MARCH 20-26, 2023 SPRINGFIELD BUSINESS JOURNAL · 3 NEWS CONTENTS the state Farm Bureau questions a new ruling on U.S. waterways. page 11 Agribusiness Open for Business A rentable photo studio with various backgrounds and props opens downtown. page 4 Business Spotlight A Springfield nonprofit is caring for the ‘invisible wounds’ of military veterans around the world. page 6 Opinion Page Executive Editor Christine Temple talks with an MSU professor about the art of arguing. page 21 Candidate Q&A Springfield City Council candidates answer questions on public safety and developer and neighborhood relations. page 24 Arena football league selects Springfield for first team by Mike Cullinan · mcullinan@sbj.net A new indoor football league is set to begin play next year with the Queen City chosen to host its first team. Officials with The Arena League held a news conference at Corwin Automotive Group on March 9 to announce Springfield’s selection as one of four teams that will debut for its inaugural season beginning June 2024. Springfield’s yet-to-be named team will play an eight-game regular season schedule with home games at the $25 million Wilson Logistics Arena, currently under construction at the Ozark Empire Fairgrounds. NFL Hall of Famer and NCAA Heisman Trophy winner Tim Brown is commissioner of The Arena League, which announced last month that Springfield was among 10 finalists to join the venture. The league is running a vote on its website to determine the remaining team locations. Three additional teams are expected to be announced in the coming months. “This city is excited about Arena League coming here. They’re excited about football, and how can you not be excited about football in this area?” Brown said at the news conference, referencing the Kansas City Chiefs as a “professional team playing incredible football right now.” League adviser Tommy Benizio said after the news conference that Springfield has received roughly 2,500 votes while most of the other cities’ vote totals were averaging 700-800. “It became clear that Springfield was a great place to start with our first team,” said Benizio, who also is president and CEO of Dallas-based consulting company Benizio Sports. He said J.R. Bond, a political adviser in Kansas City with past arena football team ownership, leads a small group of people financing the league, noting the others are silent investors. None of the owners have Springfield roots, he said, adding investment costs were undisclosed. “The Arena League is launching as what we refer to in our industry as a single entity. All the teams will be owned and operated by the league,” he said. “In every city we are committing to three-year leases, so we’re prepared to make sure that this is successfully run for three years.” Other finalist cities for an Arena League team, in alphabetical order, are: Dubuque, Iowa; Duluth, Minnesota; Kansas City; Little Rock, Arkansas; Oklahoma City; Rochester, Minnesota; Rockford, Illinois; Waterloo, Iowa; and Wichita Falls, Texas. “It was just a matter of picking a region and trying to find a handful of cities that were close enough together that this makes a lot of sense in terms of travel for the teams,” Benizio said, noting he visited Springfield three times in recent weeks. While in town, he said he met with officials such as Aaron Owen, CEO of the Ozark Empire Fairgrounds and Event Center, and Vicki Pratt, senior vice president of economic development with the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce, to learn more about the city and pitch the league. “We could have made phone calls to save time and money, but to do this correctly I really felt like I needed to be on-site and meet people to get a feeling to their reaction of what we want to do,” he said. “Collectively, that gave us a picture that this community might work better than others.” In the Arena Owen, who previously was general manager at the fairgrounds – a title now held by his son, Casey – said construction for the 99,000-square-foot arena “is going awesome,” noting all concrete work should be complete in the first week of April and steel is already on-site. The fairgrounds broke ground in November on the building that plans to also serve as a youth agriculture education center. Ozark Empire Fairgrounds is serving as its own general contractor for the project designed by BRP Architects. Killian Construction Co. is the HEATHER MOSLEY ARENA ACTIVITY Aaron Owen is CEO of the Ozark Empire Fairgrounds, where the $25 million Wilson Logistics Arena – future home of a Springfield arena football team – is under construction. See ARENA on page 29 Tommy Benizio: Team name is expected to be announced in May. Squad plans to debut next year at Ozark Empire Fairgrounds’ $25 million arena VOTE
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