Austin Aztex Soccer Team Moving to Orlando

The Austin Aztex, just two weeks after wrapping up their winningest season, announced today the team has been sold and is moving to Orlando.

The announcement said the new owners were a UK-led consortium and the sale was contingent on the team relocating. Coach Phil Rawlins and the Aztex players will be making the move with the team, which will begin play in the new USL-Pro League in 2011.

Founded in 2008, the Aztex won 15 games this season - 10 more than in 2009 - and led the USSF D-2 Pro League in scoring with 55 goals in 30 games. Austin advanced to the league playoffs before being eliminated by the Montreal Impact.

Austin's home games were played at House Park, where in May they attracted the largest home crowd in franchise history (6,051). But the new ownership group wanted a soccer-specific stadium and the ability to sell alcohol at games. Plus the new USL-Pro League has teams primarily up and down the East Coast, so an Austin-based club would be isolated geographically, driving up travel expenses.

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By Jeff Beckham in Other on October 25, 2010 12:37 PM 0 Comments

Comments [rss]

kford1155

I think it may have something to do with the popularity of American football in Texas, don't you? Soccer is not yet a major league sport in its US hotbeds, and it will be a while until Austin is considered a major league town with or without the alcohol in the stadium.

EliKen.

Jay

As disappointing as this is, I have to agree that having a non soccer-specific stadium that was tied to AISD (i.e. no alcohol) was always going to be a problem for this team and Austin soccer in general.