Club’s move to professional ranks of USL League One to be spearheaded by data-driven executive experienced in building clubs from ground up
Fort Wayne FC announced the hiring of Oliver Gage as Sporting Director on Tuesday. With a résumé of building clubs from the ground up and being a trailblazer in the use of analytics, the 37-year-old Gage, a native of Sheffield, United Kingdom, is a perfect fit for Fort Wayne FC as it ascends to the professional ranks of USL League One in 2026.
“My job is to allow the coaching staff to focus on being the coaching staff and to take away some of those administrative duties, and to also be a conduit between ownership and the coaching group,” Gage said. “I’ll be making sure the club is going in the right direction not only in the short term, or a week-to-week basis or season-to-season basis, but also with what we’re doing over a larger three- or four-year period and how it fits into the larger plan.”
Fort Wayne FC will move into a new soccer-specific stadium, Fort Wayne FC Park, at Bass Road and I-69 in 2026. The club began accepting season ticket deposits Monday.
“We are looking forward to our first professional season next year and Olly will play a huge role in putting together a squad that is competitive and understands what it means to play for Fort Wayne FC,” said DaMarcus Beasley, the club’s Director of Football Operations and Co-Owner. “Olly’s vision for the club, now and in the future, completely aligns with our values. He has already hit the ground running. He will work together with and lead the technical staff as it pertains to our first team.”
Gage will work closely with Beasley, Head Coach Mike Avery and Majority Owner Mark Music, to ensure Fort Wayne FC is successful on the pitch. The club recently captured its third straight USL League Two Valley Division title and will play in the Central Conference Quarterfinals at 3 p.m. Friday against Midwest United FC in Flint, Mich.
“I’m data-driven in my approach,” Gage said. “I’ve built a little bit of a niche for myself in marrying the data world with the traditional kind of coaching world. I think that any modern club that has ambitions has to embrace the use of data and has to use it well.”
Gage was Director of Soccer at Loudon United, a USL Championship team in Leesburg, Virginia, from 2023 to 2025. Prior to Gage’s arrival, the team had failed to qualify for USL playoffs in six consecutive seasons, yet sat top of the USL Championship table with one of the league’s smallest budgets when he departed in April 2025 following a change in ownership.
From 2022 to 2023, Gage was Head of Football Strategy for SixFive Sports, overseeing two teams in the Canadian Premier League. He led the launch of expansion club Vancouver FC, driving the roster construction, staff recruitment and key technologies.
Prior to that, Gage was Director of Football for the Canadian Premier League from 2018 to 2022, aiding the league’s launch in 2019, designing and building a recruitment department that assisted the league’s clubs, and serving as an advisor for seven ownership groups.
Gage was Head of Analysis and Technical Recruitment for Major League Soccer’s Houston Dynamo from 2015 to 2018. He was the club’s first dedicated analyst and the Dynamo won the 2018 US Open Cup with a roster that included Beasley.
“Through all our conversations and having worked with him at the Houston Dynamo, we knew Olly would be a perfect fit for our club,” Beasley said. “We know he had other opportunities with clubs in the USL Championship and in Europe, so the fact that we were able to sign someone with his pedigree shows our intent on what we are wanting to build.”
Gage’s career began in 2013 as a Performance Analyst at the University of Virginia. The first analyst in college soccer, he helped the school win the 2014 National Championship.
“If you look back on my journey so far, especially in North America, I feel like I’ve always built,” Gage said. “I think I’m drawn toward clean-slate projects where I can go in and build from scratch. I think that suits my personality really well.
“What I see specifically here in Fort Wayne is not just a blank slate (with the club joining the professional ranks), but also the opportunity that Mark Music and DaMarcus Beasley presented – not just a blank canvas, but also an open-minded approach. There are no preconceived ideas of how to do things here, and you’re going to get a ton of support for doing things the right way and that means an awful lot to me. I’m really excited to have those opportunities.”
About Fort Wayne FC
Fort Wayne FC, founded in 2019, is currently a pre-professional club in USL League Two’s Valley Division in the Central Conference. The club won Valley Division championships in 2023 and 2024. Fort Wayne FC is moving to the professional ranks of USL League One in 2026 at a new state-of-the-art stadium.
About United Soccer League
Founded in 1986, the United Soccer League (USL) is the largest and fastest-growing soccer organization in the United States, impacting more than 200 communities nationwide. The USL is the first and only organization to offer a comprehensive youth-to-professional pathway for both men and women under one ecosystem. This structure includes four men’s leagues: the newly announced, top-tier professional Division I league, the USL Championship (Division II), USL League One (Division III), and USL League Two (pre-professional). The women’s pathway includes the top-tier USL Super League (Division I), which debuted in 2024, and USL W League, the country’s leading pre-professional women’s league. The USL also oversees USL Academy, a progressive talent development platform, and USL Youth, a premier national youth platform.