Buffalo Pro Soccer: How Bills-centered town can learn to love the 'other' football

Peter Marlette Jr. spoke to Buffalo Bills on SI about Buffalo Pro Soccer and his effort to bring a professional soccer club to Western New York.

Bills fans cheer and throw snow in the air after QB Josh Allen scores a touchdown during the first half of the Bills divisional game against Kansas City Chiefs at Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park on Jan. 21, 2024. / Tina MacIntyre-Yee /Rochester Democrat

Buffalo is a football city.

It has been for over half a century, the Buffalo faithful long-regarded as one of the country’s most fervorous fanbases thanks to its constant unabated support of the NFL’s Buffalo Bills. Football, in Buffalo, is not a way to kill a few hours on an idle autumn Sunday—it’s an all-encompassing enterprise that provides the region with part of its identity. It’s as much a generational unifier as it is a grocery store topic of conversation, a weekly spectacle that thrusts the city into the national spotlight while (occasionally) giving its inhabitants something to be proud of.

Sundays at Highmark Stadium are a wholly unique experience irreplicable in other NFL markets. The scent of burnt hot dogs and spilled Labatt Blue sit heavy on the air, the combination considered homely as fans watch their brethren cascade through blazing tables before making their weekly pilgrimage inside the venue. The atmosphere within the open bowl is unparalleled, the palpable energy as fans collectively sing the team’s “Shout!” song creating a distinct environment one simply cannot find elsewhere in the United States.

If one were to broaden the search to include Europe, however, they’d find several settings that rival Highmark Stadium in terms of passion. Inhabitants of the continent hold their football—what Americans generally refer to as soccer—in an arguably higher regard than Americans hold their game of preference, the relationships between European soccer clubs and their supporters dating back to, in some cases, the 19th century. 

The biggest clubs in Europe—Real Madrid, Manchester United, FC Bayern Munich, the list goes on—play in stadiums with capacities as large as 100,000 and boast international fanbases, their popularity a testament to soccer’s longstanding status as the most popular sport in the world.

And soccer, though by no means as popular in the United States as it is in Spain, England, or Germany, is growing in the country, with both of its top-flight domestic leagues (Major League Soccer and the National Women’s Soccer League) setting new attendance records in 2022. With its already encouraging trajectory figuring to skyrocket when the country (in conjunction with Canada and Mexico) hosts the 2026 FIFA World Cup, there’s arguably never been a more promising time for the sport in the history of the United States.

Peter Marlette Jr. is attempting to jumpstart the frenzy in his hometown.

The Nichols School graduate’s path has included stops in settings like Switzerland, Texas, and… Omaha, NE, and it’s all led him back to Buffalo to launch the city’s first professional soccer club since the folding of the NPSL’s Buffalo Blizzard in 2001. The executive was announced as President of Buffalo Pro Soccer in late March, spearheading an effort to bring a USL Championship side to the region in time for the 2026 season.

There’s much work to be done before kick-off in March 2026. Club ownership must be identified and brought in. A ground must be constructed. Both on-and-off-field personnel must be signed. 

But for Western New York soccer fans who have long hoped to see a professional club represent the region on a national stage, there are, for the first time in several years, justifiable reasons for hope. There are signs of life in a historically rich, but professionally underserved market that, thanks to a bevy of factors, now sticks out as one of the country’s sleeping soccer giants. It looks as though Buffalo will soon finally get a shot at hosting a professional soccer club of its own; for Marlette, the realization is long overdue.

“For the city as a whole, frankly, the past decade was the right time, just nobody could pull it off or could put in the effort, have the money, whatever it may be,” Marlette told Buffalo Bills on SI. “The timing is perfect right now nationally for the sport, but Buffalo has been a great market for professional soccer, especially at the USL level, for a very long time now.”

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The blue light in the Electric Tower in downtown Buffalo, NY on August 15, 2022 contrasts against the colors from the setting sun. Sunset Downtown Buffalo / Tina MacIntyre-Yee/Rochester Democrat

Looking in the Mirror

A Western New York native, Marlette is not dissimilar from the average Buffalo sports supporter in that he’s long wondered why the city does not house a professional soccer team. The market, while small by traditional major league standards, is certainly large enough to host a successful professional club, its already strong—and burgeoning—showings in key demographics suggesting that a theoretical team would be financially sustainable. 

Marlette does differ from the median Buffalo sports fan in that he decided to do something about the absence, a decade ago mapping out a business plan for a local professional club that was as sound then as it is now.

