TOCA Football Inc. has opened a technology-enabled soccer center in the Madison area.
The facility is at 5964 Executive Drive in Fitchburg in the former Break Away Sports Center.
Founded in 2016 by two-time U.S. World Cup midfielder Eddie Lewis, California-based TOCA Football developed a training model that includes a proprietary ball machine, digitalized targets, and an app with real-time performance data and post-training statistics. The training approach includes high-repetition, game-like simulations.
TOCA Football has raised $105 million in capital, most recently closing a $40 million Series E round of funding in June 2021. The company's board is led by Erik Anderson, the former chairman of Dallas-based Topgolf Entertainment Group, a technology-enabled golf company that merged with Callaway Golf Co. in a deal that valued Topgolf at around $2 billion.
U.S. soccer Olympic gold medalist and FIFA Women's World Cup Champion Abby Wambach is also on TOCA Football's board.
TOCA Football has 15 other locations in the U.S. and Canada, including one of its largest in Naperville, Illinois. The company also is developing an entertainment concept called TOCA Social that serves food and beverages while patrons play games leveraging TOCA's technology. The first TOCA Social location is in London.
The Break Away Sports Center, now called TOCA Soccer Center - Madison, is open and is currently continuing its winter leagues and field rentals, according to an announcement earlier this month. TOCA will add youth classes and technology-enabled training sessions at the center later this year.
Break Away Sports Center owner Matt Lombardino will stay on to assist with the transition, according to a Jan. 2 post on TOCA's website.
Other local companies have riffed on tech-enabled sports concepts. A former Milwaukee-area manufacturing president is planning a skiing simulator business in Pewaukee called Urban Slopes and a Milwaukee startup called huupe is developing a smart basketball hoop that tracks performance and allows players to digitally compete against each other.
