Some teams are faced with long drives or swallowing cancellation fees.
January 22, 2025 by Charlie Eisenhood in News
Florida Warm Up, a key early season men’s division college tournament set for January 31st-February 2, has been relocated two hours north of its original Tampa location to Gainesville after the University of South Florida revoked the tournament’s field reservations due to the construction of a new stadium on campus.
Teams were notified on January 18th of the revoked fields and possible new locations and then on January 21st, 10 days before the start of the tournament, about the confirmed move to Gainesville. Some teams are facing non-refundable hotel and Airbnb cancellation costs as they scramble to book new housing.
The tournament will now be held at the Jonesville Soccer Park, which is just over a two hour drive from Tampa airport. Tournament schedule disruption is expected to be minimal, though night games — a staple of Warm Up — are a question mark.
“When USF told us their fields wouldn’t be available, we immediately started searching around Tampa Bay in Hillsborough, Pasco, and Pinellas counties hoping to keep Warm Up close to home,” said long-time Warm Up TD Dario Milano. “While we found some great spots, they were either booked up or didn’t have quite enough fields available for a tournament of our size for next weekend. Some of them are great spots to host a future Florida Warm Up, so we may look into that. We reached out to [the University of Florida] given their numerous campus fields. They often host Florida Conferences so we know their capabilities pretty well. Unfortunately, their campus fields weren’t available but they connected with the Jonesville Soccer Complex, which amazingly had availability for next weekend and we think we can fit up to 12 fields. Huge thanks to the UF team for helping us find a solution, and we’re incredibly grateful for how understanding all the teams have been with these last-minute changes.
“We understand this venue change significantly impacts teams’ travel plans, so we’re working with each program to adjust game schedules around their needs. Teams can request later start times on Friday or earlier finish times on Sunday to accommodate their new travel arrangements.”
Florida Warm Up games will be broadcasted live for Standard and All-Access subscribers on Ultiworld beginning on January 31st.