“I haven’t dug it up yet, I’m sure it’s in my Gmail archive somewhere, but about 10 years ago, I actually wrote a business plan for a USL team in Buffalo,” Marlette said. “And honestly, for all the reasons that it still works today—and the demographic indicators have only improved in Buffalo over the past decade, primarily becoming more international and a greater millennial and Gen Z and younger population in Buffalo; those are really important demographic factors in American professional soccer, and those have only improved—they were good enough and it all made sense 10 years ago, too.”

With a viable blueprint in hand, Marlette was ready to present the plan to investors, to make something tangible out of what was, at that point, only a theory.

It was then that he discovered the most significant issue with his roadmap:

The person who made it.

“I wrote this business plan, I spoke to people at USL, owners of clubs in USL at that point, and I was ready to move with it, but I realized the next step at that point was I was going to have to go into people’s offices, or homes, or whatever, and ask them for a lot of money,” Marlette said. “Ask them to write some pretty big checks. The truth was, at that point, I didn’t think I was a person who I would’ve written that check [to] at that point if I had it.”

The realization “changed [Marlette’s] career trajectory,” setting him down a path on which every decision he made was executed with the goal of one day launching a professional soccer team in Buffalo. He left his longstanding job at ADPRO Sports (a Buffalo-based company that specializes in custom-branded merchandise) and enrolled in the Sports Management program at the International Academy of Sport Science and Technology (A.I.S.T.S.) in Lausanne, Switzerland, a prestigious Master’s program that’s consistently ranked as one of the world’s best in its field.

It was a major pivot, one that most 20-somethings making significant money wouldn’t have even entertained, let alone be able to stomach. It was a change, Marlette realized, that needed to occur if he was going to accomplish his ultimate goal.

Jun 12, 2024; Orlando, Florida, USA; fans watch a match between the United States and Brazil during the Continental Clasico at Camping World Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Nathan Ray Seebeck-USA TODAY Sports / Nathan Ray Seebeck-USA TODAY Sports

“I didn’t need to upend [my life] to go get an advanced degree, especially in Sports Management, unless it was going to be from one of the top programs in the world,” he said. “That was all I was going to leave for. I applied to three places—I applied to A.I.S.T.S., I applied to NYU and Columbia. That was it. 

“My wife and I looked at everything, it was a big decision, but ranked them and decided that no matter what, if I got into A.I.S.T.S., that was going to be the choice.”

Marlette’s decision to enroll at A.I.S.T.S.—which was again recently ranked as the world’s No. 1 Master’s degree in Sports Management—ultimately came down to the program’s prestige and location. Attending the academy allowed him to relocate to the heart of Europe and immerse himself in the game of soccer, receiving the opportunity to learn from some of the sport’s brightest minds associated with its foremost clubs.

“That program got me into Switzerland, got me into the middle of Europe, got me surrounded by FIFA over in Zurich, and there were plenty of lecturers [and] alumni working at FIFA,” he said. “UEFA was a less than an hour train ride away; same story, lecturers [and] alumni. And then, also being in kind of that central location, it allowed me to be in Milan in four hours, be in Paris in four hours, be in Munich quickly. The Swiss League is very good, as well. 

“It allowed me to go be in the heart of the best professional soccer in the world and experience that with going to games, of course, but also tours of facilities [and] lecturers from the biggest clubs in the world.”

Marlette centered his studies around the sport, even penning his Master’s thesis—titled “Using Advanced Statistics to Better Predict Success for Designated Players in Major League Soccer”—about the American soccer scene. In his research and peek behind the proverbial curtain, Marlette gained insight into the business operations—the structure—of some of the biggest clubs in the world, learning that professional soccer teams, generally speaking, were not maximizing their financial opportunities, a trend that he saw shifting in realtime.

“I think some of the most important things I learned there outside of what I learned writing my own thesis, which has absolutely probably influenced my decisions since more than anything else, but the business of this game, especially in Europe and abroad, until very recently—and it’s still the case at a lot of clubs—was not a very good business,” Marlette said. “It was not run in a way that was conducive to earning revenues year-over-year or netting a profit year-over-year.

“That has, in the past five, 10 years, with multi-club ownership and private equity and hedge funds getting into it, it has professionalized significantly. Being able to see how these enormous clubs—the biggest clubs in the world—are run and are starting to make real money—and they’ve always made money, I mean net real money—was very valuable.”

