On the heels of a nearly sold-out season, the Orange County Soccer Club announced plans to expand its home stadium in Irvine’s Great Park.
The Orange County Soccer Club, a professional soccer team founded in 2021 and based in Irvine, has called the Great Park’s Championship Soccer Stadium its home base since 2017, the same year the more than 5,000-seat arena was unveiled.
The United Soccer League team extended its lease with the city in 2023 for another five years, with the possibility of a five-year extension. As part of that deal, the club can install additional bleachers with city approval.
Club officials said that nearly all of the 17 regular-season home matches last season were sold out, and “we were reaching the point where we needed to offer more.”
“So it was time to enhance the stadium,” President of Business Relations Dan Rutstein said. The expansion of bleachers will be self-funded and the organization is still awaiting a quote and permits.
Bleachers will be installed to create a new private section for corporate outings and community groups, reserved-seating sections behind the first seats at the scoreboard end of the stadium, an exclusive VIP deck and an enlarged dedicated family and kid-friendly section.
Those additions are expected to increase the stadium’s capacity by 20%, Rutstein said.
The project is targeted for completion in time for the club’s home opener on March 7 against the Las Vegas Lights and before the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Rutstein said he hopes teams playing for the World Cup will practice at the renovated stadium.
“Overall, it will feel very different. This is an investment we want to make. It’s an important moment for the club,” Rutstein said.
“The club is bigger. Soccer is bigger. The league we play in is bigger,” he added. “The stadium needs to be too.”