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All assets associated with the tag: The Soccer Tournament

The Soccer Tournament Coverage

Both of the Triangle's professional soccer teams will compete in the all-star The Soccer Tournament (TST) coming in June to WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary.

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The Soccer Tournament, or TST, will once again take place at WakeMed Soccer Park from June 5-10. The 7v7 event will reward separate $1M winner-take-all prizes for the winning teams in the men's and women's tournaments.

ME AND 3 INTERCEPTIONS. NOTRE DAME'S XAVIER WATTS WON THE AWARD IN CHARLOTTE TONIGHT. >> THE SOCCER TOURNAMENT MADE INTERNATIONAL HEADLINES THIS PAST JUNE FOR ITS INAUGURAL EVENT. AND IT WAS SO SUCCESSFUL THAT THE EVENT'S FOUNDER SAYS THEY ARE COMING BACK TO CARRY IN 2024. >> IT'S OBVIOUSLY AN AREA THAT'S VERY MUCH UP AND COMING IN THE ONE AREA THAT WE PERSONALLY WANT TO INVEST. >> THE TST WILL BE BA CK IN CA ARE WHY SUCCESSFUL FIRST ATTEMPT MEANS AN EVEN LARGER SECOND ATTEMPT. AND WE START WITH A SELL WE SOLD 35,000 TICKETS OVER 4 DAYS LAST YEAR, WHICH FAR SURPASSED OUR EXPECTATIONS. NOW THE TOURNAMENT IS EXPANDING FROM 4 DAYS TO 6. >> WITH THE HOPES OF EXPANDING EVEN FURTHER IN THE FUTURE. A MODEL FOR THIS IS ALWAYS THE U.S. OPEN TENNIS AND THAT THAT EXISTS FOR I THINK, 11 PLUS DAYS. AND SO WE'RE GROWING FROM 4 DAYS TO 6 DAYS NOW, THERE WAS A WOMEN'S TEAM THAT COMPETED AGAINST MEN'S TEAMS THIS YEAR. >> NOW THERE WILL BE A TEAM WOMEN'S TOURNAMENT WHERE THE WINNING PRIZE IS 1 MILLION DOLLARS IN THE MEN'S TOURNAMENT EXPANDS FROM 32 TEAMS TO 48. >> WITH A MILLION ON THE LINE AND THAT ONE ALSO IT'S CRAZY TO THINK ABOUT THAT FOR HOURS OF ELITE LEVEL SOCCER WILL NET THE TEAM A MILLION DOLLARS. >> SO THAT'S UNPRECEDENTED IN WOMEN'S SPORTS AND ESPECIALLY WOMEN SOCCER TO HAVE THAT KIND OF PAY OUT SOME BIG NAME. CELEBS SHOWED UP IN CARY THIS YEAR TOURNAMENT FOUNDER AND CEO JOHN MOVE. OUR SAYS TO EXPECT EVEN MORE IN 2024, WE'RE IN CONVERSATIONS WITH SOME VERY EXCITING PERSONALITIES AND TEAMS THAT PEOPLE WILL HAVE HEARD OF AND I THINK WILL SURPRISE A LOT OF PEOPLE. >> HOW MUCH IS IT SEEN? WHO'S GOING TO COME? I MEAN, LAST YEAR YOU JUST HAD CHRIS PAUL AND STEVE NASH AND CHAD OCHO. CINCO JOHNSON JUST KIND OF RANDOMLY WALKING AROUND. WHO ELSE IS GOING TO COME? WE'LL SEE NEXT YEAR IN JUNE.

