A Discussion About Union Omaha’s 2025 Schedule
Author’s Note: Hey all! I know…it’s a Christmas miracle. The Penguin actually wrote and published something! I have to apologize for my months-long absence. There have been quite a lot of things going on in my life and my family’s lives that required my attention much more than this. I will always advocate for people to take care of themselves and those around them first—when this is gone, that is who we have. I hope you’ll accept this article as a bit of a peace offering, a thank you for your understanding, and (with any luck) the first step in a renewed ability to cover the game we love. With Holiday wishes to you and yours, Tim.
Beyond The 90′ is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Subscribed
Búho Nation has had about a week now to fully digest the early Christmas present that left a lot of the supporter base wondering whose name needs to go on the naughty list for next year. Prior to the schedule dropping, there was a lot to be excited about. On the heels of the second USL 1 Playoff Championship and a third Player’s Shield, the 5,849 fans that watched the final could find various things to get hyped about.
The long-term season ticket holder may have been gearing up to see how the most successful team in USL 1 history could handle the challenge of playing more USL Championship teams in the reformatted Jagermeister Cup. The casual fan could have been getting excited about seeing the new look of the team and having a few nice days out at the stadium. The new fan who just got hooked on the play and execution of this team could have been carrying that momentum over while welcoming the new teams to the league. Everyone would have something to build on a great run by a great team as we look to grow the supporter base that will flock to a new stadium in the (optimistically) near future.
Then the schedule actually dropped, and all that momentum went out the window.
While we don’t know the schedule of the US Open Cup yet, we do have a picture of the USL competitions, and it heavily favors any UO members that have a frequent flyer card. While the team is used to being road warriors to start a season, they’ve never faced a stretch like this. Of the first 15 games, 3 of them are at home with the first one being May 10. Omaha welcomes Portland Hearts of Pine for the team’s 6th match (all competitions) and a small two months after the season kicks off on March 8.
To put that in perspective, the 2024 Búhos started their season on the road against Central Valley Fuego on March 16, then waited almost a month to play their second game at One Knoxville. And still, they managed to get 7 home matches in their first 15 games last season.
Having to wait two months to watch the team in person, to celebrate the dawning of a new season, and be ready to cheer on the defending champion will do absolutely nothing to build on the feelings of last season. While I doubt we’ll hear as many “Omaha has a soccer team!?” type comments as in previous years, there is a section of the target audience that may lose some of the excitement by having to wait until May to get that feeling going again.
And while you still have your die-hards that will be packing the Berm, Section 119, and the standing sections (“MODELO!!!!”), the schedule gets even sillier for them. Of the three home matches Omaha will have by July 12, two of them are on “School Nights” — June 12 against Greenville Triumph (Belt/Rivalry match) and June 25 against Richmond Kickers. Such weeknight games are generally a lower draw, further reducing the ability of your supporter base to get out and spur the team on to victory.
And before we say that this is always the case, I looked at past schedules to see if that was really true. With 2020 discounted due to the funky COVID scheduling, what I found was this:
Additionally, the first 15 matches each year broke down like this:
Now you can see a semblance of this issue in early seasons, but not to this extent. Additionally, In the last two years there’s been a real effort to even things out and let the team build a pattern of support to begin each season. That effort is pretty obviously gone with the swirling winds.
I truly believe the supporter base has every right to be upset at how this schedule is playing out. Yes, eventually Omaha would have to play these games on the road. Yes, the team still has to navigate around the Storm Chasers and their (now) separate ownership group. But that doesn’t cool the supporter’s frustrations over having to wait two months to see their Búhos play.
So the question becomes, who the hell are the supporters supposed to be angry at?
A lot of times, the first place to take the punches of a supporter base is the Front Office of the team. There are often assumptions that don’t take into account some of the actual behind-the-scenes issues with things like concessions, promotions, and yes—the schedule. This is understandable, especially when there’s a feeling that the Storm Chasers always get priority for dates. And while there are occasions where that ire might be well-placed, often it’s things outside of the team’s control.
So in order to temper my own ranting and get to the heart of what went wrong with the schedule this year, I talked to Martie Cordaro, President of both Union Omaha and the Storm Chasers. I got a chance to ask him about the schedule and some of the initial feelings about the schedule. What he provided was an honest look at what happened, and a pretty convincing show that the Front Office isn’t really the one to blame here.
