A new pro indoor soccer team is starting in Columbus. Here’s how it got its name
The Beautiful Game is making its return to the Chattahoochee Valley for the first time in over two decades.
The Columbus Rapids, an indoor soccer team, is the city’s latest pro sports organization. It’ll play in the National Indoor Soccer League (NISL) as one of the four founding members, and operate a men’s and separate women’s team.
The team was announced at a press conference Tuesday morning at the Columbus Civic Center, with members of the league’s executive board and Columbus Council present.
“We were trying to think of a name, someone suggested the Rapids,” Joshua Blair, majority owner of the Columbus Lions indoor football team and the Rapids, said. “We all instantly fell in love with it. What better way to show off our city than to name our team after one of its best features and notable attractions?”
The league’s other members, so far, are the Fayetteville Fury (North Carolina) and the Memphis Americans (Tennessee). One unnamed team will be announced soon, Blair said, to complete the league’s inaugural list of clubs.
The Rapids will play their home matches at the Civic Center starting in late December. The team will host trials later this summer, Lions head coach Jason Gibson told press conference attendees.
The Rapids are Columbus’ first professional indoor soccer team since the Comets, which played during the Eastern Indoor Soccer League’s 1997 season before relocating to Biloxi as the Mississippi Beach Kings. The team played 24 games and finished that season with of 3 wins, 21 losses and 3 shootout losses. The EISL folded after two seasons.
The National Indoor Soccer League, which has its league office in Georgia, was founded in January 2021. The league, breaking away from the past traditional leagues, will be the first professional indoor soccer league that will operate separate men’s and women’s divisions, hosting doubleheaders on each game day at its respective arenas in each market, according to a league release.
Each game will last under two hours, the release said, with a 30-minute intermission between matches. Nike will serve as the league’s uniform and apparel partner for the league’s first five years.
This story was originally published August 17, 2021 at 12:40 PM.
