Jeff DiVeronica

@RocDevo

For the second time in the team's 20-year history, the Rochester Rhinos are looking for a new owner.

"We believe in Rochester, the market, so our first mission is to do everything we can to make sure that soccer stays in Rochester," said Tom Veit, the USL's chief marketing officer who flew in to Rochester on Monday to begin working with city of Rochester and team officials on a succession plan.

The United Soccer League terminated its franchise agreement with Rhinos owner Rob Clark last month after Clark's family told the USL it didn't plan to operate the team next season. That decision, Clark said on Tuesday, came a couple of weeks after the city informed the Clark family it was terminating the operating lease at Sahlen's Stadium on Dec. 31.

The Rhinos, one of the most successful teams in league history, won the USL Championship in October, the club's first title in 14 years.

Clark, 43, a banker from Utica, took over the Rhinos in 2008 after the team's original ownership group defaulted on $10.6 million in loans, among other debt. The lease termination, which was delivered to his desk Dec. 1 in Utica, where the family owns Adirondack Bank, came as a shock, Clark said. But it wasn't the first unrest between the city and Clark over the city-owned stadium.

The city sued the Rhinos last March for $140,525 for past due rent and other fees, including the team's share of the taxes and utilities, dating to January 2013.

City communications director James Smith said Tuesday that the city wanted to find a new stadium owner/operator because Clark's LLC, Adirondack Sports Club, "never paid us any money." Smith added, "we have to protect the taxpayer." He also made it clear city officials still want the Rhinos playing in the stadium. "This is a soccer town," Smith said.

Clark said he and his father, Harold, met with city officials in mid-December. The city wanted to find someone else to run the stadium and make the Rhinos only a tenant. Rob Clark said that wouldn't work.

"I'm operating at several-hundred-thousand-dollars-a-year losses. Taking away (revenue from a new) naming rights and things like that or whatever, the numbers are catastrophic," Rob Clark said. "I'm not in the business of charity work."

Clark also cited family reasons — his wife is pregnant and his 73-year-old father has some "health issues," Clark said — as reasons to walk away. His family did consider looking at other venues in Rochester to play and decided they were done, Rob Clark said.

"The league swooped in and said they're taking over the franchise and I said, 'Great, that'll assure soccer stays in Rochester. That's wonderful news,' " said Rob Clark, who ran the team from 2008-2010 living in Rochester while on leave from the family banking business, then moved back home.

New ownership could be exactly the jolt the Rhinos need

Veit said as of Monday the Rhinos' payroll, including team President Pat Ercoli and head coach Bob Lilley, is being picked up by the USL and that no employees have been let go. Ercoli declined comment on Tuesday. The Rhinos are coming off a record-setting season in which they went 20-1-10.

"Our league is built on loyalty ... (Rochester) has been a USL champion. It has been a U.S. Open Cup champion. The fans have supported the Rhinos. The city helped build this stadium," Veit said of the $32 million facility, which included $19 million in state grants and $4 million from the city. "We think the city has been a good partner and will continue to be. That's our hope."

Even though the stadium is a multi-use facility that's also used by the Rochester School District, and for other local high school sports, concerts and other events, it needs the Rhinos. The facility was built for them. The Western New York Flash women's professional soccer team also has called the facility home since 2011.

But the city has been trying to cut back on what started out as a $400,000-plus annual stadium subsidy in 2009. It already has allocated money for a new video scoreboard that has been an eyesore for a couple of seasons and its artificial turf is in terrible shape. The city may not have wanted to rid the stadium of the Rhinos, just their owner.

"Obviously, the stadium needs some work and a big part of why we’re here is we want to sit down and talk to the city," Veit said.

Veit said the USL had been aware for months of "operational issues" with the club. "Once the Clarks showed no interest in rectifying those issues, we terminated the franchise agreement," Veit said.

Asked to elaborate on the operational issues, he declined comment, but said: "The standards for our franchises have rapidly risen in recent years. What we ask of our clubs is significantly higher than we did even a few years ago. The new clubs in the USL ... we demand a lot and one of those things is how we interact in the community."

USL CEO Alec Papadakis is expected to join Veit in Rochester this week. The USL has undergone a massive transformation in the past few years. It's no longer a struggling league of about a dozen clubs. It has developed a partnership with Major League Soccer and expanded from 14 teams in 2014 to 24 last summer. Six more clubs will join in 2016. Eleven of the 30 franchises will be owned by MLS teams and nine others will be affiliated with MLS teams. MLS franchises use USL squads as minor-league affiliates, much like Major League Baseball and the NHL do.

The Rhinos have been affiliated the past few years with the New England Revolution.

Some new USL owners have major financial clout, too. The new Cincinnati franchise is owned by the Lindner family, which formerly owned the Reds. The Reno team, set to join in 2017, is owned by Indiana Pacers owner Herb Simon, and a prospective franchise in San Antonio is owned by Spurs Sports & Entertainment (SS&E), which owns the NBA’s Spurs.

Veit said the USL is already talking with prospective owners for the Rhinos but it's very early and he stressed that in order to return Rochester to prominence off the field, the way it was in the late 1990s drawing huge crowds to Frontier Field, it will take time and investment

Interest in the team, he understands, has "waned" in recent years. "There are reasons for that," Veit said. But the reason the USL is here is because it believes with a new owner this market can thrive once again.

"The owner is one of the keys, so whoever takes over we want to make sure is investing in the community and the team and is good partners with the city to return the Rhinos to the success they’d seen," Veit said. "We’ve just got to fine-tune what’s being put into it from an ownership level ... This city deserves to get as good as it has given."

JDIVERON@Gannett.com

Includes reporting by news director Dick Moss.