Marlette returned to the United States after finishing the Master’s program, his mind rich in firsthand knowledge about the business of soccer and theories as to how to run a professional club. He would have the opportunity to implement his ideas shortly after his return stateside; after a brief stint in a business development role for MLS side F.C. Dallas, Marlette was hired as the general manager of Union Omaha, a recently formed USL League One club in search of a new lead executive after just one year of play.

May 8, 2024; Omaha, Nebraska, USA; Union Omaha midfielder Joe Gallardo (7) drives against Sporting Kansas City forward Johnny Russell (7) during the second half at Al F. Caniglia Field. Mandatory Credit: Dylan Widger-USA TODAY Sports / Dylan Widger-USA TODAY Sports

“When I came into Union Omaha, they had played one season, but it was the COVID-impacted shortened season in 2020,” Marlette said. “They existed, they had been in operation for over a year. Their previous general manager didn’t work out and they brought me in, I think their previous general manager was [there for] about eight or nine months. It was not by any stretch coming in at the startup phase, at this phase, but it was still coming in very early in the process.”

Marlette was tasked with overseeing the club’s day-to-day operations, balancing budgets and managing the club’s corporate side in addition to making on-and-off-field personnel decisions. The team was one of USL League One’s most successful throughout the executive’s three-season tenure, his resumé headlined by two regular season championships and a league title in the 2021 campaign. The side even reached the quarterfinals of the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup—an annual competition open to all clubs, professional and amateur, affiliated with U.S. Soccer—in 2022, defeating MLS outlets Chicago Fire and Minnesota United en route to the final eight.

Perhaps as impressive as the on-field triumph Marlette oversaw was the sustainable financial plan he implemented; Omaha was “No. 1 or No. 2 in virtually every key revenue category in USL League One for [the] three years” Marlette was with the club, finishing among the league leaders in attendance in each of his seasons in the Nebraskan metropolis. 

And all of this—the drastic life pivot, the degree from a prestigious Sports Management program, the years at the helm of a USL League One side—has led Mareltte, to borrow a quote from a famed Bills coach, to “right here, right now.” A decade ago, he wanted to see his hometown host a professional soccer club but knew he wasn’t the person for the task.

Now? There’s perhaps no one more qualified.

“After three very successful years in Omaha, I believed that I was ready to come to this,” Marlette said. “Luckily for me, or I don’t know how much luck was involved or if the timing was just perfectly right, USL agreed and approached me to ask if I was interested in this opportunity and see what it might take. I was thrilled about it. 

“I officially informed the owners in Omaha that I’d be resigning, like, the next day after I had that first conversation with the league. Stayed the rest of the season, but moved home immediately following the 2023 season. The timing was right for me because I had spent the last decade building to this point very strategically. I had an end goal in every step that I made.”

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May 25, 2024; Atlanta, Georgia, USA; Atlanta United fans in the stands before a game against LAFC at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports / Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports

Setting the Stage

An American sports fan only familiar with top leagues in the United States would be forgiven for finding the world of European soccer completely alien. Whereas top American associations—the NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL—feature franchises that are permanent members of their respective leagues (only leaving if they fold or relocate), European soccer leagues feature a system known as promotion and relegation, a process that sees a league’s poor-performing clubs replaced by the highest performing teams from the tier directly beneath it in the country’s hierarchy the next season.

Let’s look at the English Premier League as an example; Luton Town, Burnley, and Sheffield United finished in 18th, 19th, and 20th place, respectively, in the 2023–24 season. They’ll be replaced in next year’s Premier League season by Leicester City, Ipswich Town, and Southampton, who finished first, second, and fourth in last season’s EFL Championship (the second-tier of English soccer) table; Southampton gained promotion after winning a four-team playoff.

This process allows for the manifestation of stories irreplicable in American sport; a club, in theory, could rise from the depths of a football system to the top flight within a few years. This has happened several times across the continent—the aforementioned Luton Town played in the Premier League last season after appearing in the Conference Premier (the fifth tier of English soccer) in 2014. RB Leipzig, though funded by prominent energy drink manufacturer Red Bull, recently made a similar ascent through the German soccer system; a fifth-division team in 2009, the club recently tallied its sixth-consecutive top-five finish in the Bundesliga (the German top flight).

