Boston Legacy FC announces club's first-ever head coach
Boston Legacy FC on Wednesday announced the hiring of the women's soccer club's first-ever head coach.
Filipa Patão will begin her duties with the club in July, pending approval of her visa, according to Legacy FC controlling owner Jennifer Epstein.
Advertisement
'Filipa demonstrates all of the qualities that personify this club and the way we want to play: with passion, grit, and style,' Epstein said in a statement. 'She is a coach who loves to develop players and loves to win, and that attitude is very evident in the way she is approaching our inaugural 2026 season head-on. We can't wait to watch her build Boston's next championship team.'
Patão comes to the Boston Legacy from Portuguese club Benfica, where she has been head coach of the women's senior team since 2020 and amassed a record of 156-28-15 over all competitions.
'I'm very excited about going to Boston. I can't wait to get to the city, meet all the people, and start working,' Patão said in a statement. 'The American league is extremely competitive, and that's one of the reasons I accepted this project: I like competition, difficulty, and getting the players to strive for more and better. To transform themselves and always demand more of themselves. I know that Boston fans are passionate about the city and their teams, and I'm looking forward to building a new history with them.'
Advertisement
Boston Legacy FC is the 15th team in the National Women's Soccer League. They are slated to start play in 2026.
Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts.
Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Business Insider
41 minutes ago
- Business Insider
Speed, celebs, Champagne: Formula 1 is having its Hollywood moment
If it seems like Formula 1 is inescapable this summer, there's good reason. Apple's"F1: The Movie," starring Brad Pitt, hit theaters Friday. It's one of Apple's biggest bets on entertainment, with the company's characteristic slick production, A-list cast, aspirational feel, and hefty price tag. The tech giant has gone all out to promote the movie, and even pushed discounted tickets using an iPhone notification. Apple isn't the only company betting on Formula 1. The sport, with its air of globe-trotting luxury and peak performance, has become a darling among brands. Tommy Hilfiger has a capsule collection tied to the "F1" film, and Heineken is using it to work itself into the cultural conversation. Formula 1 kept cropping up in conversations Business Insider reporters had with marketers during the recent Cannes Lions ad festival in the south of France. How did an exclusive, complex sport, with drivers hidden behind helmets and cars, enter the cultural mainstream? The sport got a big boost from the Netflix docuseries "Formula 1: Drive to Survive," which was not only a massive hit but was also credited with getting people to watch more races. The series started in 2019 and has run seven seasons so far. Formula 1 owner Liberty Media has worked to capitalize on the sport's increased popularity in the US. It added a second American race to the calendar in 2022, the Miami Grand Prix, and a third in Las Vegas in 2023, and has amplified the glitz factor with celebrities and splashy ceremonies. Teams are doing their part. McLaren Racing, home of the McLaren Formula 1 team, is doing a Trafalgar Square takeover in July to promote the team. Louise McEwen, CMO of McLaren Racing, said it was important to reach new and existing fans outside the track. "Seeing the new fans come into the sport, we needed to show up in their worlds and be meaningful in their worlds," she told BI at Cannes Lions. "Only 1% of fans ever go to the track in their lifetime." Formula 1 is still small compared to mainstream American sports like football and basketball, but the US has been one of its fastest-growing markets since Liberty's acquisition, according to Nielsen Sports. Globally, Formula 1 grew its fan base 12% to over 826 million in 2024. Women now make up 41% of the fanbase, and 16- to 24-year-olds are the fastest-growing age group, per Nielsen. A limitation of Formula 1 is that its drivers are obscured by helmets and cars, making it hard for fans to connect to them. Formula 1 CEO Stefano Domenicali has been on a mission to expand the company's global footprint and US audience by promoting its drivers as actors in the drama of the competition. Cost is another limiting factor. Even basic tickets to this year's Miami Grand Prix went for hundreds of dollars. Those factors and the complexity of the sport have raised questions about how far its popularity can go. Brands are eagerly capitalizing on Formula 1's rise F1 is considered expensive and logistically challenging from a sponsorship point of view. Still, according to the research firm Ampere Analysis, sponsorship spending on F1 and its teams is expected to reach $2.9 billion this year, up 10% over 2024. Jae Goodman, whose Superconnector Studios firm connects brands to entertainment, said he saw F1's impact directly at the Miami Grand Prix, where he said that for every official sponsor, there was another brand attaching itself unofficially to the race. He was eager to see how the new Apple movie would confirm its relevance. "From a marketer's perspective, F1 feels like it's at the center of culture right now," he said. Mastercard, Qualcomm, and Atlassian are among those that are hoping to get the sport's high-tech gloss to rub off on them through team and media partnerships on and off the track. Some brands are looking beyond just putting logos in stadiums and on jerseys. For its sponsorship with the Formula 1 Oracle Red Bull Racing team, the Norway-based videoconferencing company Neat had its products used by the team's staff and in their hospitality suite, so that Neat could invite prospects to sporting events. Uber Advertising, pitching prospective clients, described how beauty brand La Mer sponsored rides to and from the Miami Grand Prix. Lenovo marketer Emily Ketchen recently discussed with BI how its partnership with Formula 1 includes using AI tech to improve the viewing experience. "That fusion of tech and performance is where we see a really nice alignment for our brand and for theirs," she said.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Bank of America says tariffs might spark a ‘reshoring' boom—but experts say it might be a double-edged sword for the economy