I started with a question about the USL Championship possibly having a hand in the schedule issue.
RBP Media: “Obviously, we share the stadium with the Storm Chasers, but it sounds like USL Championship, they already kind of had their marker down on a few of the weekend dates, and therefore some of the stuff that we asked for they were unavailable for. And so it kind of threw things into a little bit of a scheduling blender for lack of a better term. If that’s what I caught correctly.”
Martie Cordaro: “Yeah, I don’t know that it’s USL Championship’s fault. I would say, you know, they don’t make the schedule USL does, and when they were making the Jager Cup schedule because of them (USL C) being now included in the Jager Cup, it was more restrictive. If it was all just League One clubs, it’d be a lot easier to look and say “hey, can we take one of our October dates and maybe flip one with Madison in May,” for example, which is an example of something we could try to do. So, again, I don’t want to pin it on Championship, it’s more just a product of we could have drawn a home Jager Cup match on the last Saturday in April, that’s not the schedule we were given by the league.”
This makes a good bit of sense when you think about it. With the new format of the Jagermeister Cup, the inclusion of the USL Championship teams, and the fact that the group stage isn’t home/away anymore, the idea of trading the matches goes out the window. If the teams were selected in a draw, then that settles that. It’s a bit frustrating that the Jager Cup match gets in the way, but it’s not something that the Front Office has any control over.
But the Cup is just 1 of 12 early season road matches. Even with a home match in late April (26th), the fans are still waiting 7 weeks to get a taste of soccer in Werner Park, and that’s a long time removed from the magic of the 2024 Final. Was that cause for concern in the Front Office?
RBPM: “The the biggest question that I had with the schedule drop and everything else with 12 of the first 15 games away, I assume that there’s a little bit of concern on you guys’ part, too that the momentum from the championship season, the the 5800 plus that we had there and getting to grow that supporter base and fan base, that we’re losing a little bit of that momentum having to wait until May 10th for a home opener. Is that is that accurate?”
MC: “I wouldn’t say that. You know selling outdoor sports in Nebraska for March and April is definitely not advantageous. I mean, we would start in May every year if we could, but it’s not realistic. You want as balanced a competition schedule as possible, and then you also want sellable dates. So I would tell you quite the opposite, from a group ticket sales perspective and a single game perspective you know, we have a longer runway, if you will, to be able to market and create new fans. But, yes, from a competition perspective, yeah, it’s a lot of dates on the road. Again, like I said, in ’22 it was a similar schedule. I think everyone remembers when we scheduled home dates in late March and early April in ’23. We were asking you all to come help shovel snow and we played in a sleet storm. So, I would look at it the opposite, but you know, we’re the ones marketing and selling, so, you know, every position, including the coaching staff, has a different angle with which they’re looking at a particular item or topic.”
Once again, the logic is there. While Búho Nation won’t like to hear that Martie would have us start in May every year if he could, he’s not wrong on the sellable dates issue. The specific match he mentioned was on March 26, 2023—a 1-1 draw against Forward Madison and the last time Union Omaha opened the season at home (well, Caniglia…but whatever). The supporters were enlisted earlier in the day to clear the snowfall from the field to make sure the match could proceed. The game itself drew only 1,913. Two weeks later, only 1,665 fans watched a 1-2 defeat to North Carolina on a rainy, 43-degree day.
While that kind of weather isn’t guaranteed, it’s also not out of the ordinary. And unless you’ve got “Cornhuskers” in your name, you aren’t going to draw a religious following in such harsh conditions. From an attendance, sales, and marketing standpoint, you absolutely want to get as close to a guarantee of perfect weather as you can.
Martie did reiterate later that the team had selected “the last Saturday in April as one of our primary home schedule dates…But we weren’t able to trade out of it because it’s a Jager Cup weekend, not a regular season weekend if you will, and we were prohibited from making that trade.” So going back to the first question, they tried, but the Cup and the draw got in the way.
So with weather and Jager Cup scheduling a factor, I turned the attention onto how to maintain the excitement of the championship season.
RBPM: “So, do you guys have any plans to kind of mitigate the lack of early home games, trying to maintain the excitement and the momentum, maybe watch parties, maybe other team events that you guys are possibly looking at to keep people engaged until that home opener?”
MC: “Yep. Sure do.”
RBPM: “I’m guessing nothing that you’re quite ready to show or spell out for anyone?”
