Bison Herd Migrating in Season 14

Iowa City, IA - The Iowa City Bison announced today that they will not play in Iowa City next season. The announcement came days after the team failed to reach an agreement with the city on the lease of Principal Stadium.

Iowa City spokesperson and former player Mike McGlinchy issued a statement: "We are very grateful to the fans who gave us a great home after jumping from Columbus to New York before landing here. It is unfortunate that the city's demands were not something we could work with, leaving us homeless and our loyal fans in a bit of limbo. We warned them that we would be forced to look elsewhere if a deal could not be reached, and I don't think they were listening. We have several prospective cities that are offering us mutually beneficial deals and we will explore those options, although we will not discuss those at this time. We need to make a decision quickly, preferably on a short term deal at a different city, while we explore the options of a long-term deal somewhere. The thing is, we could not move on to next season and have the league set the schedule without a stadium deal in place, and we ran out of time with the Iowa City negotiators for next season. They are still delusional in thinking that we are bluffing. Time's up. The league needs to know where we are playing, and it can not be in Iowa City for next season. They are unrealistic about timelines and expectations, and we can not keep postponing the inevitable."

A spokesperson for the mayor's office said: "These are tough economic times for the working people of our city. We have had to make some tough financial decisions across the board, making cuts left and right, and we can not give away the use of the stadium when it is a clear source of revenue for the city, and we know they could easily meet our demands if they wanted to. We think they are bluffing and they will not move. We just need a break from the negotiations and we will reconvene next week and invite them to the table to start all over the week after that."

The Bison have previously explored relocation. After their first two seasons in Iowa City, attendance was dismal and they explored relocation, but an improved team resulted in higher attendance, and the team chose to stay. Prospective suitors at that time were San Juan PR, Burlington VT, Richmond, VA and Washington, DC. Since then, Richmond has secured a ML franchise, but the other cities may still be interested. Burlington has shown the most interest in landing a ML franchise, since losing their franchise to Baltimore after S10.