News for the New Gulf Coast

The NPSL comes into focus.

Image credit: NPSL

The new landscape for the Gulf Region has taken one more large step to full clarity. The NPSL has announced their teams and schedule for the 2025 Gulf Coast Sunshine Conference. As a reminder, three Gulf clubs moved out of this NPSL conference between seasons: Tallahassee SC and Pensacola FC moved to TLfC, and Columbus United moved to USL League Two (Columbus won the conference trophy in 2024 on their way to the national semi-finals for NPSL). The region has been a hotbed for the Soccer Warz, seeing the Gulf Coast Premier League join forces with The League for Clubs, and Montgomery United (the 2024 GCPL champs) moving to USL League Two. The NPSL structure has been the final big piece of the puzzle.

The New Orleans Jesters are scheduled for league play, despite zero information on their social media accounts or the Jesters web site regarding tryouts. There's still some time to get a team together, and probably a decent pool to draw from, but they've been strangely silent compared to most other summer league clubs. The Jesters find themselves in a problematic geographic location, with the closest team to them being a new addition to the league. Accordingly, the new schedule shows them playing just seven games, with one of the opponents listed as TBA. They are slated for home/away series vs PSC FC Florida, Club de Lyon, and Jacksonville Armada U23.

The new kid on the Gulf block is PSC FC Florida. PSC FC is an extension of an established club that has been competing in Arizona in the UPSL. The Florida branch will operate out of Panama City Beach, making them the nearest team to New Orleans, a five hour drive. Interestingly, they're also listed as joining UPSL in a Gulf Conference that isn't fully formed yet (more on that below). This club's schedule shows only four games - two vs the Jesters, and two vs Jacksonville Armada U23 - so I'm speculating that a deal was made to get them included (primarily to help the Jesters).

The rest of the conference is around the bend in Florida, and as far directly east as Jacksonville (Armada U23), and as far south as Miami (Dutch Lions). In 2024, the NPSL made efforts to minimize travel for the Gulf teams and main peninsula teams during the regular season, but losing Tallahassee, Pensacola, and Columbus made that much more difficult.

Other (smaller) moves in the region

The Gulf Coast Premier League will operate a small division that effectively sits below the Gulf Region for The League for Clubs. The league itself hasn't published a comprehensive schedule, but Shreveport United has posted their schedule. It shows limited play, and includes 2024 GCPL clubs that didn't formally join TLfC (BRSC Capitals, Southern States, and LA Krewe 2). Two other clubs scheduled are also participating in TLfC, so these are presumably second teams for those clubs -Gaffa FC and Gulf Coast United. It looks like that competition will be branded as GCPL, as opposed to GCPL2.

The Gulf region has typically had almost zero UPSL presence, but slow steps are being taken for that to change. Two clubs joined the UPSL in the Fall as the foundational members of a future Gulf conference: Magnolia FC (Jackson, MS), and NOLA Athletic FC (New Orleans). The two clubs played a two-match Founder's Cup in December, but there's nothing on the docket at this point for Spring. As mentioned above, PSC FC joined UPSL as well, also to theoretically play in the Gulf Conference. There are actually several clubs in City and/or Sunday leagues (Liga Islano and SASA, for example) in the region that might look to move up into UPSL competition if it gets a little more traction - it wouldn't take too many more. This has been a pretty hectic season for the Soccer Warz, but that's really been a fight for the Summer. There's a real opportunity for year-round growth via the UPSL, without it being a battleground.