MC: “No, there’s no announcements. I mean we just got our schedule on Wednesday finalized and released on Thursday. So no, we…you know our staff is, for the most part, on break for two weeks. So anything we would be announcing would probably be four weeks or so from now.”
This wasn’t completely unexpected. The schedule release was delayed this year for multiple reasons, not the least of which was the legal actions involving Northern Colorado Hailstorm that ultimately led to the League withdrawing their franchise agreement and all but folding the team. This, along with Central Valley Fuego suffering a similar fate meant there were a lot of things hanging in the air to resolve before a schedule could be compiled, much less finalized. That didn’t give much time to finalize any plans for things like promotions, theme nights, or marketing for specific games.
However, I expect that there are ideas forming and a general sense of “maybe we could do this,” within the Front Office staff’s thoughts. We’re just going to have to wait a bit to hear what they are.
So despite any feelings the supporters (to include me, in full honesty) might have concerning the long road trip to start the match, there are reasons behind all of this.
RBPM: “Yeah, the supporters are definitely very interested in this and I know the supporters have a lot of feelings and a lot of opinions, and it’s kind of why I wanted to talk to you about to make sure that, you know, ‘hey, I get it. We all want the home opener and we all want the championship. We can’t wait to see the team again.’ But this isn’t just let’s knee jerk and say ‘Hey, that stupid schedule. How could they do that to us?’”
MC: “Yeah, and look. I would offer this. We want to raise a banner. We want to celebrate a championship. We want to relive the ’24 season and pass out rings to our players in front of the home crowd. So, you know, there are a lot of things we would want to do as well. So, you know, waiting until May 10th, again, like I said, we thought we were going to have a home opener in April, and we didn’t. That’s not the date we were given by USL.”
The desire is there, and the Front Office seems to share our feelings as supporters about how amazing it will be to finally celebrate that championship season. But again, there was a reference to USL not giving Union Omaha the primary home date preference.
Since the League and Jager Cup schedule wouldn’t be able to accommodate, I started thinking toward the U.S. Open Cup. Though the schedule hasn’t been announced yet, could an early season match be a way to see the team at home?
RBPM: “Does the lack of having the league home stuff…Is that going to impact you guys’ decisions to go ahead and try to bid on an early Open Cup match, maybe just to to get the team exposed? Or are there other thought processes there?”
MC: “Well, you know, the majority of the Open Cup matches the last three seasons haven’t been played at Werner. That shouldn’t be impactful, as long as UNO and/or Creighton are available. So there shouldn’t be any Open Cup impact. Our preference, obviously, would be to play at Werner. We have a distinct home pitch advantage. I think that’s proven out as being the most successful pro soccer franchise in the last five years at any level in North America. So, we would rather play at Werner Park, but I would probably say number two it’s proven out that UNO is a great partner. And they’ve welcomed us with open arms at Caniglia, and that would probably be the first place we would look. And then Creighton has been fair to us in the past as well. But it’s been a couple seasons since we played a match there.”
This was also a pretty expected response. Union Omaha hardly ever shies away from bidding to host, despite the fact that it is often not as profitable, depending on the opponent and the round, with hosting fees going up at each stage. That, at least, will be something to possibly look forward to.
But what I also pulled out of that is the “distinct home pitch advantage” that we enjoy with Werner Park. As mentioned previously, other positions such as coaches and players may not like the sparse early home schedule. Not getting a chance to get used to that home pitch advantage, in addition to the buses, planes, hotels, and other woes of life on the road might come with its competitive disadvantages. A recent interview from League One on The Rocks with Coach Dominic Casciato included a discussion of the schedule, which it didn’t appear that coach was a big fan of. While he didn’t specifically say he hated it, and while he basically said the mentality is just to win the game in front of you, his tone definitely gave the impression that it wasn’t his favorite schedule to see. (I recommend listening to that interview as well, and any of Rich and Bryan’s USL 1 coverage at https://www.youtube.com/@leagueonetherocks).
So as the insights wound down, I thought I’d ask one more question about the scheduling overall — the amount of Sunday-Thursday matches scheduled for Union Omaha this year. For context, in addition to two of the three home games mentioned above, the Owls will be playing at home on a “school night” in seven more matches—two on Sunday and five more on Wednesday. This isn’t including any other of such matches, like the season opener in Greenville on Wednesday, March 12 (currently slated for 4 p.m. CT according to FotMob). Midweek matches aren’t usually good “sellable dates,” so it seemed counterproductive.
