The dream began 12 years ago — a simple idea that professional soccer could find a home in Boise. Today, Athletic Club Boise has turned that vision into reality, giving Idaho the team its fans have waited generations to call their own.
Deep in the heart of Idaho, where mountains touch the sky and independence runs as thick as the Snake River, a soccer dream has been quietly taking root for decades.
This was a place that understood the beautiful game — its rhythm, its passion, its power to unite strangers around something bigger than themselves. But Idaho had always been forced to love soccer from a distance, watching other cities celebrate while they cheered for teams that would never truly be theirs.
Until Athletic Club Boise decided to change that. Brick by brick, believer by believer, they built their team with the kind of stubborn love of those who know what it means to create something from nothing. The community has been central to making this dream a reality.
“We couldn’t have built this without the community,” Athletic Club Boise Co-owner Brad Stith said. “Pro sports are owned by the community — they live here and make Idaho a great place to live. When you’re able to create something that you know Idahoans are going to wear above their heart on every single jersey and every single shirt, that’s what the soccer crest means. And it’s exceptional that we’ve been given the opportunity to help create something that’s going to have that kind of impact.”
Athletic Club Boise draws its name from Athletic Bilbao, the legendary Spanish club in the Basque Country. Given that Boise has one of the largest Basque populations in the U.S., the group wanted to honor both Idaho’s identity and its deep Basque roots.
The Basque-Idaho connection extends beyond the name into the team’s visual identity, with the crest incorporating elements that speak directly to Idaho’s heritage.
Every detail tells Idaho’s story. A peregrine falcon represents both speed and Boise’s raptor conservation legacy; mountain peaks frame the design as symbols of excellence; and a bold ‘V’ formation captures the Treasure Valley’s geography and spirit of unity. The star garnet, Idaho’s state gem, speaks to resilience and transformation, while the color palette of Mountain Dusk, Lupine Bloom, Raptor Shadow and Basque Green celebrates the state’s cultural and natural beauty through both color and name.
Since the announcement of the club, the community’s response has exceeded Stith and the other owners’ expectations.
“Since we announced, it’s been overwhelmingly positive,” Stith said. “We broke every season ticket record in the United Soccer League for one-day sales and one-week sales, and now we’re on the verge of breaking the all-time record.”
“When you’re setting records in a league that has five of the top 10 markets and includes NBA and NFL markets like Oakland, Vegas, Sacramento, Phoenix, Oklahoma City, San Antonio and Dallas, you’re talking about major players in professional sports. We’re excited to get going. It’s going to be a phenomenal start to professional soccer in Idaho,” Stith said.
The anticipation is building for both Athletic Club Boise teams. The men will kick off their inaugural season in the spring of 2026, while the women will follow a year later in the fall of 2027.
Both teams will participate in the USL, and despite being new to the professional scene, Stith and the ownership group have high expectations when their teams hit the pitch.
“On the field we’re going to be extremely competitive,” Stith said. “We will be announcing our VP of soccer operations, who is our general manager in that capacity, in the next couple of weeks. They have an outstanding tenure when it comes to championship soccer — you’ll see that once we make that announcement. The Northwest is just full of talent that honestly gets overlooked a little bit.”
For 12 years, it was just a dream. Now, as Athletic Club Boise prepares to run onto the pitch in spring 2026, they carry not just the weight of expectations, but the legacy and heart of Idaho itself — a community’s crest beating above their hearts and the work it took to get there.
Jayden Barfuss can be reached at [email protected].