Athletic Club Boise is a professional

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

club based in

Garden City, Idaho Garden City is a city in Ada County, Idaho. The population was 12,316 at the time of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Garden City is nearly surrounded by Boise, Idaho, Boise but retains a separate municipal government. Garden City w ...

. It plans to field a men's team in

USL League One USL League One (USL1) is a professional men's association football, soccer league in the United States that had its inaugural season in 2019 USL League One season, 2019. The United States soccer league system, Division III league is operated ...

and a women's team in the

USL Super League The USL Super League (USLS), officially known as the Gainbridge Super League for sponsorship reasons, is a professional women's soccer league and the highest level of the United States soccer league system, alongside the National Women's Socce ...

, in the third and first tiers of the United States league system, respectively. The club will play its home games at a new

soccer-specific stadium A soccer-specific stadium, mainly in the United States and Canada, is a sports stadium either purpose-built or fundamentally redesigned for soccer and whose primary function is to host soccer matches, as opposed to a multi-purpose stadium whic ...

at the Expo Idaho grounds. The club, owned by Brad Stith, Steve Patterson, David Wali and Bill Taylor, was announced by USL on October 30, 2024.

History

Boise was named a potential market for a

United Soccer League The United Soccer League (USL) is an organizer of various professional and amateur soccer leagues in the United States league system. It currently organizes its Championship, League One, and League Two for men, its Super League and W Leag ...

team in the 2010s amid several friendlies and other matches that showed local interest. Jeff Eiseman, the owner of the minor-league

Boise Hawks The Boise Hawks are an independent baseball team of the Pioneer League, which is not affiliated with Major League Baseball (MLB) but is an MLB Partner League. Home games are played at Memorial Stadium in unincorporated Ada County, Idaho, near ...

baseball team, stated that negotiations had been underway for several years with the league but never established franchise rights with the USL. A

friendly match An exhibition game (also known as a friendly, scrimmage, demonstration, training match, pre-season game, warmup match, or preparation match, depending at least in part on the sport) is a sport, sporting event whose prize money and impact on th ...

between

La Liga The Campeonato Nacional de Liga de Primera División, commonly known as the Primera División or La Liga, and officially known as LaLiga EA Sports for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Spain and the highest ...

club

Athletic Bilbao Athletic Club (; ), commonly known as Athletic Bilbao (), or simply Athletic, is a professional Football club (association football), football club based in the city of Bilbao in the Southern Basque Country, Basque Country, Spain. They are known ...

and

Liga MX Liga MX, also known as Liga BBVA MX for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Mexico and the highest level of the Mexican football league system. Formerly known as Liga Mayor (1943–1949) and also as Primera Divis ...

club

Tijuana Tijuana is the most populous city of the Mexican state of Baja California, located on the northwestern Pacific Coast of Mexico. Tijuana is the municipal seat of the Tijuana Municipality, the hub of the Tijuana metropolitan area and the most popu ...

in July 2015 drew an attendance of 21,948 at

Albertsons Stadium Albertsons Stadium is an outdoor athletic stadium in the Western United States, located on the campus of Boise State University in Boise, Idaho. It is the home of the Boise State Broncos of the Mountain West Conference. Known as Bronco Stadium f ...

, the football stadium used by the

Boise State Broncos The Boise State Broncos are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent Boise State University, located in Boise, Idaho. The Broncos compete at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I level as a member of the Mount ...

. A 2016

USL Championship The USL Championship (USLC) is a men's professional association football, soccer league in the second tier of the United States soccer league system#Men's leagues, United States league system. It is organized by the United Soccer League (USL) a ...

match between

Portland Timbers 2 Portland Timbers 2 is an American professional soccer team based in Portland, Oregon. The team, often referred to as "T2", serves as the reserve squad for the Portland Timbers of Major League Soccer (MLS). The team was a member of the USL Champ ...

and the

Swope Park Rangers Sporting Kansas City II is a MLS Next Pro club affiliated with Sporting Kansas City of Major League Soccer. For the 2022 season they will play their home games at Kansas Jayhawks, Rock Chalk Park at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas, ...

was watched by a sold-out crowd of 4,352 spectators at Rocky Mountain High School in

Meridian, Idaho Meridian is a city located in Ada County, Idaho, Ada County, Idaho, United States. The population was 117,635 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of cities in Idaho, 2nd most populous city in the county and Idaho a ...

. The "Boise Sports Park" proposal, which never came to fruition, was to build a multi-use baseball and soccer stadium for the Boise Hawks and a new USL team was announced in 2017. The stadium near downtown Boise would have had a capacity of 7,000 to 8,000 for soccer matches and use a grass pitch. The Boise Hawks' ownership group, Agon Sports & Entertainment, announced in January 2019 that it had signed a franchise agreement with USL to field a USL Championship team in Boise once the stadium was completed. The stadium was planned to be completed by 2021 if funding from a public development corporation was in place. The original proposed site for the Boise Sports Park drew opposition from local residents and was replaced by a new location in the West End neighborhood, but a voter-approved ordinance to require a citywide election on any sports stadium with public funding and financing issues led to the project being shelved in December 2019.

Club identity

Athletic Club Boise was revealed as the team's name on June 27, 2025. The club's crest includes a lightning bolt shaped like a

Peregrine falcon The peregrine falcon (''Falco peregrinus''), also known simply as the peregrine, is a Cosmopolitan distribution, cosmopolitan bird of prey (raptor) in the family (biology), family Falconidae renowned for its speed. A large, Corvus (genus), cro ...

to represent local raptor conservation organizations. Its shape references the geography of the

Treasure Valley The Treasure Valley is a valley in the western United States, primarily in southwestern Idaho, where the Payette, Boise, Weiser, Malheur, and Owyhee rivers drain into the Snake River. It includes all the lowland areas from Vale in rural east ...

, where Boise is located, and includes a star to represent the star garnet, Idaho's state gemstone. The club also uses several elements that are inspired by the city's Basque heritage, including a dark green named "Basque green" and the team's name.

Stadium

The teams plan to play at a

at Expo Idaho, the county fairgrounds of Ada County, near the Boise suburb of Garden City. The stadium would incorporate the existing

grandstand A grandstand is a normally permanent structure for seating spectators, typically at sports stadiums and including both auto racing and horse racing. The grandstand is in essence like a single section of a stadium, but differs from a stadium i ...

of the former Les Bois

horse racing Horse racing is an equestrian performance activity, typically involving two or more horses ridden by jockeys (or sometimes driven without riders) over a set distance for competition. It is one of the most ancient of all sports, as its bas ...

track and have 6,225 seats under the county government's development proposal. Boise Pro Soccer was awarded a 30-year lease by the county government on October 30, 2024. The lease agreement was finalized in February 2025 and construction is scheduled to be completed by 2026. The preliminary design includes the option to expand the stadium to 11,000 seats.

References

External links

* {{Idaho Sports Soccer clubs in Idaho Association football clubs established in 2024 2024 establishments in Idaho USL League One teams Sports in Boise, Idaho