- Buy our new reversible club and country jerseys here
- Buy season tickets
- Buy single-game tickets
- Sponsor a team meal, player, or more (and season tickets included)
- Donate a few bucks. It’s not a fun request and it’s not tax-deductible but every bit helps us and our players.
- Spread the word to fans and interested businesses — share this post, tell people
Good morning/afternoon/evening! My name is Nick Mendola and I am one of the founders of FC Buffalo as well as the current club president. I started this club with friends 17 years ago, I want it to outlive us all, and I’m also ready for the next generation to take hold of it. Our USL2 and USL W League teams are stacked and can be so good this summer, but our club itself needs your help in a very serious way right now. I’d like to spend some time explaining the “whys” below, but if you want to skip to the How you can help then scroll down several paragraphs to the big section entitled, appropriately, How you can help.
Forseveral years, we have been playing our part in the community-held desire to have professional soccer in Buffalo, New York. We have successes and plenty of errors, all of which were driven by a desire to work together with other area soccer stakeholders in a humble, Buffalo-first, we-before-me capacity. We love Buffalo. We love soccer. We believe in what we’ve built but aren’t afraid of taking a place inside of something special. Unfortunately, it’s a lot easier to talk than to walk. We’re walking here.
To that end and to be completely transparent, our club did not expect to be operating under current ownership for the 2026 USL2 and USL W League seasons and we’ve had to reassess our plans for future seasons. Over 17 years, we’ve built and sustained a club built in our city, by our city, and for our city by real fans and soccer lovers. This is a club with women’s and men’s players from our area, real supporters who go to real matches and are part of the fabric of our city’s soccer scene. It’s not a far-off dream or a promise. It’s a working, breathing, passionate tribe that — beyond all mistakes and successes — has done its level best to look past its individual interests to the hope of Buffalo’s collective in the world’s best sport.
I have spent the last few months diligently considering the next group of leaders for FC Buffalo, the people who can be trusted to put club above individual interests, people with the humility, leadership, and courage to take the reins of something special. Most importantly, I’ve tried to identify people who are more resourceful and can be more effective than me. I believe those people have been identified, but I cannot responsibly invite them into big roles with the club if we cannot give them a quality starting point by delivering a good summer for our players, supporters, and partners.
And there’s the rub now.
It has never, ever been harder to run a sports team in the United States, especially one that is not simply the oldest team of a youth club still charging players to be part of the fold. FC Buffalo has forever been free to its players but that comes at a cost. We need butts in seats and we need the symbiotic relationship that comes from corporate partners. And by all means — if you see someone sponsoring a club you love right now, patronize them. They are true glue. I’ve spoken to clubs I respect all over this sport and this perilous economic climate has hit clubs hard. None of us want to send out soccer S.O.S. messages in a world where so many people are struggling to afford their groceries, gas, and utilities due to massive failures in our world’s political and financial climates.
Adding shocking and major injury to our club is an industry-leading e-commerce platform’s ongoing failure to remedy their own error at our online store, fcbuffalostore.com, since April 2. Many of you know this as we’ve been hit with numerous questions about season tickets and other products at our store. This major infrastructure error from this industry leader is complicated by the host, another industry-leader, which has consistently missed their own-imposed deadlines of “24 hours” and “24-48 hours” and even “within the hour.” That plus the amount of money we had already invested in that product and company forced us to wait until now to abandon ship. Twenty-six days of our busiest time of year without customer revenue and service.
The working title for this post was, “We need money.” It was dark humor but I think it reflects something above idealism and the fun of sport. Times have changed and it doesn’t do us any good to trudge onward with some sort of things-are-better-than-they-are mentality. We’re betting that the community that’s built us up will move us forward. And if it doesn’t work, it’ll be our fault, not theirs.
How you can help
- Buy season tickets
- Buy single-game tickets
- Buy our new reversible club and country jerseys here
- Businesses or fans — Sponsor a team meal, player, or more (season tickets included)
- Donate a few bucks. It’s not a fun request and it’s not tax-deductible but every bit helps us and our players.
- Spread the word — share this post, tell people
