A split Columbus City Council narrowly approved a half-million-dollar grant for the Columbus Fury, the city’s fledgling professional women’s volleyball franchise.
Formed in 2024 as a founding member of Major League Volleyball, the Fury is still looking for a local majority owner. The current ownership group includes Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow and his family.
The council voted 5-4 to approve the grant for the franchise at its Nov. 24 meeting, matching a $500,000 grant the Franklin County Board of Commissioners authorized in September.
Voting against it were council’s two top leaders, Council President Shannon Hardin and Council President Pro Tempore Rob Dorans, who were joined by Councilmembers Melissa Green and Otto Beatty III.
“I want the same level of creativity that was used to fund a private sports team to be used to feed people,” Hardin told The Dispatch after the vote. “It has been done before.”
Hardin said the timing wasn’t right as council prepares to consider a tight general fund budget that will require the city to make difficult choices about which organizations it funds.
The funding for the grant won’t come from the city’s tax-funded general fund budget but from the Neighborhood Economic Development Fund. That fund comes from non-tax revenue like fees and regional economic agreements, according to Columbus Department of Development Director Michael Stevens. There’s currently about $5 million in the fund, Stevens said.
Councilmember Nick Bankston, who voted for the legislation, said the city can and must do both, provide funding for the Fury, a women’s sports team, and to feed those in need.
Councilmember Lourdes Barroso de Padilla said she struggled with voting yes, but it’s “never a good time for women’s sports.”
Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther’s administration pushed for the grant. Ginther said earlier this year during his State of the City address that he wants Columbus to become the nation’s capital for women’s sports.
“In this current time as we are starting to parse through the tightest budget that I have seen, we would jump the gun and get this money out the door before we start saying ‘no’ to some of our close friends who are literally keeping people fed, literally keeping people housed,” Hardin said.
The council is about to embark on multiple months of budget hearings after Ginther submitted his general fund budget proposal on Nov. 13. The tight budget doesn’t include money for some things Ginther said he would like to fund, and scales back funding for local homeless shelters.
Government and politics reporter Jordan Laird can be reached at jlaird@dispatch.com. Follow her on X, Instagram and Bluesky at @LairdWrites.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus Council narrowly approves $500,000 for Fury volleyball team
Reporting by Jordan Laird, Columbus Dispatch / The Columbus Dispatch
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