Evidence of a U.S. manufacturing slowdown is mounting, according to the Bank of America Institute. Tariffs could help reduce that slowdown and bring more advanced production back stateside, but improving productivity might happen without increasing employment. President Donald Trump has been adamant his tariffs will bring factory jobs back to American shores. Higher import taxes will likely push manufacturers to move operations back to the U.S., according to Bank of America economists, but so-called reshoring might incentivize firms to put more robots than humans on the assembly line. A lack of skilled labor and high costs remain big impediments as companies come home, BofA warns. Automation might be the key to unlocking reshoring, potentially boosting the sluggish productivity of American manufacturers without meaningfully increasing employment. Evidence of a slowdown in the sector is mounting, according to a recent report from the Bank of America Institute. New orders for manufactured durable goods fell in April, while the famous manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index has signaled a contraction since March. Focusing on small businesses, BofA's internal client data shows deposit growth from manufacturers has also declined. 'It's possible, right, that these [tariffs] could support momentum going forward and potentially reverse some of that slowdown, especially for certain subsectors within the industry,' the report's author, BofA economist Taylor Bowley, told Fortune. 'But tariff costs and labor issues do exist.' Reshoring has been all the rage in corporate America after Trump's first trade war with China—and the COVID-19 pandemic—highlighted risks to global supply chains. The Biden-era CHIPS and Inflation Reduction Acts, meanwhile, heavily subsidized companies willing to make semiconductors and clean energy technology in the U.S. While U.S. manufacturing accounts for just 8% of total employment, reshoring has created 2 million jobs in the past 15 years, according to a May note from BofA economists. Half of those new positions have been created in the past five years, they noted, though the trend has slowed since peaking in 2022. In a survey of 56 analysts across the bank, covering roughly 1,200 firms worth over $38 trillion in market cap, roughly 60% said production will continue to move back to the U.S.—at least modestly—if tariffs remain high. Those following industrials and manufacturing expect the greatest shift to the U.S. There are still obstacles to coming back stateside, though. In the BofA survey, 54% of the analysts said issues finding skilled workers would be a significant impediment for companies. Higher labor costs are one of the primary reasons manufacturers shifted away from the U.S. in the first place, Bowley said. While a 2024 survey from the Cato Institute found 80% of Americans think the country would benefit from increasing manufacturing employment, just a quarter believe they would be better off individually working in a factory. If firms struggle to fill positions, Bowley said, they are forced to figure out how to improve productivity without hiring people. 'And that's where this conversation around automation and productivity comes in,' she said. Two-thirds of respondents to the BofA survey said any production shift to the U.S. would require significantly more automation than an offshore factory. That makes more advanced industries the best candidates for moving back to the U.S., BofA economists said, like auto assembly and high-end furniture. 'Millions and millions of human beings screwing in little, little screws to make iPhones,' as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick suggested? Not so much. Meanwhile, Lutnick's ability to continue making trade deals might matter most to small businesses. They account for 98% of American manufacturing, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration, and many rely on cheap imports. 'A lot of them depend on a specific part—for example, to complete their manufacturing process—that simply isn't made domestically,' Bowley said. Therefore, for smaller manufacturers, tariff uncertainty makes planning capital expenditures especially difficult, even if their products become more competitive domestically. With profit margins and productivity lagging other industries in the U.S., passing price hikes on to consumers is the obvious response. However, if firms need to absorb some of the cost to keep customers, Bowley said, reducing inventories, operations, or headcount are other potential options. 'Reshoring in that aspect for smaller firms is kind of a double-edged sword,' she said. Nonetheless, sales are expected to grow in the coming months, Bowley said. But businesses might start feeling the squeeze, she added, when inventories start running low in the second half of the year. This story was originally featured on Error while retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data