The American soccer system is structured akin to a traditional European hierarchy, but no promotion/relegation system exists. MLS is recognized as the country’s top flight, with the leagues directly below it in the scale organized under the United Soccer League (USL); the USL Championship is recognized as the American second flight while USL League One is the third tier. Though a promotion/relegation system is not in place, clubs in the lower flights are generally independent entities and are, thus, competitively self-motivated, something that sets them apart from teams in the American Hockey League or NBA G-League. These sides also have the opportunity to face top-division clubs in the annual U.S. Open Cup.

Marlette’s club, once it ultimately materializes, will play in the USL Championship, a league that currently boasts successful teams in markets like Pittsburgh, Detroit, and Indianapolis. The outlet will consistently bring some of the brightest soccer players, coaches, and general minds to Western New York soil, an opportunity Marlette feels is long overdue.

Buffalo has a quietly rich soccer history, the sport tracing its roots in the city back to the early 20th century. The region has flirted with professional soccer in the past; the Buffalo Stallions played in the Major Indoor Soccer League from 1979–1984, averaging over 9,000 attendees per game at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium in two of its seasons. The final club of Benfica and general football legend Eusébio, the Stallions folded in 1984, spiritually replaced in 1992 by the National Professional Soccer League’s Buffalo Blizzard. Led by local products Rudy and Randy Pikuzinski, the Blizzard, too, captured the hearts and minds of the Buffalo faithful, performing well in attendance until the league ceased operations in 2001.

Expanding the scope, the Western New York Flash women’s team was once prominent in the region, employing U.S. National Team members Alex Morgan and Carli Lloyd at separate points in their history. The Raging Rhinos, who played just up Interstate 90 in Rochester from 1996–2017, are another local success story; the club won the U.S. Open Cup as an A-League side in 1999, still sitting as the only non-MLS team since the league’s kickoff in 1996 to win the competition.

Aug 24, 2013; Rochester, NY, USA; Western New York Flash midfielder Carli Lloyd (left) prepares to take a shot during the second half against the Sky Blue FC at Sahlen's Stadium. The Western New York Flash defeated the Sky Blue FC 2-0. Mandatory Credit: Rich Barnes-USA TODAY Sports / Rich Barnes-USA TODAY Sports

Buffalo and its surrounding areas—when given the opportunity—will demonstrably support soccer, and it perhaps hasn’t yet been afforded the chance to truly show what it’s capable of accomplishing as a soccer market.

“I grew up going to Blizzard games, I loved it,” Marlette said. “Rudy and Randy Pikuzinski were the guys during my era. That, despite the fact that the arena soccer model isn’t a great business model and, therefore, neither [the Stallions or Blizzard] lasted, their attendance was great at those games. People came out to watch them play. 

“I think professional soccer has had some high points in Buffalo in its history, but I also don’t think that Buffalo has had an opportunity like this, with a league like USL Championship that is now stable, firmly established, successful teams in it, making Open Cup runs similar—though nobody’s won it outside of MLS since the Rochester Rhinos did in 1999—Sacramento Republic made it to the Final two years ago. USL clubs are flirting with accomplishing that feat again. Buffalo has had and shown an appetite for professional soccer over its history, but I don’t think it’s had an opportunity like this to join a stable, successful league with established, experienced leadership in that league in place.”

Though confident in his belief that Buffalo would have been a sustainable professional soccer market a decade ago, Marlette feels that there’s perhaps no better in the history of the sport to launch the region’s club than right now given the game’s trajectory. The team is projected to begin play in March 2026, just three months before the commencement of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which will host games in 11 American cities throughout the summer (in addition to Mexico City, Guadalajara, Monterrey, Vancouver, and—of particular interest to Buffalo fans—Toronto).

Between now and the commencement of the prestigious tournament, the United States will host both the 2024 Copa América, which will see the top North and South American national teams compete across 14 American cities, and the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup, which will see some of the most prominent soccer clubs in the world—including Manchester City, Real Madrid, and Borussia Dortmund—play competitive games in the country next summer.

It’s a period of anticipated growth that Marlette does not foresee ever being replicated.

“This three-year runway that the U.S. has of major, important international soccer tournaments has never happened before,” Marlette said. “Obviously the world has identified the U.S. as an amazing soccer market and a very valuable soccer market, but a three-year runway like that leading into a World Cup probably doesn’t happen at any point in the future, either. It’s just such a unique window here. 

“This is going to be culminating in 2026, the biggest two-to-three years in American soccer history. The popularity is already growing like crazy, but it is going to be at a fever pitch over the next couple of years.”