RBPM: “I guess the last question that I’ve got for you on the schedule bit is, there is a little bit of talk too about the midweek matches. We’re looking at, we got six Wednesday matches, a Thursday match and two Sunday matches, the days that, you would consider, you got to get to bed on a school night type matches. What really played into to that? We get more midweek matches at home this year than we are Friday and Saturday.”
MC: “It’d be a great question for the league. It’s not something that I’m able to answer. Again, not being the schedule maker, not being the one that’s looking at the overall template. But, one that’s specific, again, Jager Cup impacted, if you look at, very specific, June 25th. We put in to host, as one of our five primary dates June 28th. So the two road Jager Cup matches are two primary home dates of our five that were requested, that we weren’t granted. So those are ones we tried and we weren’t given them, per the schedule that dropped on Thursday. But that’s one example, you know the others, you know, when the Storm Chasers are gone, the 12-game road trip which is middle to late July. You’re always, I would tell you, we’re always going to try to get three matches during that period. It’s a great home stand. It’s great from a competition perspective. No travel, so that’s why that Wednesday. So that was one of the dates we did request. The others, you’d have to ask someone in a different capacity.”
Midweek games are always a concern, not just for “school night” attendance, but also for rest and competition. A deep squad can make those Wednesday/Thursday games work with weekend games on the caps, but not as often. We do sometimes see the need to do this anyway due to the baseball team. While their schedule traditionally holds to a week at home/week away pattern, it’s not always clean. You sometimes get overlap onto a Saturday, and when you take into account having to flip the field (a three-day process, minimum), it can push some of our home dates to weird days.
But beyond that, the team did try to get a couple more weekends. It seems to be something that was ultimately out of their control, either by the (un)luck of the draw, or by not being able to foresee the Jager Cup dates.
That the League would be the best one to answer is somewhat supported by the fact that we aren’t alone in putting in our miles to begin the season, so I wanted to mention that before the conversation ended.
RBPM: “I understand we’re not completely alone in this. I think, I highlighted a couple of guys here…Portland kind of being in a similar situation. They’re looking at six home matches out of the first nine and they start (their home matches) on May 4th. And I imagine for similar reasons to us. You’re looking at One Knox who in the first 15, they’ve got 5 (home matches) and 10 away. So by no means, do I want to say this is a Union Omaha specific problem, but it was definitely highlighted that we had a disproportionate, like with three of those home matches.”
MC: “Yeah, absolutely. And look, any question’s always valid and welcomed, and some of the things we control. Some we don’t. And again, above all, now with the Jager Cup, being a real factor because it includes Championship clubs, you know, it will continue to impact the schedule, soccer specific stadium or not. I think that’s something good for supporters and everyone to understand and know. So, while it’s good that we’re now playing between the two leagues, there are some things, like this, you know, two of our five primary dates on Saturday nights weren’t granted because they are road USL Jager Cup Championship games that were on the road.”
The fact that Martie took the time to talk to me on the Saturday before Christmas speaks truly to how he led that response. The questions did seem very welcome, and the only thing he really didn’t want to answer was the question concerning what ideas they had to maintain the excitement of last season—and that’s literally because they haven’t had time to think about it.
So while it’s often our first response to blame the Front Office, I think the logic holds that a lot of this can be put at the League’s feet. That’s not to say that the League is specifically targeting any particular fanbase and trying to screw them out of momentum and excitement. It simply means that the League has decisions to make, and sometimes those decisions seem counter to what a team may request to do.
But it’s also understandable that a fanbase would be frustrated. It’s understandable if the team were a little frustrated. When we can’t see the process, and don’t really get to look into why a process has worked out the way it did, we are going to get upset and rail at whomever it looks like has frustrated us.
And for now, I think that frustration can be directed at the League much more than the Union Omaha Front Office. But rather than rail against something we can not control, let’s throw that energy into our chants, our Tifos, and our support of the 2025 Owls every time we get to see them.
Call it “Us Against the World”, and run it back.
(*Note: I have contacted USL League One in an attempt to learn more about the scheduling process and how this year’s schedule came to be. If/when I hear back from them, I’ll supplement this with their inputs.)
Who Gives A Hoot? 