I don't get this fetish for parking spaces near the stadium. Large parking lots are essentially wasted land in an urban core. I'd rather see all lots in the city developed than something built in some exburb. And don't get me started on how much I love electronic tickets and find them infinitely superior to paper tickets
With all due respect, you don’t really know what you’re talking about. We spent several decades designing cities around cars and suburban commuters. Thankfully, that era seems to be ending. Stadiums wasting large areas of useful urban land for parking for people from the exurbs is, thankfully, a dying trend.
I also respect you but I do know I am talking about. These "fans" they are courting have no loyalties. You people who want more bars, cycle shops, flower shops and "development" are the ones off you rocker. Your Mom and pop shops will close when they are no longer cool. Your bars will close when they stop making money. Then you have blighted neighborhoods with closed businesses. Most of us live in the suburbs.
If you look at the part of DC that runs from the Wharf, through Buzzard Point and down to the Navy Yard, there are probably two dozen cranes and at least $5 billion in development going on. But, sure, urban living is just a fad. We’re all dying to move back out to Walmart-land.
What happens today has minimal effect on what will happen tomorrow. Millennials change their minds every 22 seconds.
The majority of the spaces are underground. The new Lucas museum is eating up the old west of the coliseum lots. James
That is pure garbage. When DC started most of the current posters were much younger and stuck with the team. Hell - I was 17 in 1996 and I’m still with the team. Stop projecting your reasons for losing interest on millennials. How they get to the game is not a predictor of fandom. People will support the team because they want to. Not because they can get inebriated in a parking lot. James
You don’t know that generation. They are dealing with a world stacked against them by a boomer generation trying to rig the game in their favor.
It isn't just millennials that choose to not drive to sporting events at urban stadiums. I've never driven to Audi and only rarely drove to RFK (probably only 2 or 3 times a season)
Ok... a lot of this discussion is dumb. United doesn't give a ******** where fans come from as long as they buy shit. They don't even care if people go to the games as long as tickets are sold. It doesn't matter if the stadium is in the middle of the city, on top of a Metro station or in the middle of parking lots, accessibility does matter. It matters for the people who live next to Metro station. It matters for the people driving from within the city. It matters for people coming from the suburbs. It matters for people coming from the exurbs. Accessibility matters. I have a routine that I've been using since Nats Park opened. It works for me. I don't even share it with most. Audi Field has a capacity in the 18-20,000 range. Many of us envisioned an even larger venue. Regardless, getting 20,000 people to a single location and out after an event is not a trivial matter. We all know there wasn't going to be a site with 7,000 parking spaces nearby. A couple of Metro stations are a bit of a hike and buses have not served the area even as well as last year and a streetcar will likely never happen. Parking near the stadium is extremely limited and requires significant . The parking lot south of the stadium may not be around next season. Buzzard Point is being developed/re-developed. The people there now have needs and the future residents will have needs just like any other people. More retail will come to serve the new residents and visitors. There are limited provisions for the ingress and egress of people and most have not been met and will only become more limited in time. There is nothing wrong with acknowledging that without making this about the location of the venue within a city. United did the minimum. The team did not even account for their own daily employees. Some plans had limited parking and accomodations that didn't make the opposing team bus park on the street. United didn't even make deals with garages as they claimed they would. Geographically, DC is a small city and of course it is not part of DC or Maryland. There are more than 700,000 people in DC. There are more than 1 million residents in Fairfax and Montgomery County and Prince George's is closing in on that mark. Fairfax County is about 7 times the size of DC. Montgomery and Prince George's are about 8 times larger. Those counties don't have the population do without DC being in the middle of them. There are urban, suburban and rural areas within each of those counties (not as much in Fairfax as the Maryland counties). Some of the urban areas share parts of DC's street grid. United would not exist if there was not a urban area for it to call home. This city versus semi-rural talk is dumb. Again, United would not exist if there was not an urban population center for it to call home. Cities are not fads. People live in cities. Most of those people work in the city. They need food. They like entertainment. Some people ride bikes for commuting. I take advantage of the automobile and bicycle infrastructure on most gamedays. I don't have a probem with bike shops just as I wouldn't have a problem with an Advanced Auto or something. FFS, of course a business that doesn't make money will go out of business. I have a feeling I would hurt your feelings, @shawn12011, if we want to have a discussion about what hurts and has hurt cities in the past. Regardless, cities have been able to afford their comebacks while rural development has been funded mostly by businesses in cities and cityfolk who contribute to tax bases instead bankrupting them like rural areas that can't even afford to pave their own roads. Useless generalizations about a generation of people who are probably your neighbors and have kids in school is just ignorant. Millenials are not high school kids with no disposable income. They're adults... with no disposable income because they have families and are facing costs that some in earlier generations do not understand because each generation cares more about themself than future generations. Audi Field's location is not perfect. It's ok to admit that. The accessibility is not ideal. It's ok to admit that. We're stuck with a cheap ownership group. It's ok to admit that. The stadium could have and probably should have been much better. The ease of access for fans should be a work in progress. It can be better.
