First Horizon Stadium at WakeMed Soccer Park

Four names in twenty-two years tell most of the story here. What opened in May 2002 as the State Capital Soccer Park became SAS Soccer Park within months, then WakeMed Soccer Park, then Sahlen's Stadium, and since 18 December 2024 it has carried First Horizon's name — the ground itself, run throughout by the Town of Cary rather than by any club, has stayed constant while the signage above the gates changed with each sponsorship cycle.

That municipal ownership explains something else: despite a capacity that has never topped 10,000, the stadium keeps landing finals that bigger, club-owned grounds compete for. It staged the NWSL Championship in 2019 (North Carolina Courage's 4-0 win over Chicago Red Stars drew 10,227), has hosted the NCAA College Cup — men's and women's — across several cycles since 2003, and took the NCAA Division I Women's Lacrosse Championship final in 2023. North Carolina Courage have played there since the league's 2017 launch; North Carolina FC used it from 2007 until the club folded in 2025.

The 2011-2012 rebuild, a $6.3m job that added a three-storey building with locker rooms and suites, pushed capacity from 7,000 to 10,000 — though North Carolina FC's own site still lists 9,200, adding only that the ground "can be expanded when necessary." The single-game record stands at 10,434, set on 7 October 2023 when the Courage drew San Diego Wave FC 0-0. Since 2023 the close season has brought The Soccer Tournament, a winner-take-all event that has drawn crowds beyond 50,000 across its run — a striking total for a ground built to hold a fifth of that in one sitting.