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The North American Soccer League announced its latest expansion side on Tuesday, confirming that the Oklahoma City market will in fact begin play for the 2016 season. The new club, named "Rayo OKC", are owned by La Liga side Rayo Vallecano.
Oklahoma City has been targeted by the league for quite a while, but things appeared bleak after Tim McLaughlin pulled out of the club's ownership group, opting to try his luck in USL instead. NASL commissioner Bill Peterson confirmed that the league had moved on ahead of the 2015 season, but recently, things appear to have changed, as Brad Lund managed to generate enough foreign interest in the market to get the project fast-tracked by the league.
Personally, I'm not a huge fan of branding the club with Rayo Vallecano's name, but it will be interesting to see how that all plays out in Oklahoma City, especially with competition from a USL side.They'll have at least celebrity fan in the area, though.
@RayoOKC Congratulations Rayo OKC!! Great to see people from Madrid, Spain doing business In Oklahoma City!! Go Rayo OKC!
— Serge Ibaka (@sergeibaka9) November 10, 2015
Regardless of how the competition with the USL side shakes out, it's certainly interesting to see more foreign ownership groups coming to the United States, and looking at the NASL in particular.