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Financial Details Start to Roll Out for FC Cincinnati Stadium Plan

Today FC Cincinnati announced their next partnership with the Cincinnati Recreation Commission with a new futsal court at the Dempsey Playground in Price Hill.

After the announcement, General Manager & President Jeff Berding held a press conference to discuss updates to the club’s stadium plan. A large part of the dialogue centered around the Hamilton County Commissioners Plan A for the club to use Paul Brown Stadium (PBS) as the site for their MLS bid.

Yesterday the Commissioners stated that the club should use PBS so the club would not have to put an outlay of $200 million for a stadium and that the annual financial numbers could work in the long term for the club. Berding disputed that the financials would work and provided the clubs projections between PBS and a Soccer Specific Stadium (SSS).

In the first year alone, the club expected to lose $2 million in an SSS while their projections for PBS had the club losing $17 million. Over a 10 year period, the numbers looked better for the club at an SSS with FCC earning $12 million during that timeframe. At PBS the club would expect to lose $167 million. Another note to keep in mind is that these numbers are before the club reinvested these dollars in high priced Designated players which the club intends to do.

Berding stressed that he wanted to sit down with the county soon, even as early as tonight, to go over their numbers and see how they can partner together with the City. He stated that Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley has been in negotiations with the county today and plans to announce the city’s plan tomorrow afternoon.

The club has stated they need to get the ball rolling quickly with the goal of finalizing their bid by the first week of December.

At the same time, Berding said that Newport is still very much an option and they are working with Corporex to develop their plan. The main stumbling block seemed to be that the TIF for that site wouldn’t take effect until there was adequate development on the site. That roadblock seems to have been unlocked now that the club has agreed to fund the construction at both stadium sites.

There is still a lot of progress to be made on both sites over the next 3 weeks. Make sure to follow Cincinnati Soccer Talk for more updates regarding FC Cincinnati’s MLS bid.


@bradleysweigel for @CincySoccerTalk

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