25 to watch in 2025: Lexington Sporting Club CEO Kim Shelton helps usher in a new soccer era
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25 to watch in 2025
The Lexington Herald-Leader is tracking 25 individuals we expect will be making news in 2025.
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Editor’s note: The Herald-Leader is profiling 25 individuals we predict will be making news in 2025.
Who: Kim Shelton, CEO of Lexington Sporting Club
Background: In late January 2024, Shelton was hired as the CEO of Lexington Sporting Club, the Central Kentucky soccer franchise that fields both men’s and women’s professional teams, as well as a variety of youth squads.
Shelton was a member of the first women’s soccer team at UK, earned All-SEC honors with the Wildcats and remains the program’s all-time leader in games played and started. Shelton later served as an assistant coach for the Cats.
Other roles held by Shelton in her professional career include working for the Chicago venue of the transformational 1999 FIFA Women’s World Cup, the YMCA of Central Kentucky and JMI Sports, a sales, marketing and project management services company that broadcasts UK sports.
Why 2025 will be notable: Shelton has been part of the Lexington Sporting Club leadership that has overseen a transformational time for the club.
In the past year, the club has announced that its men’s professional team will be moving up a division to the USL Championship, the second-highest tier of men’s pro soccer in North America and the top level offered under the United Soccer League structure.
Recently, the LSC men’s team played a closed-door scrimmage against Major League Soccer team Inter Miami and Argentinian superstar Lionel Messi.
Last year, LSC’s professional women’s team debuted in the brand new USL Super League, a top-tier pro women’s league that’s been sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation as a Division I league.
Additionally, LSC now has a stadium of its own. The 7,500-seat Lexington SC Stadium opened in September along Athens Boonesboro Road near Interstate 75 in Lexington.
Lexington’s professional men’s team will begin play in the USL Championship in early March. LSC’s professional women’s team is currently on winter break in the Super League and will resume play in mid-February.
What others say about Shelton: “She’s a trailblazer in the industry, a tested business executive and an exceptional people developer — qualities essential to our vision,” Lexington Sporting Club’s ownership — which includes majority owner Bill Shively — said of Shelton. “Equally noteworthy, Kim has been a dedicated member of the Lexington community for over three decades, showcasing a shared passion for advancing both our community and the beloved sport.”
What Shelton says: “2025 will be the first full year for operations in this beautiful facility (the Lexington SC Stadium). We’ve elevated the club to the Championship league on the men’s side. We’ll have a full year of play for the Super League on the women’s side. It’s a huge year for our club,” Shelton said.
“The vision for the club — what we’ve done with the youth facility and the stadium and the youth club and our professionals teams – is to inspire our young people with our professional teams and ultimately have that success,” Shelton added about what LSC wants to accomplish in 2025.
“So, if we’ve inspired some young people with what we’re doing here on the pitch, then we’ve succeeded. Success on the pro side, we want to be in the playoffs. We want to be competing for championships. So that’s a real tangible measure for success, less tangible is how many people have you inspired. But if we’ve really done it well, we’ve done both of those things.”
This story was originally published January 28, 2025 at 12:30 PM.
