academy to all of the schools here in San Antonio and beyond, also outside of Texas, which is great.

Marco Ferrussi [00:31:27]:
The, the clinics is something, as Jose mentioned, it's something that we do in the city, in the surrounding metroplex. This is more of community outreach and engaging, you know, whether it's schools, small, small youth clubs, et cetera. But the camps and the clinics that we are instituting as we speak, and we've just done some in collaboration with Las Palmas in last December. We did one last week with Darmstadt where they came over and they worked with our coaches, and we had probably 40 to 60 kids out for a week of summer camp. Those are all things that we've just introduced this last year. Now, what goes on from there is, you know, again, opportunity for kids to do something different in the summer and see, you know, some kind of different summer camp programming. Right. All with soccer at its.

Marco Ferrussi [00:32:26]:
At its heart. Do they have an opportunity to come and train and try out for one of our SAFC teams? Absolutely. You know, one of the purposes of having that youth club is to be able to bring in kids from the community and give them future opportunities. And again, like I said, they don't all take the same pathway at the same time. And some of them do not reach the professional landscape. Right. But giving them an opportunity and if they can make those teams or make an adjacent team or just have an experience, because we do have all of those teams within our club, the ones that we are right now overseeing is our academy pipeline, which is what we would call probably the elite pathway of players that are definitely trying to go more professionalized. Right.

Marco Ferrussi [00:33:22]:
There's talks about how we move forward from that to kind of engage with even more potential players. But right now to your question, we're happy to announce that we have all of those things right now happening. The camps, the clinics, and our academy.

Marco Ferruzzi [00:33:39]:
Excellent. Well, I think y' all, this might be a wonderful place to wrap up. But before we do, let us know what, what games are down the pipeline. You just had the three, two, one night this last Saturday. How long does this season run? You know, what game should people look out for to make sure that they come out to Toyota Field?

Jose Lizardo [00:33:58]:
Yeah, I know. So our season will go through. Regular season ends October 25th, and hopefully Marco's gonna give us a new three games at home. No pressure.

Bob Rivard [00:34:08]:
No pressure.

Jose Lizardo [00:34:09]:
Yeah, so we've, yeah, we're kind of halfway through the season, but yeah, we've got a packed July now that we've got a few games in July, last two weekends of July, then in first weekend of August and then we're away. But yeah, if people just. Again, we've got games through October 25th, so come out, enjoy. Again, we've got some crazy theme nights coming up that again, if it's, if, if soccer is not your thing, but you just want to enjoy a sporting event, come out, we've got something on game day for, for everybody again, whether it's a dollar beer or we've got some mascots out for the kids. And then again, obviously the main event, the soccer game, I think if you're not a fan and I think when you go to a game, you realize the intensity of a game. Like that's. I think if you've never been to a game, you'll realize how non stop, first off, running. These guys run 8 miles, 10 miles a game.

Jose Lizardo [00:34:58]:
But the intensity of it is crazy in the way the facility sits. You feel it, you're very close to the pitch. So you, you see the, the hits and you feel it and it's a, it's a cool experience. So come out. We invite everybody coming out and enjoy. I think you'll, you'll fall in love with it. If you've never been.

Bob Rivard [00:35:13]:
Well, that's great. It's wonderful to have both of you guys, Jose and Marco, in the studio. And best wishes to San Antonio FC as the season continues. And we'll see you at Toyota Field.

Marco Ferrussi [00:35:23]:
Thank you. Thank you guys for everything you do for San Antonio.

Jose Lizardo [00:35:26]:
Yeah, thank you.

Bob Rivard [00:35:30]:
Thanks for joining us for this episode of Big City Small Town. Please share this episode with friends and colleagues and if you haven't already, sign up for Monday Musings, my weekly newsletter. Just go to bigcity small town.com and add your email. Big City Small Town is brought to you by Western Urban Building, the city our children want to call home, and by Geekdom, where startups are born and smart ideas become businesses. Thanks to Corey Ames of Ensemble, Texas for the production of this show. We will see you next week.