San Jose Earthquakes Stadium - Building it Now!

Why does that put you at the bottom of the food chain? The team to my knowledge has been treating all season ticket holders as cumulative as long as you've maintained tickets all the years. You didn't get reset every time you jumped to new seats.

 

Can anyone tell where the Patio suties are located. It looks to me like the club seats take up all the sideline areas that weren't claimed by the original luxury boxes.

 

No you're right you'll be wait-listed. But what they're doing makes sense since the Club Suites would be a logical transition seating area from where those folks are now (Corona Cove, Premier Midfield and VIP On Field) from the old stadium to the new. Can't really fault them for doing it. Doing anything else wouldn't make sense and would be unfair to the folks who paid to be in those more expensive seats. I mean the VIP on field folks area actually downgrading in some respects if you want to look at it another way since they'll be going from right behind the adboards on the field up to an actual grandstand.

 

That's how I read it, and it doesn't bother me one bit. I'd rather sit in the regular seats with the higher vantage point and the non-stiff fans.

 

Same here, we sit in the premier midfield section, and those are expensive enough, I wouldn't mind sitting higher and actually see play in the corners.

 

I'm sure you'll get your wish. Remember, every one of the Quakes season ticket holders will get prime seats long before the general public does. I mean the Quakes can't have more than 4,000 season tickets or so right? The new stadium will seat that 4 1/2 times over.

 

Considering that the stadium is projected for 18k people and that existing season ticketholders are said to be roughly a quarter of that, of which a measurable percentage are supporters who will choose to be in the endzone, and another group of 500 or so will opt for club seats, I would say the opportunity for an existing season ticketholder to obtain decent (albeit not necessarily club) seats around midfield is pretty good.

 

You beat me to the punch.

 

I'll bet he begins all his bargaining that way.

 

The haves and the have-nots. You gotta keep 'em separated....

 

Damn right. That's how you get rich people to buy expensive seats, you give them the ability to be separated from the riff raff. Politically correct, probably not, but fact of life, yes. And if it means club seats get sold who cares.

 

True. But 'tis nought but another statement unverifiable.

 

I thought the endline seating wasn't going to be tiered like the sidelines? Ultras/Casbah, wasn't this promised to you by Kaval? I thought it would be seating all the way down to the pitch, not a lower and upper section like the sidelines have. If this is the design, what a big mistake. Would you guys be happy in the "upper deck"??

I've had my criticisms of this concept since first seeing it and I still have them:

First - the blatant separation of the haves/have nots is almost offensive, and ugly. You have all of the rich down along the pitch in reserved and "VIP" luxury booths and seats, and then the everyone else (or poor people, or rabble, if you will) sectioned off into the upper deck, farther away from the game. It seems they're catering specifically to the rich, and corporate money interests, and the average, actual fans can fend for themselves in the area for commoners. It's almost disgusting. There are always better seats and suites and reserved sections, but this design really creates an air of separation between those in attendance. The terrible thing is, the suites and VIP areas will be filled usually with people who aren't there so much for the team as they are for the experience or because their company or someone they know got them tickets. I can already picture some well-to-do guests who got company seats sitting there eating VIP food and drinks sitting back in the table/lounge area away from the game, while the game is going on, not even concerned with what is going on. What will that do for fan support/involvement? How will the players take that? How will that look on TV?

Second - the stairway entrances at the bottom of the stands which take up an unnecessary amount of space and push more people up farther away from the game. PPL Park is a perfect example of this. You have these big holes where you should have as much seating as close to the pitch as possible. Then you have people who are going to be walking in and out, up and down there all game long. I wish they'd put those entrances in the middle or top of the stands. It's simply inefficient.

It's as if they took the goal of putting as many people as close to the pitch as possible, and did the exact opposite.

Yes this is an amazing stadium and will be brand new and leaps and bounds beyond Buck Shaw. But I'm wondering after the newness wears off, judging the layout of this design objectively, how many people will actually like the design, or if they will see the lack of fans close to the pitch and the top/bottom separation as not a plus..

 

Less like this:

More like this:

Yes?

 

Oh there will be people as close to the pitch as possible. It just won't be you and I. Seriously though I don't mind the design. The lower tier is very short and the second tier will still be close (maybe even closer than some "row 1's" in other stadiums).

 

Oh they'll start paying attention the first time a ball gets cleared right into their meeting

 

No.

You're so funny with this one.

I see your point, but this will only work if all the bathrooms and concessions are all up there with your "shifted entrances".

Basically you just double the cost by forcing them to build two levels rather then one.

 

No need to put bathrooms/concessions up top - what for? Fine where they're at. No need for two levels - other than the second level that everyone is already sitting in! I'm aware that building some sort of stairs up higher to have people descend would increase the cost - but that would be a cost well worth it for the long term. Plus, you have more seats closer to the pitch, thus generating more revenue because you can charge more for the seats which are closer. Having the entrances at the bottom pushes literally hundreds of seats unnecessarily up and away from the pitch. Again, it comes back to putting as many people as close to the pitch as possible. This design flies in the face of that concept.

 

I don't think there was any conscious attempt to separate the haves from the haves not with this stadium design. The suites/club seat areas are all at field level because it is a lot cheaper to build them there. They are saving many millions building that stuff on the ground, as opposed to up in the stands.
I heard the Ultra's section will go down to the field. In the diagram showing club seat locations I didn't see any of them behind the goal, did someone see something the different? Don't go off the renderings, I don't think they have been updated.

 

Even though I think you make sense as far as getting more seats closer to the field, it's costs again my friend. No matter what you design you have stairs going up the stands. So, do you build 20' of stairs to connect to them, or do construct entire walkways that work there way to the top of the stadium to have access from there? Again significantly cheaper to have the access points down low.
Having the luxury suites, club seats, and access points as low as possible is why we have a $60 million dollar stadium and not a $80-$90 million dollar stadium.