I understand everything you say. It takes more that you telling me the facts to hurt my feelings. I live in rural Maryland. I don't live nor work in the city. DC or Baltimore. I enjoy my rural life. The same way that many city dwellers enjoy their lives. What I am saying boils down to, not just the parking/access to the stadium, issue is why I complain about them going after a younger fan base. Credit only concessions stands. Digital ticketing. Both are targeted for younger fans. Those fans will not be loyal. This is not a lifestyle argument. This is a loyalty argument.
It's ********ing 2019. This has nothing to do with generations or loyalty. The entire league is going paperless for tickets. Of course the league wants younger fans, but credit only concessions and digital ticketing have ******** to do with that.
Have a nice evening. Drink a beer on me if you choose. I will not change my mind and the arguments all of you come up with weak as far as I am concerned. So I am done with this and am moving on.
No understanding the argument is pointless. Maybe you should stop taking this argument personally and move on as well.
This is totally a lifestyle argument. Just because you hate these things doesn't mean everyone over 40 does.. I'm 50 plus and I don't care of concessions are cash or credit/debit-- I generally have both with me. I also love digital ticketing as it makes it some much simpler to trade tickets around.
I point out the age because mostly younger people prefer those things. You are correct if it fits your lifestyle then it works for you at your age. I am old, 50 plus as well, and those things do not fit my lifestyle. I have scaled back to only four tickets so I no longer have tickets to trade. I also collect my stubs. I carry the minimum I need to carry into the stadium so my time with security is minimal. Thus no credit cards for me. Cash can be stuffed into any pocket easily. So as you say lifestyle.
If minimal is the object why cash over credit card? Credit/debit cards can be stuffed into almost any pocket and you don’t have to deal with needing change/ multiple bills etc
Hell, the world is going paperless for everything. Re: plastic-only concession stands, if one doesn't like the idea of paper money being discouraged in transactions, don't travel to western Europe. Going cashless is far far FAR further along there than it is here. I'm not particularly a fan of the trend, because I think it screws over poor people something fierce; but it's prima facie absurd to say that it's a millenial-chasing fad. It's something that's happening all over the world for all sorts of reasons.
Wow. Did this discussion go off in a different direction? I started this thread not about one generation vs another or about rural vs urban lifestyle. Instead, for me, I have seen the DC United I used to know to disappear. And most specifically, the lack of attention and consideration of its most important element their fans. What started as a really inclusive Soccer "Club" very different from Sports franchises has devolved into just another corporate business. Perhaps it was inevitable but man that original DC United feeling of spreading the knowledge of soccer to the wider world has gone. So too has the sense that the committed core fans were there helping the club promote the sport. Now they are just "customers" to be treated well or not. It's such a shame that the club that set the standard for the entire league has drifted into a soulless corporate machine. I will always love soccer/football, but the franchise not so much.
This. Very well said. I think it was not necessarily inevitable even though it is not a wholly unexpected turn of events. Ah well, I am renewing for next year - but after that I will probably just do selected games and spend the other ~$2,000 at MGM's tables. At least I will get a little love in return.
Lost credit cards can cost you into the 100s-1000s of dollars. Lost cash is just that, lost cash. Oh and I am a math nerd who like counting. lol