The Soccer Tournament returning to Cary in 2024, adding $1M women's tournament

<p>All right, joining me right now is uh the founder and owner of uh the T BT and the TST, the basketball tournament and the soccer tournament. John Mugar. Thank you so much for your time and for the Raleigh area, uh you, there's a lot of excitement around the soccer tournament earlier this year. And uh now, uh the TST has announced that it'll be back in, in Kerry for 2024. Uh Why was it important for you to uh to bring this tournament back to Kerry? What was it uh about this uh this place, this location uh this year that made you guys want to come back for a second time. Yeah. Thanks for having me, Chris. We start with the sellout. Uh We sold 35,000 tickets over four days last year which far surpassed our expectations. So the community really came out um in force and supported us in our event. So we wanted to make sure to, to come back again. Uh And our teams just gave us great feedback as far as the location goes and travel to and from. Uh they, they love the amenities and it worked out great. Wow. Uh, 35,000 tickets. That's, that's definitely a lot. Um, you know, with the addition of, uh, the women's tournament, there's gonna be a women's portion of the tournament with eight teams being there. Uh, plus, uh, it looks like, uh, maybe a couple extra days, looks like you guys have an opportunity to maybe sell even more tickets in 2024. Our model for this is always us open tennis and that, that exists for, I think 11 plus days. And so we're growing from four days to six days now, but we love that festival vibe and that feel that they have for tennis and we want this to be soccer's version of that. So we love the growth. That's awesome. Um uh You said the festival vibe? Is there any other additions that maybe you guys are possibly planning on for uh next year's CST for us? It's all about the, the food. Uh For me personally, it's all about the food always, but especially for this event, we want to get a lot more creative with that and then it's all about the, the 56 teams that we'll be announcing. Uh We're, we're in conversations with some very exciting personalities and teams that people will have heard of and I think will surprise a lot of people. So it's gonna be a great product and a great step up from last year. I think that was also one of the exciting parts for last year as well when you can walk in and see Steve Nash, uh you know, play soccer or see somebody like Chad Johnson. Chad Ocho, ocho Sino Johnson playing soccer or even Chris Paul kind of hanging out. It was, uh definitely like a, a who's who and other people from other sports were ingratiating themselves in uh the world of soccer. How important is that to you, uh to the growth of, of the sport and also to the growth of this particular tournament. It's huge. I think, I love that crossover support that we saw in TST last year. I'm very much a casual soccer fan myself. So I look at it through that lens and I know the rest of our team does. Um We, we love when o when other athletes and prominent celebrities and personalities from other sports are supporting it, we like the version of the game that we put on, which is maybe less formal than what traditional soccer fans are used to with all games ending on a goal and that's really the product we wanna put out there. Uh And actually, that's kind of where I was gonna go next. Uh with, uh I was gonna see what was the feedback from the television partners, maybe the feedback from the fan base with, you know, the, the smaller um you know, fields every game ending on a goal. How, how was that received by everybody who was kind of involved. Last year, we anecdotally on site. People loved it. People were bouncing back and forth from game ending to game ending and we put out surveys after the event, 97% of, uh, of our players loved it and 95% of our fans loved it too. So it was a great debut for that format. We've been using it in basketball for five years now where all games end on a main basket. We call it the elam ending in basketball and for soccer it's target score time and all games end on a goal. And a lot of times you had players ripping their shirt off and jumping over fences and celebrating with the crowd and that's exactly what we want to do. Um, let's dive a little bit further into, uh, the women's portion of this where, you know, you're gonna have some women's teams and of course, there's a million dollars on the line there and makes it one of the, I guess the richest, uh, you know, women's soccer tournament, um, you know, prize in, in the, in the world. Why was it important for you to add this portion of it to, uh, the soccer tournament to, um, to have this, these additional teams? Yeah, it's, it's crazy to think about, but four hours of elite level soccer will net a team a million dollars. So that's unprecedented in women's sports and especially women's soccer to have that kind of payout. But last year we had a great experience with Heather o'reilly putting in the US women's team. Um Heather being a local celebrity, of course from, uh, played at UN C and went off to an incredible career from there and talking to her last year at our event and then seeing how, how well the crowd responded to her team, we knew we wanted to do something pretty bold, uh, with, with her and with the women's game. So eight teams will come to carry to compete for a million dollars. It'll be unlike anything that anyone's ever seen before, I think in women's sports, it's pretty cool. And, uh, one of the things that, um, I thought went pretty well for you guys and hopefully you see it this way as well. You guys were able to really turn something negative into a positive when the racial slur incident happened and then immediately, uh there was uh transparency in how you guys were handling it. It was handled. Uh, and it's felt like the, the team that was uh involved in it on, on the, on the receiving end, they were happy with how it was handled. And even somebody like Anton Ferdinand, who is a large international soccer star saying, you know, hey, this has been handled better than any other thing that I've ever gone through in my entire time playing soccer. And he's, you know, he's been playing at one of the highest levels uh in the world for a long time. Um How proud of you are, are moments like that and how does that kind of set a precedent you think for other tournaments, uh to kind of handle things like that? And nip it in the bud that quickly? Yeah, our, our team did a great job, uh in, in facing that and, and then we have a very short timeline for our investigation for something like that. So we had to run through and talk to everybody very quickly and I'm very proud of how we handled that. It's one of those things where nobody wants it to happen, neither team wanted it to happen. We didn't want it to happen and everyone just immediately comes down and says, ok, what's the best solution and the best way to proceed from here? And fortunately, all parties really agreed uh right away that, that uh at the outcome that we saw last year. So I'm, I'm happy with how we handled it and how our teams responded as well. And uh just in general with the uh with the area, you spoke a little bit about it uh earlier with uh how the ease of getting in and out. Um But um you know, what is it a outside of some of that uh is that was uh accommodating for you guys uh from the Raleigh North Carolina area. It's just, it has everything to offer. And we, we had a lot of teams fly in from overseas Chris last year and uh it's really easy to get in and out of Raleigh. Um There's, there's great amenities, great food on the ground. Um It, it just provided a great experience for, for teams traveling in internationally and then from all across the country. So we didn't know how that would go with being our first year event, but we found that the feedback was phenomenal. Um It's obviously an area that's very much up and coming in and in one area that we personally want to invest in.</p>

Mugar on TST in Cary: It's an area that's up and coming and one we want to invest in

TST Tournament CEO Jon Mugar

The Soccer Tournament, or TST, will once again take place at WakeMed Soccer Park from June 5-10.



The Soccer Tournament returning to Cary, adding $1M women's tournament

The Soccer Tournament in Cary at the WakeMed Soccer Park  

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Newtown Pride FC will face SLC FC in the first championship game of The Soccer Tournament, the 7 vs. 7 worldwide tournament taking place at WakeMed Soccer Park in Cary.

