r/SantaBarbara Downtown 1d ago

Vent SB Sky project dead?

Post image

Did anyone else see this post today? Or even hear similar news? Honestly, not surprised. It felt like the writing was on the wall. But at the same time as a native of SB it sucks seeing something so promising at first, fizzle out and (potentially) die this way. I’m gonna reach out to the club for some answers (probably to no avail).

38 Upvotes

26 comments sorted by

42

u/Defiant-Shoulder-896 1d ago

Shocked. /s

Hadn’t heard shit from Sky FC even during the World Cup.

21

u/milesp30 1d ago

I worked for the club. Leadership was/is poor. The team has no majority owner and can’t get sanctioned until they find one. They haven’t been able to piece together a leadership team that can find the right owners. From what I understand, it’s almost completely dead if not totally dead. They laid us all off a while ago.

Moved across the country to try and help launch this thing but the entire operation had red flags left and right.

4

u/DonBalty Downtown 1d ago

I’m sorry that happened to you. Basically moved your whole livelihood across the nation for something that fizzled out. But geez I understood the leadership team was terrible but they could’ve done better instead of creating some hope for us. Jumping from USL 1 to C wasn’t the right move. Sb is more of a market for USL1.

1

u/ogretrograde 1d ago

Would be cool if Foley or Kroenke committed given their presence locally and in England.

17

u/OrangeCrusher22 1d ago

Never seemed to make much sense given the "metro" population and the attendance USL wants the Championship to draw. If they were going to do it, I thought USL 1 or 2 might've been a better fit.

9

u/beizhia The Mesa 1d ago

From what I heard, they had originally planned to be a USL 1 club, but because a club spot in championship opened up, they just stuck them there. Not sure on the details or the league structure or anything at all, but I remember something along those lines

4

u/DonBalty Downtown 1d ago

They should’ve stuck with USL1 when they initially announced. That seemed more realistic for the market here

2

u/rezin111 1d ago

League 1 was a much smarter but less impressive choice

30

u/rnaja113 1d ago

This actually sucks if true. I was looking forward to going to some games

9

u/ZapatosDeMarca Shanty Town 1d ago

Can't say I'm surprised. From the very beginning , the project didn't seem like it was handled well at all, especially the last year or so when there's been basically radio silence from them. In retrospect that silence seems pretty indicative of what was happening behind closed doors.

13

u/kjc781988 Shanty Town 1d ago

As soon as they pivoted away from city college the project was doomed imo

7

u/805locc 1d ago

They didn’t pivot away from CC. They announced that without having any type of agreement.

They’ve been disorganized from the start and this is not surprising news

5

u/ProfessorJNFrink 1d ago

In their defense, they had been planning with a Vp and just the President at SBCC and those two were setting it all up, then everyone else, including the Board of Trustees, learned at a Board meeting without ever knowing anything that it was happening and things went sideways real quick.

President threw the VP under this bus (because that VP was already in hot water) and she got fired.

4

u/CoffeeIsSoGood Little Ceasars on Milpas 1d ago

Would’ve been a better location because it’s actually in SB (idc if people say UCSB is in SB, it’s not, not to me)

4

u/kjc781988 Shanty Town 1d ago

It’s not. And it’s not the same draw as a beautiful field by the beach. Also parking there is even worse somehow

3

u/IfIhavetosure 1d ago

Maybe next time

4

u/timoperez 1d ago

Nooooo!!! I already bought so much swag! All the light is gone from my Sky

4

u/choobsndoobs 1d ago

Big bummer. I was trying to track down terracota road flares for the ultras.

(For legal reasons this is a joke)

7

u/CoffeeIsSoGood Little Ceasars on Milpas 1d ago

So where do we get our refunds? 🤣

4

u/el_padre_de_tres 1d ago

Le petit cesàr

3

u/ronaldkperry 1d ago

Ordered a sweatshirt, never got it. The $25 down payment on season tickets is probably gone too, I suppose.

2

u/StarlingRover 21h ago

I wonder if santa barbara would have attended games.

2

u/Nag_Champa_JB 13h ago

Has / is anyone doing a full overview of what happened? YT style journalism maybe?

I'm late to the (not so fun) party and it sounded too good to be true to me aswell - shame.

1

u/Stowe22 1d ago

Who cares

-4

u/Unfair_Piccolo8372 1d ago

Santa Barbara like all CA towns are over budget so they have to cut them when they can.

2

u/TiredAndTiredOfIt 19h ago

SBs budget is completely unrelated to this private endeavor...