Real Salt Lake is a professional soccer team based in Salt Lake City, Utah that began playing in Major League Soccer in 2005. The team currently plays its home games at the University of Utah's Rice-Eccles Stadium.
The word real in the team's name is derived from the Spanish language. It is traditionally used in the names of certain Spanish soccer clubs such as Real Madrid that play in La Liga. It is roughly pronounced ray-al, with the accent on the al. It is translated into English as "royal".
Dave Checketts and SCP Worldwide partners Dean Howes, Kenneth Munoz, Michael McCarthy and Chris Bevilacqua, chose Real Salt Lake for the team's name because they desired to associate the team with a successful soccer club, Real Madrid, as well as to develop a brand that was clearly associated with Football.
The team's name was initially met with derision in the fan community. Many fans thought the name should more accurately reflect the Salt Lake area. In the passing years, the criticism from local fans and the media has waned, and the club has instituted a formal relationship with Real Madrid. The team colors are claret red, cobalt blue, and Real gold.
The other team names considered were: Salt Lake City Highlanders, Salt Lake Soccer Club, Alliance Soccer Club and Union SLC.
RSL's coach is former MLS all-time regular season scoring leader Jason Kreis. He retired as a player on May 3rd, 2007 and took over coaching duties. Kreis was also RSL's first player signed.
Their first head coach was John Ellinger, former coach of the Under-17 United States national team and the head of USSF's Bradenton Academy. After being replaced by Kreis, Ellinger remained with the team as technical director/director of soccer operations through August of 2007.
Salt Lake City was formerly home to the USL Second Division's Utah Blitzz, which folded about the time Real Salt Lake formed. The Blitzz had won the USLSD's championship in their final year of existence. Blitzz head coach Chris Agnello was hired as an assistant coach for Real Salt Lake, but left after their inaugural season.
RSL's major rivals are the Colorado Rapids, which it competes with for the annual Rocky Mountain Cup, and C.D. Chivas USA, a fellow expansion team in 2005.
On November 17, 2006, XanGo announced a multi-million dollar deal to be advertised on the front of RSL's jersey.
Nearly a month later, RSL announced the high-profile acquisition of the American teenage phenomenon Freddy Adu for the 2007 season. Adu later left Real Salt Lake midway through the season to play in Portugal. The team won the Rocky Mountain Cup in the 2007 season.
In 2005 a soccer-specific stadium for the team was approved for Sandy, a suburb of Salt Lake City. However, funding for the stadium was still hard to come by. A vote in early 2006 struck down a funding proposal for the stadium. However, Tom Dolan, the mayor of Sandy, said that he would not give up on his fight to approve the proposal in Sandy. The funding plan was revised, but was struck down later in 2006 over disagreements in the appropriation of millions of hotel-tax dollars for a financially unproven sports franchise. The proposal for Sandy was declared "dead" by Checketts at that point, putting the team's future in doubt. Dave Checketts said that he wanted the team to remain in Utah, but would sell it if a proposal was not put forward by August 12, 2006.
Parties from several cities, including Rochester, New York and St Louis, Missouri, expressed interest in purchasing the franchise and moving it. Other stadium sites in the area were also proposed, including the Utah State Fairgrounds in Salt Lake, and the tiny town of Vineyard, just west of Provo. Finally, on the very day Checketts had set as a deadline to have a stadium plan in place or decide to sell the team, and after months of up and down discussions with local municipalities, county, and state officials and a change in the funding structure, a tacit agreement between Checkets, Sandy City, and Salt Lake County was put in place, and Real Salt Lake announced that they would move forward with the construction of the Real Salt Lake Stadium. The groundbreaking, coinciding with the Xango Cup, Real's match against international power Real Madrid, took place that afternoon featuring elected leaders, team officials, as well as the entire rosters of both Real Salt Lake and Real Madrid. On August 15, the deal was officially approved by the Salt Lake County Council.
The stadium plan encountered difficulties however after the Debt Review Committee of Salt Lake County voted against the stadium proposal 4 — 0 on January 26, 2007 citing what they saw as Real Salt Lake's financial inevitability as the reasoning behind the lack of support. County mayor Corroon concurred with the DRC and the stadium plan was effectively killed on January 29, 2007. In response Real Salt Lake's owner announced the team would be sold and likely move out of the Salt Lake area after the 2007 season.
On January 30, 2007, local private business expressed serious interest in keeping the team in Utah. Anderson Geneva, in response to the stadium rejection, offered the club 30 acres of land on which to build their stadium and multi use center, and offered the land for free. The land was estimated to be worth US$10 million.
The Sandy Stadium proposal was not completely dead, however: a new stadium proposal was made on February 2, which would divert 15 percent, roughly $2 million a year, of the county's hotel taxes to the stadium project beginning in July until 2017. Such a deal would have to have been made by February 9, or the deal would have been completely off. The bill was passed by the State Senate, and is now awaiting State Assembly approval.
After Governor Huntsman made a move that would allow the team to remain in Salt Lake County: the Utah House approved House bill 1SHB38, by a 48-24 margin, effectively approving $35 million towards the development of a world-class sports and entertainment venue which will serve as the home of Real Salt Lake. The governor is expected to sign the bill.
Sandy City, along with the state of Utah and representatives of the team, finally came to an agreement regarding the placement of the Real stadium. The deal was shot down about a week prior to the agreement by the Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon saying it was too risky. However, Utah's governor, Jon Huntsman, Jr. said that soccer is here to stay. The $110 million dollar stadium is being built in Sandy, a suburb of Salt Lake City. Rossetti's California office is the architecture firm working on the design of the new stadium.
The stadium construction is proceeding with opening anticipated before the end of the 2008 season. While the specific date of an opening match has not yet been determined due to the difficulty in predicting construction progress in winter months, recent news reports anticipate an opening as early as September of 2008.
As of September of the 2006 season, Real Salt Lake and Real Madrid have signed a 10-year co-operative agreement. Among the provisions of the deal are a biennial friendly match between the two teams to take place in Salt Lake City, annual February training for RSL at the Real Madrid practice facility in Spain, and, perhaps most importantly, the creation of a $25 million elite youth academy in SLC that will train up to 200 players from ages 12 to 18. The academy, a co-operative project for which Real Madrid will pay half the cost, will include academic facilities and dormitory housing, arguably becoming the first true soccer "youth system" in MLS, along with the Red Bull Academy effort of Red Bull New York. In this sense, it is part of a growing league-wide trend toward the emphasis of youth development, a trend which has been encouraged by the main office and jump-started by the league's decision to allow individual teams to maintain rights to the products of potential youth development systems.
With Major League Soccer's expansion in 2005, Real Salt Lake became the second team in the Rocky Mountain region and the Colorado Rapids' closest neighbor. The supporters of the two clubs created a competition between the two sides to foster and memorialize this budding rivalry. Colorado won the Rocky Mountain Cup in its inaugural year, 9 points to 3, and successfully defended the Cup in 2006 by a margin of 7 points to 4. Real Salt Lake won the Rocky Mountain Cup in the 2007 Season, 7 points to 4 points.
Radio broadcasts are on KALL AM 700 (English) and KTUB AM 1600 (Spanish). KSL-TV and FSN Utah will handle local television broadcasts.
