Months ago, it was announced that a group was trying to bring a United Soccer League Championship team to Buffalo by 2026. The owners were upfront about a new USL team needing a new stadium, likely seating 10,000 fans. But when it comes to financing that stadium, the public has never gotten any specific answers. One reason for the soccer owners staying quiet on finances might be down to the city of Buffalo still being in shock at giving their NFL team, the Buffalo Bills, almost $1 billion of taxpayer money in 2022.
So over the last few months, we have gotten bits and pieces of information from community meetings between the potential soccer owners and the public. But the details seem to be a bit confusing to someone watching this situation.
According to the CEO of the USL, the entire project is on track and ahead of schedule. However, even though this move has been discussed for months, the team can’t seem to decide on where the new stadium would be situated.
— Uplynk.comThe biggest hurdle for a new USL stadium though is who pays for the construction of it. For months, the President of the Buffalo team, Peter Marlette Jr., (“Marlette”) has stated in meetings that a new stadium would be “entirely, if not largely, privately funded”. Yet even better, a new stadium can be built for just $15 million dollars and the team has multiple investors who are willing to write “significant checks for the (stadium) project”.
Then there was no news for quite a while. Following that, this week, a headline in the Buffalo News says that a new stadium for the USL team will “now likely require public funding before the project (begins)”.
— SBJ.comWhat happened? What about those super investors who would fund it all? Aren’t we talking about just $15 million dollars? Oh no, now the project has become a lot more expensive. Specifically, this entire project has stopped because the locations that the team wants to build a stadium on are apparently “more expensive than anticipated”. Are they serious?
You see, Marlette admits now that he did “intend to…do this privately funded” but the two locations are “too good not to see all the way through, both for the club and for Buffalo and Western New York”.
“For more than eight months, the…pro soccer executive has been trying to raise the money needed to form the team and find a suitable place for it to play – a task that, in total, is likely to require tens of millions of dollars…He needs to raise additional funds beyond the unspecified funding he already has raised. And he needs to secure what is likely millions of dollars in additional funding for a stadium…which now includes the request for taxpayer incentives” — Buffalo News, 11/09/24
Did Marlette fully rule out crowdsourcing? Months ago, he told a local news station that after he saw Oakland crowdfund for $3 million dollars, the soccer club was “not ruling out a crowdsourcing approach”.
— JohnLocke.orgHowever, this is the part of the story where I get annoyed. Several days ago, Marlette spoke to the Buffalo Common Council’s Community Development Committee and again stated how excited they were to start soccer. He also reminded the city that he wants to see the new USL team playing during the 2026 season.
Marlette next told the commission, with a straight face mind you, that “there is a time crunch”. Time crunch? The city and state are waiting for the team to tell them basic things, and yet the team says there is a rush to this? How about the team tells us where the location of their stadium is? Or if they bought the land of their selected site? Have they broken ground on anything? Has the team even approached the city to have taxpayer money used for this unspecified project?
Just in case anyone doesn’t know this, sports teams do this intentionally. They are always telling local governments that it is a rush to get their venue approved. Why? Because it gives both the government officials and the public less time to read and review the agreement. In Minnesota, we saw that firsthand with inexperienced local officials (with no history of looking at these types of deals) being forced to agree to something they hadn’t fully read, much less vet, before it was agreed to.
The team believes that they will decide on the stadium location and then “full speed ahead”. This is when the team intends to sit down with the city and “advance (the) conversations” on money and “push for some public funding”.
— NVGT.comThankfully, the soccer team has finally announced the location of the new stadium AND how much they need the public to chip in towards the construction. Just kidding, the team continues to keep secret how much they have raised to date, where their stadium will be located and how much will be needed in public funds to build the stadium.