Hinchliffe Stadium developer buys NJ Jackals
By: Joe Malinconico
Paterson Press
PATERSON - The developer who reopened Hinchliffe Stadium after a 25-year shutdown has purchased the New Jersey Jackals, the minor league baseball team hat plays its home games at the historic ballpark.
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Mayor Andre Sayegh predicted a bright future for the Jackals under Baye Adofo-Wilson, the developer, saying "he's fully invested in the team," State Senator Benjie Wimberly said Adofo-Wilson would bring "energy" to the franchise. Paterson school board member Kenneth Simmons said the new owner would build "ties to the Paterson community."
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Councilman Michael Jackson loomed as the deal's outspoken detractor. "Paterson kids aren't going to benefit from this. This is all about Baye making money," the councilman said. "That stadium belongs to us, but the way it feels now, it belongs to Baye."
..... Paterson Board of Education President Eddie Gonzalez also expressed concerns about the new arrangement. The school district owns Hinchliffe. Gonzalez said the developer, as landlord of Hinchliffe, will essentially be leasing the stadium to himself. He cited the lease agreement under which the district and the developer agreed to split Hinchliffe profits in half.
..... "They won't change themselves a high rate, effectively guaranteeing zero profit for the 50/50 deal we have," Gonzalez said. "the district desperately needs this non-taxpayer revenue and has yet to receive a single dime since the stadium opened."
..... Adofo-Wilson - who also is a part-owner of the Cosmos professional soccer team coming to Hinchliffe in 2026 - did not respond to multiple inquires during the past couple of months about talk taught he had brought the Jackals.
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"I don't know what you're talking about," the former owner, Al Dorso, said when asked about the sale in early October, [2025]
..... But Sayegh confirmed the deal on November y, [2025] and Dorso acknowledged he sold the team during an interview on November 10. [2025]
..... Dorso - who also owns the Sussex County team that plays in the Frontier League, in which the Jackals compete - declined to say exactly how much money he got for the franchise. He said Adofo-Wilson has "put together a great sports management team" for the Jackals.
Slow start, then attendance doubled
..... The Jackals finished last in Frontier League attendance in 2023, the first year they played in Paterson after leaving Yogi Berra Stadium in Little falls. That was the year Hinchliffe reopened, as part of a 4100 million project that included a 315-space parking garage, a museum and a senior citizen apartment building.
..... the next two season, the Frontier League credited the Jackals with more than doubling their attendance, with 1,896 people per game in 2024 and 1,911 in 2025. but people who attended games at Hinchliffe called those attendance figures a farce, saying it was rare for more than a few hundred people to be in the stands.
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One of the big hurdles facing Adofo-Wilson is getting approvals for a liquor license for the concession stand at Hinchliffe, which is owned by the Paterson Board of Education. Sayegh's former business administrator, Vaughn McKoy, included beer sales under his concession contract for 2023 and 2024. but McKoy and Adofo-Wilson parted ways for the 2025 season.
..... An audit of Hinchliffe's operations for 2024 showed hat the stadium ran at a $1.2 million deficit.
..... Sayegh, Wimberly, and Simmons predicted that Adofo-Wilson will be able to change the stadium's fortunes because he is plugged into the Paterson community. There have been talks about increasing the number of day games for the Jackals to bring in children form city summer camps and youth sports leagues.
Investing in Cosmos soccer franchise, Latino fan base
..... Simmons said some people's expectations that Hinchliffe would become a moneymaking enterprise were misguided.
..... Sayegh has asserted that the new cosmos franchise in a second-tier professional soccer league would make Paterson a "soccer city" and boost the stadium's bottom line.
..... The Paterson Restoration Corporation, a quasi-pulbic economic development board, has invested $2.5 million in the Cosmos franchise.
..... The corporation's chairman, Orlando Cruz, said he saw Adofo-Wilson's purchase of the Jackals as a major opportunity, saying the former Patersonian would tap into the city's Latino fan base among its Puerto Rican and Dominican communities.
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Brian LoPinto, who decades ago as part of the Friends of Hinchliffe Stadium group helped stop the demolition of the historic ballpark, said the success of the Jackals needs to be measured over the long haul.
..... "It takes decades to build a fan base in a city that hasn't had professional baseball in some time," LoPinto said. "In the Jackals' case, a true meas suer of success will be support from corporations and small businesses to sponsor a variety of promotions at Jackals games, such as bobble-heads, fireworks and other fun-friendly giveaways."
..... Few people know the Jackals better than Scott Freier, a season-ticketholder since 1998 who attend about 35 home games at Hinchliffe last summer. [2025] He is commonly known as "the Trumpet guy" for his attempts to rouse the crowed for the home team.
..... Freier said he didn't know much about Adofo-Wilson, so he declined to comment on the new team ownership. But the horn blower said there's no doubt that among the team's offseason priorities should be getting some better players, along with a liquor license.
..... "If you go to a ball game in the middle of the summer," Freier said, "you want to buy a cold beer and watch the game."