Art Bernardi Stadium is becoming a popular place.

Plenty of teams, the Butler Lil’ Tornados, Butler Area Midget Football League, the community’s youth lacrosse association and Butler County Bears semipro football team, all want to play there.

So where do you draw the line?

As superintendent of Butler schools Ed Fink points out, there would be more than 100 games played at that facility if every request was honored.

That’s not particularly plausible.

The BAMFL requested use of the stadium for its entire regular season a few years ago. Instead, the 60-year-old league was granted use of the stadium for its junior varsity and varsity championship games.

The BAMFL has been fine with that.

Fink said the Lil’ Tornados traveling youth football team and the lacrosse association also have been offered one home game each per year.

That’s a consistent ruling and seems fair. Each organization should choose a marquee matchup and play it at the stadium. It would be a thrill for the players involved.

The other side of this issue is where to play the other home games — particularly for the Lil' Tornados.

The players need a football field, not a big patch of grass that the athletic field downtown currently provides.

Then again, that could be turned into a football field over time.

It needs a scoreboard and it needs goalposts. That likely would take fundraising to get accomplished.

The Butler County Youth Soccer Association developed its own complex over time. With the increasing popularity of lacrosse and traveling football — the Lil’ Tornados had 77 players register during an early sign-up period recently — more playing fields might be needed in the area.

Football used to be played at Pullman Park. Maybe that could be revisited.

The Butler County Bears present a different circumstance.

This is a semipro team consisting of former high school players, many from the Butler area. They are looking for a place to call home and Art Bernardi Stadium would be the ideal location.

The Bears have the potential to develop into a true community team that provides local sports entertainment, similar to the Butler BlueSox in baseball.

This team requires only five home dates — and maybe a playoff game or two — and has the flexibility to play during the afternoon or evening on certain Saturdays in June, July and August.

Having a semipro football team succeed in Butler can only help football in general succeed in Butler.

The Bears are worth opening the stadium gates for.

Youth organizations are, too, but there might be too many to accommodate for a full schedule.

One game is better than none.

John Enrietto is sports editor of the Butler Eagle.