The Atlanta Beat was an American soccer club based in

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

that competed on a professional level. The team joined

Women's Professional Soccer Women's Professional Soccer (WPS) was the top-level professional women's soccer league in the United States. It began play on March 29, 2009. The league was composed of seven teams for its first two seasons and fielded six teams for the 2011 sea ...

as an expansion team in 2010, and played its home games at

Kennesaw State University Soccer Stadium Fifth Third Bank Stadium, known as Kennesaw State University Stadium until 2013, is a stadium near Kennesaw, Georgia, that is primarily used as the home for the Kennesaw State Owls football team as well as the KSU women's soccer and women's lacr ...

, the result of a public-private partnership between the team and

Kennesaw State University Kennesaw State University (KSU) is a public research university located in the state of Georgia with two different campuses in the Atlanta metropolitan area, one in Kennesaw and the other in Marietta on a combined of land. The school was fou ...

. The club took the name and logo of the former

Atlanta Beat (WUSA) The Atlanta Beat was a professional soccer team that played in the Women's United Soccer Association. The team played at Bobby Dodd Stadium on the campus of the Georgia Institute of Technology in its first year of operation before moving to Hern ...

of the defunct

Women's United Soccer Association The Women's United Soccer Association (WUSA) was the world's first women's soccer league in which all the players were paid as professionals. Founded in February 2000, the league began its first season in April 2001 with eight teams in the Un ...

History

Name and colors

The team's name was announced to be the Beat on June 18, 2009. The name was determined by a fan poll, with Attack, Beat, and Storm as the options. The new Beat logo was the same design as the previous WUSA logo, with the two shades of blue being replaced by Gold and Ferrari Red.

Building the team

Atlanta began building its team at the 2009 WPS Expansion Draft on September 15, 2009, where it selected six players from the existing seven WPS teams, getting four players from the teams that finished first and second in the league's inaugural season. A week later, Atlanta selected five international players in the 2009 WPS International Draft, including three players from Umea IK, and thus now have exclusive negotiating rights to those players among WPS teams.

Inaugural season

The Beat ended the 2010 season in last place with 5 wins, 13 losses, and 6 ties.

2011 season

The Atlanta Beat started off the 2011 season on April 9 in a game against the

Boston Breakers The Boston Breakers were an American professional soccer club based in the Boston neighborhood of Allston. The team competed in the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL). They replaced the original Breakers, who competed in the defunct Women's ...

in front of over slightly 4,000 spectators at KLS Stadium. The Beat lost 1–4 to Boston with their lone goal coming from Carli Lloyd in a penalty kick in the 78th minute.

Players

2011 roster

League suspension

On January 30, 2012,

announced suspension of the 2012 season, citing several internal organization struggles as the primary cause. Some of these included an ongoing legal battle with an ex-franchise owner and the lack of resources invested into the league.

References

External links

* (archived) Association football clubs established in 2010 Women's Professional Soccer teams Women's soccer clubs in the United States B Soccer clubs in Georgia (U.S. state) {{GeorgiaUS-footyclub-stub