The Sports Museum of America in New York City has closed just nine months after opening.

The US$93m, for-profit museum, may reopen if a buyer is found. If not, its collection will be returned to its owners or redistributed.

Paid for with US$52m of tax-exempt Liberty bonds and US$5m of taxable Liberty bonds – which were issued by the Empire State Development Corp and were part of a US$20bn package that congress granted New York in order to recover from an economic slump following 9/11 – and US$36m of private money, the museum opened in May 2008.

The board suspended payment on the Liberty bonds late last year, and is seeking US$10m to cover its debts.

The New York Times said that despite visitor numbers of just 125,000 – compared to projected one million – the museum’s founder Philip Schwalb did not blame the recession. He told the paper that a US$6m cost overrun caused the museum to cut its marketing budget, which resulted in “95 per cent of residents of New York City never hearing of us”.

Efforts to restructure the bond debt, including plans to sell the museum for just US$10m, have so far failed.