I think that’s significant hyperbole. I’ve had to be seen in the emergency room twice in the last year at Miriam and was seen in under an hour both times. I also hardly think a privately owned hospital shutting down without negotiating with the city or state or following proper procedure of notifying the state boards before closing departments can be equated with building a soccer stadium, and frankly I don’t see how they’re related, considering a hospital was never an alternative competing proposal. We just love soccer, we love the team, and we want to share our excitement and hopefully get other people excited, too. If it’s not for you, it’s not for you, but we’re gonna be there cheering either way!

Maybe you’re right, I’m choosing to hope for the best but I’ll show up wherever they play so it’s almost immaterial for me

Thanks man, I appreciate your input on it, and I hope it’s not, too. It’s not often this state gets something people can get excited about, you know? When I post about RIFC in r/soccer, they ask if the team will play in Quahog, you get me? I really want this to be a good thing for us and for the city and for the state

I get what you’re saying, but I think having the team (and the stadium and larger project) will be good for Pawtucket, hopefully it will help revitalize the area, which badly needs it. I also think having the team is gonna be good for families, for kids. One underrated thing people don’t really talk about is the soccer academy that comes with the team, which will give kids from all income brackets across RI an opportunity to develop and potentially become professional players. I also don’t think it’s really an “either/or” thing. Other possibilities weren’t really being seriously considered, and this is a major economic development for Pawtucket that I think will help people. Ultimately I just love the whole thing, and I want to share that love and excitement with people

I’ll be showing up to support them wherever they play. I hope construction goes to plan and this stadium opens in March, 2024. I know that can be a big ask for a state like Rhode Island but I believe in it wholeheartedly!

I’ll be buying tickets to see them wherever they play!

I understand your concerns, but the USL Championship has been relatively stable, at least compared to other minor soccer leagues in the US, and again the teams that performed well tend to be poached upwards, where there’s more money and more stability. Rhode Island is a top 10 television market for soccer and the team has already set the League record for season ticket deposits, and I think those markers taken together with soccer’s rapidly increasing popularity (now even with ice hockey and expected to outpace both hockey and baseball by 2040), the potential for this team is huge.

At the end of the day I understand people’s concerns, but I love the idea of a professional soccer club in Rhode Island and I’m going to be there on opening day, hopefully with 10,000 other fans, to cheer this team on.

I understand your issues, but I’m a taxpayer here too and I’m glad we’re funding something I love. Our tax dollars often go to things we don’t care about or even that we don’t like, but again I am happy to help build this and excited for what it could bring to Pawtucket and to Rhode Island as a whole

The USL has actually been around 1986. USL Championship, its first division, is only a decade old, though. Its more successful teams tend to be poached by MLS

I appreciate your perspective. I completely understand people who aren’t happy about the way the stadium is being financed, but I’m excited to actually have my tax dollars going to something that I want and I care about, you know? I really believe in the potential of RIFC to be something that unites people and brings them together and gives us all a lot of joy, and I just want to share that with everyone

I understand people’s concerns about our tax dollars. I like this project because it’s something I support. I’d have voted yes if it had come to that. Our state motto is “Hope” and like many of my fellow Rhode Islanders, I’m excited to have a soccer team we can call our own! I have all the hope and faith in the world for this

Rhode Island is the 14th best soccer market in the country, and soccer, per a 2021 Gallup poll, is the fastest growing team sport in the nation. Baseball, meanwhile, is the fastest declining. The team has already set USL records for season ticket deposits. The city and state chose this development over the PawSox because this offered a lot more to the city and state in terms of private funding in addition to public funding.

Everyone here seems eager to immediately get angry and dismiss this out of hand. “No one cares about soccer”, they’ll say, or “we should have kept the PawSox.” But the numbers disagree, and I think once the team gets going even more people will see the value in having a team in the fastest growing sport in the US at the heart of the largest urban revitalization project in Pawtucket’s history.

If you don’t like soccer, that’s fine. But there’s a lot of Rhode Islanders who do, and I’m choosing to embody Rhode Island’s motto of “Hope”. And this stadium doesn’t have to be limited to RIFC. The USL is forming a women’s professional soccer league, the Super League, and certainly an XFL or USFL team could end up calling the stadium home as well. This is a hopeful development for the city and the state. I honestly can’t even begin to convey how excited I am for it.

Probably light reflecting off the Oort Cloud