Nov 16, 2023; Austin, Texas, USA; U.S. Men's National team fans celebrate a goal in the second half of the match against Trinidad & Tobago in the Concacaf Quarterfinal at Q2 Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Scott Wachter-USA TODAY Sports / Scott Wachter-USA TODAY Sports

The executive plans to capitalize on what figures to be a growing regional and national fervor regarding soccer by getting ahead of the curve, establishing valuable connections with the people of Buffalo now a full two years before his side takes the pitch. His ideas and ambitions have already manifested in the form of monthly town halls at local bars and breweries, an opportunity for locals to not only learn about the forthcoming club, but for Marlette to better gauge what Buffalo wants in a soccer team.

Community response has thus far been “impressive,” per Marlette, with attendance at each offered event dramatically overperforming estimates. 

“I think realistically, for our first town hall, which was a couple of months ago at The Banshee downtown, we were thinking [there] would probably be about 60 people there plus media,” Marlette said. “There ended up being 120 plus media. It was absolutely packed. There wasn’t enough room in the section of the bar that we had planned on being in. We were in Orchard Park last week, and that was a very different one. That was—and we knew it and intended this—a lot of kids showed up, [that was a] family-focused one. We had goals set up at Wayland Brewing, which was an amazing outdoor venue for the kids to play at. That turnout, I don’t have the official count of that one yet, but it was absolutely packed. 

“In those town halls, what I’m doing, I’m giving a five-minute, 10-minute absolute max, introduction and overview and update, and then just opening it up for questions and comments. At both of them, that full hour that I’ve been up on the stage has just been filled with good questions, good comments . . . I would say I think I’ve gotten a better idea of what the community wants in this club, what it wants the players on the field to exemplify, but we’re only two in.”

The monthly town halls, which Marlette plans to host in several areas across Western New York over the next two years and well into the club’s existence, are just one part of a community outreach initiative the executive feels is paramount to club sustainability. He’s stressed the importance of community at several stages throughout the startup process, describing the club as one “By Buffalo, For Buffalo.” Though always aware of the importance of a fanbase to a sports team, Marlette didn’t truly learn of the necessity for community until he inherited a team—and disinterested general population—in Omaha.

“It’s hard to blame Omaha for this because of when they started—COVID was just beginning and then reaching its peak—but one thing that I struggled with early on was we hadn’t built a big enough community around the team quite yet,” Marlette said. “There were the diehard fans, the supporters groups who were always going to be there—they were great, they were there. But the greater community, those for whom it wasn’t going to be the biggest social part of their lives, the biggest non-work/family part of their lives, I don’t think we had engaged with them well enough in Omaha. 

“That became something that I worked very hard to do in my time there, and it’s something that now in Buffalo, I get to correct with these community town halls and other things like that . . . We are able to—in the planning phases, in the startup phases of this club—getting to engage with the community, get their input, and build this around what we hear from them. That’s something that I saw firsthand was so important. If you didn’t do it, it was really hard to figure out a year or two down the road. It truly needs to be done from day one.”

What started as a bumper sticker, \"Keep Buffalo A Secret\" is now a giant mural on the side of Oxford Pennant Manufacturing's building in the heart of downtown Buffalo, NY. Sd 020822 Oxford X Metro / Shawn Dowd/Rochester Democrat and

Marlette has routinely expressed his dream of seeing the club act as “a gathering point for the community,” a physically and financially accessible outlet where people from all walks of life can unite over their shared passion. The executive understands that the realization of this goal will ultimately come down to stadium location and ticket pricing; he recently hired a Buffalo-based developer to “prioritize” two potential stadium sites within the City of Buffalo, with his team also keeping two additional locations in consideration.

“In order to get to the stadium, people can’t have to pile into a car and drive to get there or brave traffic or get an expensive Uber or cab or whatever it may be,” Marlette said. “It needs to be accessible via public transport, it needs to be accessible via driving if that’s how you choose to do it, but alternative transportation—biking, walking, whatever it may be. The location is tremendously important to the accessibility of all different communities and neighborhoods here in Buffalo and around Buffalo.

“Then the accessibility financially is important. I’ve said this in town halls, the Proforma and financial projections that we are working off of right now, which are really seriously considered and thought through and verified by absolute experts in this, our ideal average ticket price is $35. That is going to have in it a relatively inexpensive get-in-the-door price. It’s not going to be VIP, it’ll probably be a standing room section or general admission section, but we have to allow people who want to come to this game to be able to get into the stadium and not have to sacrifice some other essential to do so . . . We need people who want to come to the game to be able to do so both physically—logistically—and also financially.”

