After reading what is going on with Sky Blue, and now what could possibly happen with NY Flash and their stadium issue, as well as other things. Might it be more prudent to forego expansion in 2017 and ship them both off to Real Salt Lake and San Jose out West. It might be a cheaper and easier solution for what could become a bigger problem for the league down the road. Just a thought!
WNY half has a stadium issue - which, by the way, is more of a Rhinos issue and out of their hands - but (as far as we know) no ownership issue. If the team moves, I'd imagine it simply goes back to Buffalo, where they began. Any farther move, particularly a rebrand, would involve wrenching the team from Sahlen, which I don't see happening at all. I'm pretty sure he's the richest of all the non-MLS owners. Sky Blue is a maybe in a worse situation, but they've also recently revamped the front office and sound like they have a plan moving forward, even if it's going reeeaaalllly slowly. We should ask again this August. RSL already has a women's team in WPSL, so I have trouble seeing them want to "buy" an existing team. Also, as far as we know, neither Houston nor Orlando paid an expansion fee - if they did, NWSL expansion fees aren't being advertised like MLS expansion fees have been. I don't know if simple relocation at the moment really is the cheaper option.
The problem with that is what NWSL calibre stadium can they play in in Buffalo? Buffalo doesn't even have a USL Pro team...
But then they would be moving to a facility with permanent (as far as I can tell) gridiron lines. Not sure the league would be too happy about that.
They wouldn't be happy, but if we're using location, seating capacity, and facilities as our stadium standards and Sahlen's Stadium isn't an option, I think UB the only viable one in the western NY area. Coyer Field is too small (and also has lines). I think it'll be reeeaaally hard to completely rid the league of gridiron lines, especially since I don't see Seattle changing their situation any time soon because the location, size, and quality-of-facilities of Memorial are nice enough to outweigh the negative of the gridiron turf. =edit= I take back the "only viable" statement - since the KC Wiz spent so long in Arrowhead and NYCYC is currently in Yankee Stadium, I guess Coca-Cola Field might also be a viable option for WNYF is Sahlen's isn't an option. Definitely closer in capacity to Sahlen's than UB Stadium is.
Yeah, I'm hoping the next time they replace the turf, the Reign will "encourage" them (i.e. financial contribution) to use non-permanent line turf (and also encourage them to replace it sooner rather than later, though I expect at least 2 more seasons on the current turf). But I'm not holding my breath. I had thought about using their minor league baseball stadium, but I figured it would be too expensive to do the frequent field configuration transitions for a NWSL budget.
Stadium issues clearly shows why it is just easier to go with MLS teams for right now. I think the delay with Sky Blue waiting so long to start selling seasons tickets was they were unsucccesful in their attempt to find another place to play.
The UB Stadium surface was installed in 2005 and the facility is used for track and field in the spring, which would potentially conflict with the NWSL season. I also looked at Buffalo State, Niagara, and Canisius and none has an appropriate facility based on spring sports, and/or lack of seating ( e.g. Canisius seats 1200). The Buffalo FC Men's team (NPSL) plays at the Robert E. Rich All- High Stadium, ( http://www.fcbuffalo.org/all-you-need-to-know-for-saturdays-opener ), which was renovated in 2006 and artificial turf installed. It seats 5,000. Going to UB or All- High stadium would mean playing on 10 year old artificial turf: not much of an improvement, if any, over Sahlen's Stadium. This lack of suitable venues is why, in 2011, after considering playing half the home games in Buffalo and the other half in Rochester, the Flash decided to play all the games in Rochester.