Lights goalie Thomas Olsen stretches while the smoke after a Lights goal lingers at Cashman Field tonight.
Lights 

Lights FC Shedding Circus Act Reputation From Season 1, Getting Down To Business Of Winning Soccer Games In Season 2

Alan Snel

 

 

By Alan Snel

LVSportsBiz.com

 

LVSportsBiz.com photos by J. Tyge O’Donnell

 

In Season 2, the Las Vegas Lights FC are getting down to business.

 

It’s the business of playing soccer and focusing on the product on the pitch in Year 2 vs. the circus act of a soccer team in Year 1 in 2018.

 

The Lights defeated the Colorado Springs Switchbacks, 3-0, at Cashman Field, where Las Vegas’ United Soccer League team is the sole tenant now that the old 51s/Las Vegas Aviators have moved into their sparkling new $150 million ballpark in Summerlin.

 

Last year’s team finished a lame 15th out of 17 Western Conference teams with only only eight wins out of 34 games and had a coach who didn’t finish the season and was known for smoking a cigarette with fans in the stands after he was booted from a game.

 

But this year’s team is in the top third in the Western Conference under the guidance of coach Eric Wynalda and have won five, lost four and tied two after 11 games.

 

Attendance is in the top five in the United Soccer League for the Lights and the team has made in-roads with schools and youth soccer teams because literally hundreds of kids who fulfilled reading goals were on the field with free tickets before the game for the pre-game events.

 

Attendance was announced at 7,023, though there were lots of freebie tickets redeemed at the turnstiles on a pleasant Las Vegas evening tonight.

 

There’s no circus acts in Season 2 — just a soccer team looking to make a name or itself in a crowded Las Vegas sports market that will add the WNBA Las Vegas Aces later this month for that team’s second season in Las Vegas, too.

 

 

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Alan Snel

Alan Snel brings decades of sports-business reporting experience to LVSportsBiz.com. Snel covered the business side of sports for the South Florida (Fort Lauderdale) Sun-Sentinel, the Tampa Tribune and Las Vegas Review-Journal. As a city hall beat reporter, Snel also covered stadium deals in Denver and Seattle. In 2000, Snel launched a sport-business website for FoxSports.com called FoxSportsBiz.com. After reporting sports-business for the RJ, Snel wrote hard-hitting stories on the Raiders stadium for the Desert Companion magazine in Las Vegas and The Nevada Independent. Snel is also one of the top bicycle advocates in the country.

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