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Orange County Soccer Club retains Sports Marketing Veteran, Carl A. Thomas, as Strategic Senior Advisor

By Orange County SC Communications, 10/31/19, 1:00PM PDT

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Irvine, CA. October 31, 2019. James A. Keston, majority owner of the Orange County Soccer Club (OCSC), announced today that Carl A. Thomas has been retained by the Club as a Strategic Senior Advisor.

“Carl’s deep experience and expertise on all sides of the sports business is a real asset to OCSC as we enter our 4th year under my ownership.” stated James A. Keston. “Accelerating our growth through strategic partners, sponsors and investors is critical to our long-term success and Carl’s credentials and capabilities in all these areas are excellent.”

Thomas’s appointment marks the second senior management addition in the past five months as he joins OCSC President of Business Operations Jeff Garner (hired in June, 2019). Said Garner, “Carl brings a career of wisdom, experience, relationships, and best practices to OCSC, and I’m looking forward to working with him as we take the club to the next level. It’s a truly exciting time as we head into the 2020 season having just completed our best season ever setting attendance records and signing the best young talent in Southern California, including fourteen-year old sensation, Francis Jacobs.”

Most recently, Thomas was Chief Revenue Officer and Head of Global Bus Dev at San Diego based Hookit, the globally disruptive first and most powerful Sponsorship Analytics and Valuation Platform™ to quantify and track the value and performance of sports sponsorships in social and digital media. He helped rapidly expand the customer base into mainstream sports and led the company into Europe for the first time securing clients MLS, US Ski and Snowboard Team, European Golf Tour, McLaren F1, Liverpool FC, Canada Olympic Committee, New Balance, Van's, Kantar Sports, LAFC, and ESPN X Games.

“This is a great fit for me,” remarked Thomas. “With James” vision and Jeff’s operational excellence, OCSC is poised for the next stage of growth and I’m thrilled to be a part of it.”

 

ABOUT ORANGE COUNTY SOCCER CLUB

Orange County Soccer Club is Orange County’s only professional soccer team that is part of the United Soccer League (USL), the fastest growing Division II professional soccer league in the world. The USL is comprised of 36 teams across the United States. The team plays its home games at the Orange County Great Park’s Championship Soccer Stadium, located in Irvine, CA. Nestled in the heart of the Great Park, Championship Soccer Stadium has a capacity of over 5,000 for Orange County SC matches. Orange County SC was one of 12 founding members of the USL during its inaugural 2011 season. The preceding club, Orange County Blues, won the 2015 Western Conference Regular Season Championship and reached the Western Conference Semi-Finals of the USL Playoffs in back-to-back seasons. Team owner and Chief Investment Officer of LARO Properties, James Keston, purchased and re-branded the team in 2017. Keston, who actively oversees all operations of the team, is dedicated to providing a pathway to professional soccer and a world-class soccer organization that focuses on the fans, players and youth clubs of Orange County.

For more information about Orange County Soccer Club, and to experience professional soccer in the OC, visit: http://www.orangecountysoccer.com.

For more information about the United Soccer League, visit: http://www.uslsoccer.com.

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