Club also creates gift partnership with Kidsports to support youth sports programming

Sporting Cascades FC will officially call Eugene’s Civic Park home in 2027, the club announced today. 

Civic Park, a soccer stadium that boasts spectacular sweeping views of the hills surrounding Eugene and Springfield, opened in 2020 and currently has a seating capacity of 3,500, with room to expand to accommodate larger crowds. 

The Eugene Civic Alliance was formed in 2014 to turn the vacant Civic Stadium, former home of Minor League Baseball’s Eugene Emeralds, into a purpose-built stadium for a professional soccer club, and also to give Kidsports its own facility to help address the lack of adequate spaces for local youth to play sports. The ECA launched a fundraising campaign to oversee the creation of a replacement for Civic Stadium—which burned to the ground in a fire in 2015—and that campaign raised more than $48 million in public and private sector funds for the construction of the Kidsports Fieldhouse and Market of Choice Field, completed in 2020 on the site of the former stadium, and Civic Park’s grandstands, food court, press box, locker rooms, and video scoreboard, completed in 2025.

“We’re proud to support the Eugene Civic Alliance’s vision and mission of strengthening our sense of civic solidarity and pride by bringing professional soccer to Civic Park,” said Sporting Cascades FC primary owner Bill Cornog. “It will be one of the finest facilities in USL League One, and we’re excited to share it with Kidsports and play there in front of the Eugene-Springfield community.” 

“When the Eugene Civic Alliance and Kidsports built Civic Park, the vision was for a place where young kids could play on weekday evenings, and professional soccer could thrive on Saturday nights,” said Bev Smith, executive director of Kidsports. “As a Kidsports alum, Bill Cornog is helping bring that vision to life.”

USL League One is a growing league in the third tier of the U.S. professional soccer pyramid, and is the former home of such players as US Men’s National Team goalkeeper Matt Turner, US Men’s National Team forward Ricardo Pepi, and former Manchester United and Newcastle United midfielder Gabriel Obertan. SCFC plans to launch in the 2027 season, pending final league and federation sanctioning approval.

All matches will be streamed live on ESPN+ as the club vies for the league title alongside the likes of Spokane Velocity, Athletic Club Boise, and the New York Cosmos. The USL has also announced plans to launch USL Premier, a Division One men’s professional league in 2028, and alongside that, introduce America’s first promotion and relegation system.

To further strengthen SCFC’s commitment to supporting youth sports in Lane County, Cornog has also gifted a portion of the club to Kidsports to create a partnership that ensures the club will support Kidsports philanthropically.

Established in 1953, Kidsports is open to any child who wishes to participate, and emphasizes the values of teamwork and sportsmanship within a competitive and safe environment. With more than 13,000 program participants, Kidsports instills in a large portion of Lane County’s youth knowledge and a lifetime of healthy habits that promote physical, mental, emotional and social well-being.

By offering the gift partnership, SCFC will ensure that the youth of Lane County will not only continue to have access to high quality youth sports programming, but will also have access to the area’s first fully professional soccer club. Sporting Cascades FC also intends to make additional upgrades to Civic Park in the years to come, further enhancing the jewel in the city’s youth sports crown.

“Bill’s generosity and deep understanding of youth sports—from grassroots to the professional game—are an incredible gift to our community, and we’re profoundly grateful for his commitment to the future of ‘all kids play,’” said Smith.

“We will do whatever we can to support Kidsports and its participants,” said Cornog. “We want to positively impact kids and families, and we also want to make sure Sporting Cascades is as accessible to them as we can possibly make it.”