Mayor Buddy Dyer was duped by Orlando City Soccer Team. Buddy Dyer is no business Man and I for one did not elect Him to speak for my money and am not sure that He has the legal right to. The mayor is for handshaking, kissing babies and issuing the key to the City, certainly not for making multi million dollar decisions. The recent decision He made on the Orlando City Soccer stadium is proof that He is no business Man. To His credit there are so many short sided non business thinking People telling Him He cannot support a larger stadium and He cannot use taxpayer money to give anymore support to Orlando City. After having that in His ear daily when Orlando City offered to pay for the Soccer Stadium themselves He jumped at the chance. Now He is off the hot seat.

Orlando City will now buy the property from the City at a “fair price” and build the stadium with their own money. So why is that not a good deal for the City of Orlando? The City of Orlando will now get nothing when the Orlando City plays in Downtown Orlando. The Soccer team will now keep 100 percent of all revenue that the stadium produces, including concessions, ticket sales and apparel sales. And not to mention the Soccer team will now compete with the Amway Center for concerts and big events that need big space. There are many events that need more space than the Amway Center and less than the Citrus Bowl and now the City will get NOTHING. The only thing the City of Orlando will get that they would not get before is property tax, big deal!!

How did this happen? When The Orlando City Soccer team got started they were unsure how many People would be interested in Soccer so they wanted the City of Orlando to own the stadium just like most cities do. At that point why would they want to risk 125 million to have average turn out and not be able to turn a profit? But then the City of Orlando turned out to the games in big fashion and suddenly this stadium was going to be a gold mine but Mayor Dyer was not paying attention or He doesn’t know how to use a spreadsheet but Orlando City Soccer team sure does. So they decided it would be a great investment to own the stadium themselves and keep 100 percent of the profit instead of sharing it with the City of Orlando. DUH!

It is like going to a horse race and not wanting to waste money on the 30-1 horse that You think has no chance of winning. Then the horse is winning by 25 lengths on the home stretch and Your drunk friend says “I’ll still give you 30-1 on that horse if You want to bet”.