Developing a stadium is again a field in which Marlette gained experience before launching his Buffalo effort; Union Omaha announced its plans to construct a new soccer-specific venue in downtown Omaha a few months after his departure, a process the executive was “heavily involved” in.

The initial community response in Western New York has been promising, and Marlette’s outreach efforts aren’t slowing; in addition to continued town halls and having a presence at local soccer camps, clinics, and tournaments, Marlette plans to launch a Special Olympics Unified team in Buffalo, echoing an effort he spearheaded at Union Omaha that he described as “probably [his] favorite thing we did” throughout his time at the club.

Both behind the scenes and on the pitch, the executive plans to construct a side that doesn’t play in front of the people of Buffalo, but for them, something that he hopes will spark a reciprocal adoration.

“That’s one of the reasons why Buffalo is such a great USL market,” Marlette said. “If I and the team that I bring in around me can do our job of creating a true community club that’s representative of Buffalo, Buffalo is going to get behind that.”

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A Bills fan carrying a Bills Mafia flag leaves a parking lot full of tailgaters and heads to the stadium. / Tina MacIntyre-Yee /Rochester Democrat

Borrowing a Page

It wouldn’t be fair to describe the Buffalo Bills as gargantuan to an individual or group erecting a sports team in Western New York, as even that may be an understatement. They’re more akin to taxes in that you simply aren’t going to beat them.

They’re the heartbeat of the region, establishing themselves as one of Buffalo’s few remaining links to mainstream America over the past 65 years. Whether it be four consecutive Super Bowl losses, a 17-year postseason drought, or a bizarre Jon Bon Jovi-piloted relocation scare, Bills fans have stuck with their team through it all—there’s no usurping the franchise in the city’s sports hierarchy.

Marlette realizes this. He has no aspirations of overtaking—or even competing with—the Bills; he instead strives to supplement them, providing the demonstrably passionate Buffalo faithful a fresh and different means through which to express their affection.

“The passion of Bills and, though it’s waned in recent years, Sabres fans, as well, but Buffalo sports fans is unrivaled in this country,” Marlette said. “Having said that, I have been to stadiums in Italy and Germany and England where it feels very much the same as an important Bills game all the time. This sport, soccer, specifically, the culture around it—the drumming, the chanting, the singing, the jumping up and down, the constant cheering—it’s something that doesn’t exist in most markets in American pro sports.

“In Buffalo, it manifests in a different way, but it very much, that passion exists in Buffalo, no question . . . They are going to jump through tables, maybe. They are going to be bringing that passion to the [soccer] stadium that is unrivaled anywhere else in this country, but it’s also going to be in a unique way.”

Dec 31, 2023; Orchard Park, New York, USA; A young Buffalo Bills fans hold up a sign referring to being in the Bills Mafia prior to the game against the New England Patriots at Highmark Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Gregory Fisher-USA TODAY Sports / Gregory Fisher-USA TODAY Sports

The gameday environment in Orchard Park is something wholly unique in the NFL, a collegiate, almost European-like atmosphere that commences in the parking lot before following fans inside the venue. Marlette hopes to borrow elements of this as he crafts a unique environment around and inside his stadium, aspiring to put a Buffalo twist on a rabid setting akin to what one could find in the biggest soccer stadiums in the world.

“I think tailgating is very unique to American sports culture, and the Bills tailgating experience is very unique to the Bills, specifically,” Marlette said. “I think we will absolutely take elements of that and there will be tailgate opportunities. We’re going to hope our fans will bring all of that that they bring to the Bills. 

“Also, in the stadium, we’ve been discussing a modular stadium, and that’s what the plan is to move forward. Along with that, we get to build it [and] design it exactly how we want it, and exactly how we want the atmosphere to be. In soccer, if we can create an almost cauldron-like stadium experience where the fans behind the goal, the supporters' section—the standing room only, the drums, the flags, the smoke bombs, whatever it may be, and that will be safely confined to one section where people intend to be participating in that way—we want them on top of the field. We want the fans to be as close as FIFA allows to the sideline, just creating that energy that the rest of the stadium feeds off of. In the best European soccer stadiums [and] in the best American soccer stadiums in USL—Detroit City, for example, is insane—that’s what happens. The supporters section brings the energy and if the stadium is designed correctly, the rest of the stadium feeds off that and it creates 90 minutes of real excitement and real noise.”

