The calendar has yet to flip to June, but officials from the Chattanooga Football Club and the Chattanooga Lookouts are buzzing about soccer coming to Erlanger Park on the Fourth of July.
Chattanooga FC will play Inter Miami CF II at 7:30 p.m. on our nation’s 250th birthday, with a fireworks display to follow inside the new $115 million venue.
“This was always part of the grand plan,” Lookouts vice president Andrew Zito said. “We didn’t want to just play baseball. We built a facility to be able to do events of all kinds, and we stated from the get-go that this is something that we want to do. This ballpark is not just the home of the Lookouts. It’s a gathering place for Chattanooga.”
Or as Chad Emerson, CFC’s first-ever chief business officer, said: “There will be a pitch that night. It just won’t be thrown. It will be played on.”
The soccer showdown will be the first athletic event that doesn’t involve bats and helmets at the 8,032-seat venue, but could it be the tip of the iceberg? Could it serve as a trial run for additional CFC games at Erlanger Park, potentially as early as next year?