{"id":690206,"date":"2026-05-04T16:06:35","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T16:06:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/690206\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T16:06:35","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T16:06:35","slug":"cleveland-professional-womens-soccer-team-gets-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/690206\/","title":{"rendered":"Cleveland professional women&#8217;s soccer team gets name"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>CLEVELAND \u2014 Cleveland&#8217;s professional women&#8217;s soccer team has its official name, and it&#8217;s out of this world.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>What You Need To Know<\/p>\n<p>The Cleveland Astra officially debuted Monday morning, and according to its website, it aims to be &#8220;a constant, a guiding light&#8221;<br \/>\n<br \/>The team will begin playing in 2028<br \/>\n<br \/>The crest of the team incorporates many facets of the city as well as a bit more to encompass what the team is all about<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/SN_BANNER_APP-LIVE-STREAM_GIF_30968_SC_v02D.gif\" alt=\"Download the Spectrum News App\" class=\"hashed-image\" img-data-alignment=\"center\" img-data-width=\"percent-hundred\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The Cleveland Astra officially debuted Monday morning, and according to its website, it aims to be &#8220;a constant, a guiding light.&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Giving more talented women a team to play for. Giving our fans a club to be proud of. Giving the city a reason to look up,&#8221; the website states.<\/p>\n<p>The crest of the team incorporates many facets of the city as well as a bit more to encompass what the team is all about.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The name itself, Astra, is Latin for &#8220;stars.&#8221; Not only is the language a nod to the many communities that encompass the city, but also it&#8217;s a guide to help light the way for others and burn bright, according to the team.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The logo is encased in a double gold-tipped frame, an ode to art deco and a gilded age in the city.<\/p>\n<p>In the logo sits the outline of Ohio in the lower crest, and in the top right sits the North Star, Polaris, right on top of Cleveland.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;ll be that North Star for everyone who needs something brilliant, stable and true to aim at,&#8221; the team explained.<\/p>\n<p>In the bottom left corner is Ursa Major, the Great Bear, pointing toward the North Star.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Built to love fiercely, protect her own, hold her ground and keep us moving forward,&#8221; the team said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Even the colors of the crest were chosen based off of Northeast Ohio&#8217;s natural landscape \u2014 Lake Erie Midnight, Golden Era (a color represented in Cleveland landmarks, including the Arcade, Guardians of Traffic and Terminal Tower) and Violet ad Astra, the color of a nebula.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCleveland Soccer Group was built on a belief that a sports organization can be more than the sum of its results,\u201d said Michael Murphy, CEO &amp; co-founder of Cleveland Soccer Group.<\/p>\n<p>The team will begin playing in 2028, because one of three new women&#8217;s professional teams to debut across Ohio. Its twin team, the Forest City Cleveland, the men&#8217;s team, will join Astra in hosting a series of community events and celebrations this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe believe soccer brings people together in ways that improve individual outcomes and strengthen entire communities,\u201d said Murphy. \u201cAnd we\u2019re making strides to do just that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Merch and other information is available on the team&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.clevelandastra.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">website.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEVELAND \u2014 Cleveland&#8217;s professional women&#8217;s soccer team has its official name, and it&#8217;s out of this world.\u00a0 What&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":690207,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2380],"tags":[556,560,5,135,51,2565,538,39211,4,169,1944,11140,185,558],"class_list":["post-690206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cleveland-guardians","tag-app-sports","tag-app-top-stories","tag-baseball","tag-cleveland","tag-cleveland-guardians","tag-clevelandguardians","tag-guardians","tag-lydia-taylor","tag-mlb","tag-news","tag-ohio","tag-ohio-cleveland-top-stories","tag-sports","tag-top-stories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116517168411979096","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=690206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/690207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=690206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=690206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=690206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}