PITTSBURGH – You could certainly look at Vic Gregovits’ appointment as the new President of Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC as a career come full circle.

After all, the Pittsburgh native and veteran executive – whose experience includes that with both the Cleveland Indians and Pittsburgh Pirates in Major League Baseball – got his start in the city’s soccer scene.

“I started as an intern in indoor soccer here,” said Gregovits recently. “That was a pretty special time in my life, and I got to spend some time in Minnesota as well with the indoor soccer team there as well, but any time you can come back to your hometown and have an opportunity like I do with this opportunity, it’s great to do.”

The Hounds certainly appear primed to find a new level in the coming years. While one of the USL Championship’s more historic clubs – the team began its life in the USL A-League in 1999 – the arrival of Highmark Stadium eight years ago and more recent rebranding to bring the club in line with the city’s traditional sporting colors of Black and Gold have seen the club’s following grow.

First sharing Louisville Slugger Field with the USL Championship’s Louisville City FC before seeing it move into Lynn Family Stadium last year, the data the Bats’ research provided showed Gregovits that there didn’t need to be competition for fans dollars, with relatively little crossover between the two fanbases.

“We did do some research there, and there’s room for everybody,” he said. “I would say the same for this market, which is much bigger, obviously. We only found there to be a 13-to-14 percent crossover of fanbase [between the Louisville Bats and Louisville City FC] so based on market size, there is room for everybody to be successful.”

Digging into what makes the different segments of the Hounds’ fanbase tick – from season-ticket holders and the Steel Army to those more casual fans looking for a good night of entertainment – is a priority for Gregovits as the Hounds get ready to kick off their new season this weekend against the Tampa Bay Rowdies.

As the city and sporting events start to reopen following the COVID-19 pandemic, the Hounds are taking a month-by-month approach to ticket sales, with the hope Highmark Stadium will be back to full capacity at Highmark Stadium before the end of this season.

When that happens, that’s when the fun will truly begin for Gregovits and his staff.

“This year we will have something to build upon, a huge stepping-stone for 2022, and we will obviously be ready to go full bore then,” said Gregovits. “That’s really the fun part of building something, taking the good foundation here and taking it to the next level, being here, sustaining and growing.”