Business Insider
an hour ago
- Business Insider
3 signs the economy is in worse shape than we thought
The US economy is facing some serious headwinds. A weaker labor market, a slower baseline rate of economic activity at the start of 2025, and a pull-back from the mighty American consumer could all portend a bigger slowdown later this year. There hasn't been a recession since the two-month pandemic downturn in 2020. The National Bureau of Economic Research makes the official call, saying its "definition emphasizes that a recession involves a significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and lasts more than a few months." Below are three signs that the economy isn't as strong as it once was. Economic growth last quarter was worse than we thought The Bureau of Economic Analysis has released three estimates of the rate of economic growth for the first quarter of the year. They do this because, as they get additional information, they can get a better picture of the economy's growth. Back in April, the BEA's initial estimate of the real gross domestic product's rate of change during the first quarter of the year was negative, the first decline since 2022. Imports, which subtract from growth, rose as businesses responded to President Donald Trump's tariffs. However, this week's third GDP estimate was worse than expected and the previous two estimates. The third estimate showed real GDP dropped at an annualized rate of 0.5% compared to a 0.2% expected drop and the 0.3% drop reported in the initial advance estimate on April 30. Consumer spending, which is crucial for GDP growth, cooled in the first quarter. It rose 0.5% compared to 4% in the last quarter of 2024. It was a main reason real GDP was revised down — real consumer spending was estimated at 1.8% in the advance release — and it's pretty ominous since consumers have generally been keeping the economy afloat the last couple of years. One or two negative quarters of economic growth don't necessarily mean a recession; there are a lot of different measures that go into making that call. Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst for Bankrate, told Business Insider the chance of a US recession is "modestly elevated, but far from certain." May saw a rare drop in consumer spending The American consumer may finally be reaching their limit. Real spending has weakened, dropping 0.3% in May from April, according to a BEA report out Friday morning. All told, spending growth has been largely flat since late last year. While the fall in spending might not seem like a lot, Justin Wolfers, a professor of public policy and economics at the University of Michigan, wrote on X that this is a rare occurrence. He added that it happened during COVID and the financial crisis. "This may be a bit short of a seismic change, but it completely changes the narrative on the health of the consumer and reconciles the head-scratching disparity between plunging confidence and a swaggering consumer unencumbered by tariffs or a weakening labor market," wrote Wells Fargo economists Tim Quinlan and Shannon Grein. Spending was stronger in April and March. Based on other data and BI interviews with consumers, people ended up buying cars, laptops, and other items in response to new tariff policies. That binge may be coming to an end. Spending on motor vehicles and parts in particular fell 6.0% in May, providing a large part of the drop in overall consumer activity. Economists don't see spending getting better. "With employment growth slowing, income gains moderating, and the inflationary effects of tariffs building, households are likely to become more cautious with their spending over the summer and into the fall," said Lydia Boussour, EY-Parthenon's senior economist. The job market is getting worse "The gradual deterioration of US labor markets continues," economist Guy Berger wrote in his Substack on Thursday. Continued claims for unemployment benefits, which measure how many people receiving those benefits have renewed them in the previous week, have been steadily climbing for the last few months, reaching almost 2 million for the week ending June 14 and hitting their highest level since November 2021, when the economy was still recovering from the pandemic shock. The rise shows people could be having a harder time finding a new job. There were 7.2 million unemployed in the US in May, with 1.5 million unemployed for at least 27 weeks. There was one job opening for every unemployed person in April, down from two job openings for each in 2022 during the Great Resignation. Still, initial claims, which show people who are newly applying for unemployment benefits and have been holding mostly steady this year, suggest many workers aren't losing their jobs — layoffs and discharges have been low. "We're seeing this deterioration in continuing claims without a corresponding worsening in initial claims," Berger wrote. Other recent data show job seekers have less bargaining power again. People are less likely to job-hop, partly because openings have cooled. Plus, wage growth isn't as great as a few years ago for job switchers. It can be hard to even find an opening that matches their interests, especially if they are looking for a white-collar job, or the benefits they want, like a remote job. Berger expects that the rise in continuing claims could likely lead to an increase in the headline unemployment rate in the coming jobs report. Unemployment held steady at 4.2% from March to May.
