Pro football league opens front office in Lakewood Ranch
LAKEWOOD RANCH -- Huddled around a conference table in near-empty office suites, vacated just days before by a previous occupant, Major League Football officials were hard at work Thursday.
With a player draft coming up after Thanksgiving and the start of preseason practice six months off, the publicly traded company is on a tight schedule. Since announcing in June that the league would locate its headquarters in Lakewood Ranch, MLFB has begun moving staff from its old offices in Delaware and is securing deals needed to bring about 1,000 players and coaches to training camp at the Premier Sports Campus early next spring.
On Monday, the league started operating out of its new, third-floor space at 6230 University Parkway. Now the hard work begins. That includes signing contracts with about 10 hotels to house players for the upcoming five-week training camp, securing catering services needed to feed them and hiring bus companies to drive them where they need to go.
League officials will also determine this week how much they will pay players and how much access football fans will have to the teams.
Frank Murtha, MLFB's senior executive vice president, says that getting league executives together in 9,496 square feet of office space for the first time is making all the other challenges manageable. Even though the lakeside C-suites don't overlook practice fields at the sports campus, they are in a perfect location for MLFB.
"We were looking for office space that was within reasonable proximity to the complex," Murtha said. "Another factor for us: We needed some proximity to transportation and airports."
MLFB moved into office space in the Lake Osprey Building that previously held the corporate headquarters of Genius Central, a grocery industry software company. Genius Central moved its offices to St. Petersburg in April, about six months after hiring a new CEO.
MLFB has signed a multi-year lease for its offices. Over the next few months, about 50 league employees are expected to move to the Bradenton-Sarasota area. Some, like Murtha, have already leased or purchased area housing.
Housing, hotels, meals and transportation are just part of the economic impact the league is expected to generate. Preseason practices and possible scrimmages between the league's 10 teams also promise to draw thousands of fans to Manatee and Sarasota counties in February and March.
Not taking into account fan visits, MLFB is expected to bring up to a $5 million economic impact to the area during its training camp alone, said Sean Walter, director of sports for the Bradenton Area Convention and Visitors Bureau.
The CVB plans to start promoting the training camp as a football fan vacation destination for MLFB's second season.
"What we are talking about is looking more toward 2017 to promote vacation packages," Walter said.
The league is scheduled to receive up to $208,896 in state and local incentives for locating its headquarters and training camp in Lakewood Ranch. Several cities in other states vied to host MLFB, but the organization executives said they chose Lakewood Ranch because the Premier Sports Campus fits its needs.
Wes Chandler, the league's president and a former NFL player, said he's happy to come to Florida. He grew up in New Smyrna Beach and attended the University of Florida.
"It's good to be home," he said. "It's good to establish a footprint in a football state."
Nick Athan, a media relations consultant for MLFB, said the league's new corporate headquarters will likely be fully staffed within the next few months.
MLFB has not yet announced in which U.S. cities it will establish teams. Unlike the National Football League, MLFB will own all its teams. Teams will play 12 games per year. Including playoffs, the spring league will field 65 gridiron matchups every year.
The league's shares were trading on the New York Stock Exchange at 35 cents each on Thursday. That's down from 51 cents in early June.
Matt M. Johnson, Herald business reporter, can be reached at 941-745-7027, or on Twitter @MattAtBradenton.