Hartford Business Journal

www.HartfordBusiness.com • February 5, 2018 • Hartford Business Journal 15 wire fraud, and one count of conducting illegal monetary transactions. The city retained CRDA to vet the lat- est Dillon Stadium bidders to help avoid a repeat scenario. "I never woke up one day and said I want to own a pro soccer team,'' Schooley said. "It's less about me and more about doing something for my adopted hometown.'' Mandell said Hart- ford, Connecticut and New England are such big draws for soccer, partly because so many of their residents either grew up playing or hail from nations where "futbol'' is the sport of choice. Mandell also insists that it's more than a money-making op- portunity, but a chance to give back to the community he and his family have called home for decades. "It's become important to me,'' he said, "that we bring pro soccer to Hartford. Hartford is very important to us. It's where we live. That's really what drove us to start thinking about bringing a pro team to Hartford.'' Puzzle piece USL President Jake Edwards said the Tampa, Fla., league begun eight years ago with 11 teams now has 35 teams — with three more starting play this spring. He said Hartford offers the right demographics to be a successful franchise. The Capital City not only is home to a variety of town-league and amateur soccer clubs and players, it also ranks among the top five TV markets for soc- cer viewing, based on Nielsen ratings, Edwards said. According to the USL, Hartford was the fifth-highest rated market for ESPN during the 2014 World Cup, behind Los Ange- les and San Diego, Calif., which were tied for fourth. Bristol's ESPN is the USL's broad- cast partner. Mandell's investor group is committed to paying USL a one-time $5 million fee, plus an unspecified annual "participa- tion fee,'' once a franchise is formally granted, Edwards said. In return, the USL pledges, Edwards said, to assist HSG with everything from recruiting players and day-to-day operations to marketing/promotions, ticket sales, etc. USL attendance aver- aged 6,000 fans last season. A renovated Dillon would seat some 7,500, team and league officials said. Under pro- posed Dillon lease terms with the city, HSG would commit to paying the $125,000 in rent annually. However, the city, through CRDA, is asking the state to commit bond- ing up to $10 mil- lion for upgrades to Dillon and nearby Colt Park. Dillon opened in 1935 on land gifted to the city from descendants of legendary Hartford gunmaker Samuel Colt. USL's Edwards said he sees nothing to prevent Hartford from joining two ap- proved new franchises, Memphis, Tenn., and Austin, Texas, in spring 2019 play. USL plans 40 teams by 2021, officials say. "Everything is ready to go,'' said Ed- wards, who spent 12 years as a pro on Britain's pitch. "The final piece of the puzzle is the stadium.'' Youth magnet For Calafiore, whose family's Alca Construction Co. Inc. in Hartford built or refurbished housing in and around the city, soccer had a major influence on him and his family. Calafiore said his father formed Hart- ford's Italian-American Stars, an athletic club in the South End that sponsored a soccer team. In 1967, the Stars won a national amateur soccer championship — a match held at Dillon Stadium. "Soccer among the Hartford ethnic groups was big back then,'' Calafiore said. Calafiore said nowadays "it's sad to drive by [Dillon] and see what it's become from my memories as a kid.'' With a pro soccer team playing at Dillon, Hartford has an opportunity to pick up another "piece that it needs,'' he said, as with the rebirth of housing and commercial development down- town, to overcome its struggles with finances and image. "I think it would be great for Hart- ford,'' Calafiore said. Schooley came to Hartford in 1991 from Boston, to open a law firm's sat- ellite office and later settled his family in the West End. He recognized very early "the abso- lutely high level of interest in soccer in Hartford." His two sons, now grown, participated in the longstanding Hart- ford Soccer Club Inc. youth program, he said, playing with and against kids from varied racial and ethnic back- grounds, including Jamaican, Peru- vian, Somalian and Bosnian youths. "For my children, it was an absolute- ly wonderful experience,'' he said. A soccer stadium within walking distance of Hartford's large immigrant community in the South End, many of whom are fans, would be an asset for the region, said Margaret "Maggie" Girard, treasurer and a past president of the Hartford Soccer Club. The non- profit annually hosts, she said, about 300 boys and girls, in ages from 5 to 19, on some eight to 10 teams. Girard, an AT&T attorney in Rocky Hill, said overwhelming local and regional appeal for the Hartford Yard Goats minor-league baseball team that began play last year in their new down- town ballpark is a barometer for pro- soccer's success as a leisure attraction. Introduced years ago to local youth soccer by her offspring, Girard, who has publicly supported HSG's efforts, said having pro soccer players in Hartford would provide role models and mentors to young players through soccer camps and skills workshops. Moreover, the city's insistence that a revamped Dillon have an artificial surface to allow year-round soccer and other sports and community activities, is a plus, Girard said. "That's the sport they play all the time,'' she said of local youth-soccer play- ers. "To have a venue in the city where they live, that would be huge.'' Artist's sketches (here and above) depict a revitalized Dillon Stadium hosting a nighttime soccer match in Hartford's South End. A trio of area businessmen are negotiating with the city to lease the stadium to host professional soccer games as early as 2019. "I never woke up one day and said I want to own a pro soccer team. It's less about me and more about doing something for my adopted hometown.'' Scott Schooley , President, Woodside Capital Partners

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