The cues Marlette plans to borrow from the Bills stretch past gameday environment and into teambuilding philosophy; the club’s mission statement claims that it yearns to be representative of the “hardworking, resilient, and proud” nature of the city, intangible traits that the Bills and NHL’s Sabres have come to represent over the past several decades.

These teams have had years to earn this reputation; injecting it into a startup may be difficult. To Marlette, representing a region’s blue-collar work ethic starts at the top. 

“Whoever the top position is in the club, non-ownership, that person has to exemplify those traits,” Marlette says. “That means I need to be outworking everybody else, and I cannot be above any single job. It doesn’t matter what the task is, what the job is, or what my title is, if it has to get done, I have to get it done. 

“In Omaha, I was on the tarp team. It was a baseball field, a Triple-A baseball stadium that we played at, and I didn’t know this, I wasn’t in the baseball world prior to my time there—if there’s rain of any severity, they have to get a tarp over that field because the infield will become mud and it’ll ruin it. Tarp team was basically on-call 24-7. If there is heavy rain in the forecast, you have to get out to the stadium and you physically roll a tarp onto the field in the terrible weather. That’s the kind of thing that I did from day one in Omaha and am going to have to do here in Buffalo, too. I’m going to be asking the front office to work very hard and to exemplify those traits, and I can’t ask them to do that if I’m not going to do it myself.”

Arguably as important as ingraining that mindset into the front office—in Buffalo, in particular—is implementing it on the field. The market is unique in that it, at times, demonstrably values character and work ethic over skill; fans would rather wear the jersey of a player who visibly strains their guts for 60 minutes as opposed to one who consistently earns All-Pro nods.

12. Kyle Williams Position: DT. Years: 2006-18 Achievements: Retired following the 2018 season having played 183 games, seventh-most in team history and second-most among defensive linemen. Six-time Pro Bowl selection. Ranks fifth in team history with 48.5 sacks. Is one of only six players to have played 13 seasons for the Bills. / Jamie Germano/Rochester Democrat and

Kyle Williams, Steve Tasker, Fred Jackson—these players were not among the league’s most skilled at their respective positions, but they gave effort. They worked, and were thus embraced by Buffalo fans. Marlette plans to espouse this philosophy when constructing his roster—talent is a given, but work ethic will be a must.

“There are plenty of extremely talented pro-ready players in the world, especially in soccer with it being such a global game,” Marlette said. “That doesn’t mean just because a player is good enough at his or her positon, that doesn’t mean that they’re able to embody those traits that I was talking about. It’s player selection. It’s picking up players and signing players who are obviously good enough to do what we need them to do, but also will run through a wall representing this city. 

“You see it with the Bills and Sabres; historically the players that do that, they’re embraced. They’re loved. It’s for those reasons. Yes, they’re good at what they do, they’re talented, but when you see a quarterback—sometimes you see it too much here in Buffalo—but when you see a quarterback lower his head or try to hurdle somebody, that’s going to endear you to the fans.”

Professional soccer can work in Buffalo. It should work. The market’s big enough, the demographic indicators are there, and the locals are demonstrably passionate about sport—there’s no reason why soccer shouldn’t thrive in Buffalo.

The possibility, in and of itself, is tantalizing, and Marlette—given his extensive experience leading up to this moment—seems the perfect candidate to spearhead the effort. Soccer is already prominent in the American sports scene and only figures to grow; Marlette wants Bills fans—and Buffalo, in general—to get on board.

“First of all, I suspect we’re going to have some tie-ins with the Bills, whether that’s ownership or brand representatives or whatever it may be,” Marlette said. “I assume we’ll have some partnerships or synergies with the Bills, at least. Second of all, this team, as the Bills have done so well, especially in the past few years, is going to be built to exemplify Buffalo. There’ll be a lot of talent on the field, there will be a lot of skill on the field, but there will also be a lot of players who know that they’re representing a tough, hard-working city and they need to be exactly that on the field. 

“Bills fans like a winner—we supported the team forever, even in those down years, decades, whatever you want to say—but Bills fans are used to seeing their team win and compete lately. That’s something we’re planning on building here with Buffalo Pro Soccer, as well. That’s something that, in my past experience, I’ve done nothing but win and compete for championships, and I plan on continuing that here.”