Rice-Eccles Stadium

Yeah...it's not the best, but oh well. I guess it'll do.

It sucks, because I hate their team, but LOVE their owner. Checketts will have that team out of Rice-Eccles and into an SSS in 2 seasons. Bet on it.

 

Is the grass real or fake?... If it's real grass I don't mind the American FB lines.

 

It's Pamela Anderson grass. It's fake.

 

Actually, the infill on these type of surfaces is only 50% silicon (sand), with the rest being of shredded rubber. Pam's infill is 100% silicon.

 

Pamela Anderson looks better than sand does.

 

The crowd looks good on TV.
The TV camera can't pick up action on the near side touchline. When they showed a throw in on that side, there isn't much space between the touchline and the wall. I wonder how wide it is for soccer.

 

the radio said the field was 110 X 72

 

When I toured there before the Olympics, they made a point of mentioning that they could get a good-sized field in there.

 

Crowd looks great.

That field sucks. Really sucks. Southlake-like.

Here's hoping Real can score. Nothing worse than getting shutout at franchise opener with big crowd.

 

Definitely agree

 

All in all I actually thought it looked pretty good. The field is funky, to be sure. But the downsizing actually looked quite nice. The place seemed to have a very good atmosphere.

 

I thought I saw the top of the 18 yard box at the 10 yard line. Wouldn't that make it 116 yards long?

 

From a playing point of view its Southlake-like.

But from an aethetics standpoint, nothing can match the purple endzones and flourescent white football lines of Dragon Stadium for sheer hideousness.

 

I thought that Rice Eccles looked great.
The American Football lines were painted over. The field looked a nice bright green. I liked the use of the banners with the RSL and team sponors over the empty seats.
And a great crowd of 25,000 plus.
Wonderful job Mr. Checketts.

 

That was definitely a nice touch.

 

The playing pitch. Not the fans, environs.

That turf was very close to watching a Southlake game. Weird bounces...did you see the pace it was played at (how players ran?). Several shots miscued because of the turf. Certainly affected the game, its flow....everything...

 

Is there any bounce?

 

I think it was longer (maybe close to 120?) because the goals appeared to be set almost at the back of the "end zones"...

 

Definately agree about Southlake, and Naperville too, at least from a "presentation" standpoint of the field.

 

I know. I saw her in a club once.

Ah, people one gets to see when he moves out of Whitefish Bay.

 

They should have gotten a brand new top layer for the soccer games, at least for the summer. With the base installation already in place, one could probably change the "fake grass" within a day or so. That FieldTurf is intentionally made to be a little harder than the natural grass due to the football people preference. (it's easier to plant a foot and cut on a harder surface).

Actually, Checketts should have also doubled the padding underneath the top level. It's normally 2". With another 2" layer, the bounces would have been far more normal. The entire investment would have cost $200-300K.

 

You really think that Checketts should have spent that money on a field that's not even his?

In addition to rent?

 

Not the field per se, just the top layer, the carpet itself. The entire installation is a couple of feet deep, as I recall, but the top layers are replaceable. That way, he'd get rid of the football markings and be able to paint RSL's own, etc.

And yes. It's not a major investment (the NextTurf-AstroField-Omnigrass-RealGrass fields run $1 to $1.5M but the carpet itself is only a portion of that), although I suppose he should have tried talking the stadium people into paying for it. Still, I bet they took it as it was.