Last season, Flower City Union entered NISA with a beautifully-designed crest and a great home field, one of the best in the league. What it didn’t have was a great roster and it showed on the table. The team struggled all season and finished the season dead last with a -44 goal differential. It was a tough season. However, for all the difficulty, it seemed the organization was building a solid foundation that could see improvement moving forward. We sat down with Andrew Hoyt, club vice president, to discuss last season, the offseason, and what we can expect from Flower City Union.

So how was the season from a front office perspective?

We knew going into the season that as a first-year organization, we would face challenges and obstacles, but I think we did a good job of minimizing the effects of those challenges. We learned a lot from our experiences as a staff and plan to use all the lessons learned from this season to improve our 2023 campaign. One of our major points of emphasis as a club is having an impact on the community. We feel as the first season went on, we truly began to see the impact that we can create on the community that we are a part of. We have a great front office staff that is 100% committed to not only the club, but also the Rochester community and creating a positive impact on the area we know and love.

What were some lessons you learned?

There are a lot of lessons that we have taken away from the inaugural 2022 season. Our coaching staff and front office staff are young and are thus continuing to build connections and learn from experiences, both good and bad. We had a lot of learning opportunities in 2022, but the biggest ones from a coaching perspective were one, how important having a full offseason to plan the next season is and two, player evaluation during the offseason. We have a better understanding of the level of play to expect for this year, and we hope to field a team that is more competitive this season.

As the season went along, it felt like your fan turnout improved, how do you plan on continuing that?

Our attendance improved as the season went on. One of the biggest obstacles we faced was our league schedule. We were heavily front loaded with home games early in the year and, as anyone who's lived in Rochester throughout the year would know, the weather here really doesn’t get nice enough to sit comfortably outdoors until late April to early May. We played four home games before the end of April this past year. Going forward, we hope to work with the league and have more home games scheduled for when the weather is warmer, though we can't promise it won't rain! We just launched our new season memberships that come with some great perks for the 2023 season. We are also working on improving our stadium experience with more theme nights and more family-based concourse activities. We have a great relationship with the City of Rochester, and they are continuing to renovate the stadium to bring it back to its original level and elevate the full soccer experience for our fans.

Your club’s social media has been on point since day one, who’s responsible for that and will the club keep the lights on through the off-season?

Nina Korn is our Director of Digital Media and Marketing. She does a great job with all of it, we couldn't have found a better person for the job! We have had two 30-minute docuseries that have aired on local TV here in Rochester, as well as episodes of our two series (“Rooted” & “Behind the Union”) on our YouTube page. Nothing will change with our social media during the offseason, we still plan to be active in the community through World Cup watch parties, charity events, and player appearances.

What’s the next couple of steps headed into winter?

From the front office perspective, we are currently creating our action plans for the 2023 season. The coaching staff is working daily to build the roster for next season. We are looking forward to our second season and we will have a few exciting announcements in the coming months that we hope will create a good amount of buzz around the club.

Any big goals before next season?

Our three major goals for Flower City Union are to continue increasing attendance at our home games, have an even larger positive impact on our community, and lastly field a competitive squad.

Any consideration of changing the “local” approach to roster building? Or will that continue?

The local roots of our roster will always be there. I think this season we will have more players from outside the Rochester area than we did in 2022 but we aim to always have a few Rochester natives representing the club and creating the core of Flower City Union. Having players from the area is important to us because those players can have a huge impact on the youth in our city. Lots of kids look up to those players as positive role models, especially knowing that they grew up in the area and can appreciate all that Rochester has to offer.

Where will the club play matches next season?

We will continue to play most of our home matches at the Rochester Community Sports Complex. It is one of the best facilities in NISA and we are happy that the City of Rochester is continuing to work with us on constantly updating and expanding the facility. I do think we will play a few matches at other venues like we did last season, as we like to be able to support other communities and bring professional soccer to the areas that helped support us during the inaugural season.

Flower City Union USMNT World Cup watch party.

New jerseys for next season? Any other merch plans?

Currently, we are working on the jersey plans for 2023. I can’t confirm if we are moving to a new jersey, but we are considering it. For our other merchandise, we have signed an agreement with Notable Corporation to be our exclusive supplier for our team store for next season. We look to launch new merchandise lines every three months starting in January. Other than some staple items that will always be available in our team store, we plan to have limited numbers of the new merchandise lines when they are released.

Season tickets are now on sale for Flower City Union’s 2023 season here.