Orlando City SC on Friday announced that it will be privately funding the entirety of its new downtown MLS stadium, as well as increasing the expected capacity. This comes after stadium construction was set back by a delay in $30M of funding from the Florida Legislature that would have helped pay for the $115M, 19,500-seat facility. Now, the franchise will purchase land from the city to build a 25,000-28,000-seat stadium that it will wholly own and operate. The venue, expected to be the second-largest soccer-specific stadium in MLS, is scheduled to be completed in the summer of '16 (Ian Thomas, Staff Writer). In Orlando, Paul Tenorio reported the new stadium plan "was born three weeks ago" when Orlando City’s BOD "met to discuss how to move forward with the club’s original plan for a 19,500-seat venue." The franchise "was averaging more than 37,000 fans per game early in the season, and data points suggested the team had a demand of about 32,000 tickets per game." Orlando City Chair & Majority Owner Flavio Augusto da Silva: "We started hearing from our fans and our supporters and we got the message: We need a bigger stadium.” If the club "was going to build bigger" and try to tap state funds, it was "staring at even more delays." Orlando City President & Founder Phil Rawlins said that this conclusion "prompted Orlando City’s board to 'flip the (stadium) plans on their head' and start anew." The arrangement will save the city more than the $15M it had "pledged for the project in land and construction funding." It "will bring in additional tax revenue for the city because the privately-owned stadium will generate property taxes." Orange County "will not have to pay" the $20M it had committed to the project. Rawlins estimated that costs for the soccer-specific stadium "could climb" to around $130M. But he added, "Those are still estimates right now because we’ve got to complete the plans." A 28,000-seat stadium would be second in size to Toronto FC’s BMO Field, which has a capacity of about 30,000 (ORLANDO SENTINEL, 5/30).
ORLANDO BLOOMS: In Orlando, George Diaz wrote under the header, "Orlando City Stadium Deal Is Home Run For Soccer, Community." Diaz wrote "kudos" to da Silva and Rawlins. Diaz: "It is their money, their risk. It is our stadium" (ORLANDO SENTINEL, 5/30). Diaz writes Rawlins and Orlando City "wisely took the Legislative clown car out of the equation and seized control of their destiny" (ORLANDO SENTINEL, 6/1). An ORLANDO SENTINEL editorial stated the bottom line "is that Central Florida is getting a new home for its new big league team, bigger than planned, and taxpayers are getting a break." Orlando City has not won an MLS Cup yet, but club execs "scored a major victory for Central Florida" (ORLANDO SENTINEL, 5/31). In Orlando, Mike Bianchi asked rhetorically, "Did I just hear a billionaire sports owner say he's going to pay for his own stadium?" Bianchi: "Obviously, the Brazilian-born Augusto da Silva and the English-born Rawlins don't understand how American sports teams do business. In America, sports teams kick and scream and whine and cry and threaten to relocate if their communities don't use taxpayer dollars to build them palatial new arenas and stadiums." Rawlins joked of that notion, "I guess I didn't understand that" (ORLANDO SENTINEL, 5/30).
