Frisco Hopes Soccer Center Will Be Economic Boost
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FRISCO (CBS11) - The Women's World Cup team has given them the dream. Now a new state of the art soccer facility in Frisco hopes to give little girls in North Texas the opportunity to grow into the next generation of star athletes.
The centerpiece of the new facility is a robotic training system. There are only three like it in the world, and this is the only one open to the public. It's part of why many hope Frisco will become the go-to destination for youth soccer.
At more than 55,000 square feet, The PIT, or Performance Indoor Training, bills itself as the biggest indoor facility in Texas devoted exclusively to soccer.
Nine-year-old Ryann Vik has been playing soccer since she was three. She's been watching her mom's teammates get ready for a national competition, and she's also feeling inspired by the women's World Cup team.
"It's very inspiring because some of them are simple, and some of them aren't simple, like some of them like passing, and some of them like dribbling. It's very interesting how they play," Vik said.
Players aren't the only ones taking an interest in the sport. Frisco's Economic Development Corporation paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in incentives for The PIT to locate in Frisco. City leaders hope the center will draw out-of-town teams to play in Frisco tournaments, eat in Frisco restaurants, and stay in Frisco hotels.
"They come in. They play their games, but then they're going elsewhere in the community, and you really can see that trickle down. The economic development of a city is based on how you can bring in people," PIT co-owner Brian Duncan said.
Kat Webb coaches seven different youth teams. She says the success of the Women's World Cup team combined with the right resources to groom young athletes is a winning formula for Frisco's future.
"They have more access to good training, and it's just going to replicate itself to where we are going to be having a lot more girls representing from North Texas in the future World Cup," Webb said.
The Economic Development Corporation tells us in order to be eligible for those economic incentives, the center has to employ at least 15 full-time workers, and the project had to cost at least $5 million to build.
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