As ABC11 reported, Steve Malik put it about as plainly as a team owner ever does: "We check every box except for the facilities." That was his explanation in November 2025 for why North Carolina FC, the men's club that had called Cary home since 2007, was suspending operations rather than playing on. Not attendance. Not fan interest. A stadium that seats 10,000 people trying to qualify for a league that wants 15,000.
If you live near WakeMed Soccer Park and noticed the fall schedule feels thinner this year, that's not your imagination and it's not a sign the venue is fading. It's the opposite kind of story. The team that's still there, the North Carolina Courage, was there before NC FC ever showed up, and the stadium itself started life as a women's soccer venue two decades before anyone worried about a 15,000-seat threshold.
The Fifteen Thousand Seats That Ended It
North Carolina FC's exit wasn't about a bad season or an ownership fight. USL is building a planned Division One league, and eligibility requires a stadium with a minimum of 15,000 seats. First Horizon Stadium at WakeMed Soccer Park holds 10,000. The gap is exactly the kind of number that looks small on a spreadsheet and enormous on a construction budget, and it's the reason the club chose to step away rather than keep playing in a stadium that could never get them where they wanted to go.
As Goal reported, the club framed its decision this way.
"We had a great 20 years, but we're aiming to make professional soccer sustainable"
That's a club describing its own ending as a strategic pause, not a collapse. Whether Cary sees North Carolina FC again in a few years likely depends on whether a bigger stadium gets built somewhere else in the Triangle. Malik has already said he's looking at sites closer to downtown Raleigh, since the region remains one of the largest metro areas in the country without a dedicated downtown sports facility of that scale.
Four Days Before the Playoff Game
The timing is worth sitting with for a second. As Goal reported, the club announced its suspension four days before an Eastern Conference semifinal at WakeMed Soccer Park against Rhode Island FC, a home playoff game that the team then had to play under the weight of that news. Players described training that week as disrupted, with meetings about severance and relocation eating into practice time that would normally go toward preparation. It's the kind of detail that explains why the announcement felt abrupt to fans even though the underlying math, a 10,000-seat stadium chasing a 15,000-seat requirement, had been building for a while.
What's Actually Left on the Fall Calendar
None of this means the stadium goes quiet. It means the calendar simplifies to one home team instead of two, plus the college and high school events the venue has always hosted alongside its professional tenants.
Here's what's actually on the schedule for anyone within driving distance of Cary this fall:
- September 19, 2026: NC Courage host NJ/NY Gotham FC at 6:30 p.m., the next confirmed home date at First Horizon Stadium.
- Fall cross country season: The full-length course that circles the complex hosts dual meets, conference championships, the Mid-East Region Championship, and Nike Cross Nationals Southeast Regional qualifying, the same slate it's run for years regardless of what's happening with pro soccer tenants.
- Selective NC State matches: The Wolfpack men's and women's soccer teams play select games there each season as part of the ACC's rotation.
Game-day logistics haven't changed just because there's one fewer tenant. General parking still runs $10 for Courage matches, Trinity Road still closes at the railroad crossing on match days, and Lot D remains reserved for season ticket holders entering off Soccer Park Drive. If you've been to a match here before, none of the mechanics are different. There's just one fewer team's worth of dates on the calendar.
The Stadium's Original Tenant Was a Women's Team
Here's the part that reframes the whole story. WakeMed Soccer Park opened in May 2002 as State Capital Soccer Park, and its first tenant wasn't a men's club at all. It was the Carolina Courage of the WUSA, the precursor league to today's NWSL. The men's side didn't arrive until 2007, when what eventually became North Carolina FC moved in and the venue spent the next 18 years hosting both a men's and a women's professional team on the same pitch.
The stadium picked up its WakeMed name in 2008, sold stadium naming rights to Sahlen Packing Company in 2017, and then handed those rights to First Horizon Bank in December 2024, becoming First Horizon Stadium at WakeMed Soccer Park. The Courage connection to the stadium began with its first tenant, the Carolina Courage, in 2002. What looks this fall like a stadium that lost half its identity is also a return to a women's soccer tradition the venue has hosted before. Today's North Carolina Courage are marking their tenth season under the modern Courage name.
A Fall Saturday at First Horizon Stadium Looks Different Now
If you're used to treating WakeMed Soccer Park as a place with matches most weekends between March and October, expect fewer total game days this year simply because one full pro schedule is gone. What's left is a slate built entirely around the Courage, which means fewer nights but the same level of competition Cary has hosted for a decade, backed by a franchise with a long history at this address.
Whether men's professional soccer returns to Cary specifically, or ends up at a new downtown Raleigh site if Malik's stadium plans move forward, is still an open question that likely won't resolve for a year or two. What's not in question is that the Courage aren't a placeholder tenant keeping the lights on. Their connection to this stadium reaches back to opening day in 2002, when the original Carolina Courage played there.
If you're weighing what neighborhood fits your weekends, whether that means Saturday morning cross country meets on a course that draws runners from across the state or an evening walk over to catch a Courage match, Cary keeps building the kind of calendar that offers something to look forward to most months of the year. If you're curious what your own Cary home is worth in a market that keeps evolving alongside the town's amenities, Kelly Shields offers a free, no-pressure home valuation to help you see where you stand.
