If you've never been there, then I can understand why you might be underwhelmed. Even before this addition, it was an amazing stadium--almost like, when it was built to it's pre-MLS-Timbers spec, it was built for soccer. The massive roof structure, with the enormous laminate joists, is awe-inspiring. There's hardly a seat in the house with an obstructed view. And the atmosphere, of course, speaks for itself--though really needs to be taken in first hand to fully appreciate.
I'm headed to BC place tomorrow. It will be my 12th stadium so far. Providence Park is hands down, without question the best experience. For the recrord, I've been to - Banc Of California (LAFC) StubHub (LA Galaxy) Avaya (San Jose) Providence Park (Portland) Century Link (Seattle) Rio Tinto (Salt Lake) Dick's (Colorado) Mercedes Benz (Atlanta) SeatGeek (Chicago) Audi Field (DC) MapFre (Columbus)
--------------- Actually been to Portland twice, once before the first redo and once after... I have actually been to almost every past and current MLS cities with few excepts and some twice. I like to get the old places first, Cotton Bowl, Mile High and then went back to Toyota Park and Dicks. This years trip is to MINNY for the new place(was at the old one first year), Cinny to get the old one and then will come back to get the new place later and ATL to get the dome, I went to Bobby Dodd their first year. - As for Portland, my comment was purely architecture in opinion. Have always like rectangular shaped stadiums rather than ovals, half ovals etc. Orlando is probably the perfect rectangle in my opinion with huge fan section on one end zone and then the rest of the stadium 2 decks on 3 sides.. Favorite of all my travels is RBA, when you walk in, it screams Football somewhere in Europe, just wish they had more fans. The derby Sunday was sad with endzones tarped off. Could talk stadiums stuff all day. Will be interesting to see with this next run of stadiums-- CINCY, NASH, MIA and then most likely SAC & STL the progression from MLS 1.0/2.0 to the most advanced.
--------- LAFC blows LAG away- location, transit, modern, amazing standing section, which now I hear the LAG are going to try to create a standing section in one of the end zones- should be interesting. Thought Audi field was cool how they literally jammed in into the street grid in DC. Felt like an old Euro stadium wedged into an older part of town somewhere, while still being a rectangle, the odd shapes, nooks and crannies were cool. My only worry is capacity a little small for now.
They've sold out 1 game so far and have no other games within 1,000 of capacity. There are a handful of sub 15k games this season. It's not close to being too small now.
This discussion is refreshing to me. We are discussing/comparing which is better between two awesome stadiums that are both built for and controlled by MLS teams. In the not so distant past this conversation would have seemed like a pipe dream.
---------------------- But now we find ourselves discussing the difference between MLS 1.0, 2.0 and now 3.0 stadiums. That blows me away as it shows how far we have come from being tenants in too large NFL, NCAA or even baseball stadiums. I have been following the game in this country since the original NASL days and to tell me we are building stadiums designed for the game , simply was inconceivable to me back then. This is all good and even if some of our current SSS are not perfect or great, they still beat the alternatives
They do, however, use 'dynamic pricing' to make this happen. (Meaning that where teams that had a bigger stadium would try to sell more seats, their revenue solution involves pricing fans out of the more popular games.)
That seems to be industry standard now for pro sports in the US. Back when I was in the DC area and had Caps tickets, they were priced in 3 different tiers during the season.
---------------------- Yes, sad but true. Went to a game las year, afternoon, humid etc. I guess my question, are they still better off than at RFK? I think most folks would say yes- new is better than a falling apart stadium. Would be interesting to know if the financial side is paying off, even with lower than hoped for attendance.
With the dynamic pricing model it is hard to draw a line between number of tickets and revenue. But I can say pretty much for sure that all the tickets are a good bit more expensive than they were at RFK (mine are about 12$ more), and that there's a day-and-night difference between what they could do then and now on the high end, things like suites and such. I'm sure all the signage sponsorships and the like are worth quite a bit more in Audi as well.
The more interesting question is whether your game-day experience as a fan is better at Audi Field. If you're a season ticketholder, the dynamic pricing should be immaterial to you. But do you enjoy the new digs better than the old?
If anything that part is a negative, and I wish we hadn't done it at least at the beginning. A lot of people probably peeked in on the concept of buying a ticket for the first game and went away shocked at the prices. The views are dramatically better in a stadium that was built for a rectangular field (rather than the old circular RFK). The slope of the seats is also really steep, which makes for a tough climb to get there, but a great view once you're in. There was a snafu with regard to the start times--the games mostly have to start late, because the Western sun is straight in the eyes of the fans sitting on the East side (I sit on the West side), which also mucks with the camera angle. There are also wishes and shortcomings, like that I wish the roof covered more of the seats (I'm right on the border of what it covers, though there's a skeletal structure that they could easily put some plexiglass on and get a few more rows). But overall almost everything is improved. And after some mis-steps early on in terms of the game experience, I would say it's gotten pretty good. The FO had a SG-related bungle for the first game that caused the atmosphere to be much quieter than in the good old days of RFK (which themselves weren't the last few seasons; those were generally a lonely and depressing experience). But they've moved past that generally, and even though other things being equal the SGs sitting in the middle of the stadium would have made the stadium louder, it's still a good atmosphere where I sit (which is on the sideline about level with the top of the box on the north side). Bruce Arena pointed out that there's no in-stadium acknowledgement of the team's past greats, no wall of honor like at RFK, and he's right, but for whatever reason I suspect it's an oversight resulting from a rushed planning cycle (this year they've been in a rush preparing the stadium for the reserve team), that would hopefully be corrected in time. As for the neighborhood, it's still kind of a construction site, but there are already several bars and some things to do in the area, which is a lot more than you can say about RFK.
------------ True, but they probably still had a budget or a plan on what they hoped to increase revenue by. Plus you now have a mortgage to pay rather than rent.
I've come to learn that the Tillamook cheddar block changes from light to sharper cheddar as the Timbers/Thorns score. Here's an example. Hi. pic.twitter.com/18dbFilMrU— Brent M. Diskin (@BrentDiskin) August 11, 2019
I now know why I've never noticed that before: I can't see the Tillamook block at all from where I usually stand.