Re: Silverdome to be renovated into 30,000 seat SSS Structurally, I would imagine removing the dome would allow for the installation of the field without much of a change to the load-bearing capacity of the existing support columns, etc. Obviously, there would be some differences, but maybe not as much as one would think. Also, just for one, maybe they could apply for a Green Building credit as the soccer field would be the roof for an interior space.
Re: Silverdome to be renovated into 30,000 seat SSS As we have seen if a team as a good ownership group they can do well. KC is on there way back now that they have a committed ownership group, NY with Red Bulls seems to be turning the corner. If they are committed to making it work and willing to market the team right it could work.
Re: Silverdome to be renovated into 30,000 seat SSS Well, its an interesting idea. MLS certainly aren't hanging their hats on this. So if its a success, great. If not, then fine. Detroit would be a terrific market for MLS. One of the top markets in the nation, and gives MLS some needed additional exposure in the midwest. Natural rivals with Chicago, Columbus and Toronto.
Re: Silverdome to be renovated into 30,000 seat SSS Remember this stadium is in Pontiac, MI not Detroit. Pontiac is in Oakland County. Detroit is in Wayne County. They neighbor each other but are very different. And the whole region still has a lot of people even if the city of Detroit is shrinking. The metro Detroit population is 4.0 million with 1.2 million of those in Oakland County. The Detroit-Ann Arbor-Flint CSA has 5.3 million people. The Detroit DMA (tv market) ranking still has it 11th largest in the U.S. That's bigger than Seattle or Phoenix. Not saying this is going to happen but the Detroit metro area has a lot going for it if this owner has the money to get it started.
Re: Silverdome to be renovated into 30,000 seat SSS Wish you guys would stop quoting Olegunnar20. having him blocked makes these boards almost readable.
Re: Silverdome to be renovated into 30,000 seat SSS Exactly. Because there are WAY too many black folks living in Detroit for soccer to work. Right, OleGunnar?
Re: Silverdome to be renovated into 30,000 seat SSS ok. let's just ignore what kind of soccer market Detroit is or isn't. i am willing to believe the people who tell me that there are peripheral places to the MSA proper that are far more affluent, educated, young and liberal that would/do embrace soccer. Detroit is a big city and i have no doubt it could at least draw attendance that was at or slightly above the league average with good ownership. so my question is, what is better for soccer and what is better for soccer in Detroit. A. spending $250M or whatever astronomical amount it will cost to take the shell of a nearly 4 decade old 80K seat football stadium and turn it into some new, state of the art double indoor arena on the bottom and replace the roof with a SSS on the top? and then after however long that takes to accomplish make your bid for MLS with no experience running a professional soccer team and no established soccer team fan base. or B. spend $25M on a highly expandable SSS and $5M establishing a strong, well funded D2 team (which will soon need strong D2 teams in good markets since they are about to lose some of their strongest teams) and spend the next 5 years proving that you can run a competent and successful soccer organization and establishing a bottom up dedicated fan base of some size. be it 3K a game or 5K a game or more? which of those makes more sense and which one would eventually create a stronger soccer community in Detroit (or any city for that matter) and a stronger MLS team in the long run. and for those who say "but D2 has nothing to do with how MLS teams do". you are wrong. please name a D2 team, with whatever kind of attendance that has come up to MLS and not done spectacularly? all SSFC and TFC have shown is that if your D2 attendance wasn't great that does not mean your MLS attendance cannot be great. it does not tell us that having the established D2 team, especially a well run one (whatever kind of attendance it was able to draw in any particular year) with a long history and roots in the community gives you one hell of an advantage upon moving to MLS. and because SSFC and TFC had less than great attendance in D2 and good attendance in MLS has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that having a GOOD D2 attendance is very likely (being proven as we speak by Por and Van both of whom had stellar D2 fan support) won't translate into even BETTER MLS support. MLS should simply say that any expansion teams past #20 will only go to established and successful D2 teams. period. you prove yourself in D2 to have a competent, committed ownership group (the KEY factor in a good MLS team) who is willing to invest money in a SSS of small but expandable size for you D2 team (the 2nd most important factor in MLS success) and can establish a decent passionate CORE fan base (whatever size that might be, key factor #3 in a successful MLS team) and you have all of the elements PROVEN before hand that you deserve and would be a successful MLS team. with only 4 teams left after NYC2 (supposedly) and the league wanting to "take a breath and slow down" why not take this more measured approach which also has the double bonus of establishing a much needed strong and broad D2 to the US/Canadian soccer pyramid? no. it makes far too much sense to approach it that way.
Re: Silverdome to be renovated into 30,000 seat SSS Wait til that soccer hater Mitch Albom hears about this. He'll launch into another of his pathetic tirades on soccer.
Re: Silverdome to be renovated into 30,000 seat SSS Oh god.. I did it.. I took OleGunnar off my ignore list.. Why did I do that?? Now I have to respond to teh stupid. You mean, experience like the owners down in Salt Lake City and over in Philly had before they got their teams? Dear god, man. You're an idiot. First Detroit won't succeed because it has too many blacks, now you're kicking their ass because their potential owner doesn't have any experience running a soccer team. Let me tell you what he'll do... Hire a former MLS GM or make a former MLS GM a minority owner of the team. Bam, problem solved. Sweet mother of pearl, man... Think before you type out your thoughts. Now, back onto my ignore list.
Re: Silverdome to be renovated into 30,000 seat SSS The answer is A). Spend money renovating a property with a good location that you bought on the cheap into a multi-use facility in a large metro market. The rate of return potential is much higher for a multi-use facility than a D2 soccer stadium and the ROR potential is also much higher for MLS than D2.
Re: Silverdome to be renovated into 30,000 seat SSS Where do you keep pulling these imaginary numbers from? 200 Million? You are just making stuff up man. Unless you are an architect who designs sports stadiums and have visited the 'dome to check it out in it's current setup, you have no idea what you are talking about. They've already put several million dollars of renovation in to it. Please just stop pulling numbers out of your butt in some attempt to sound like you know what your talking about.
Re: Silverdome to be renovated into 30,000 seat SSS there are about 7 demographic indicators that indicate Detroit MIGHT not have a similar attendance potential as markets like Seattle, Vancouver, Toronto, Portland or Montreal. one of them happens to be race, others happen to be low affluence, high poverty, low education, smaller youthful population, overall decline or stagnation in population growth and more professional teams to compete with. it isn't exact. it isn't assured. it doesn't mean it is impossible. and it certainly doesn't mean an MLS team in Detroit couldn't be an okay or a bit above average MLS market with a good owner. it was simply a way to examine what successful or soon to be successful MLS markets have in common and whether or not a potential MLS market shares or does not share some, any or all of those characteristics. but as others pointed out and i accept on their word Detroit MSA is misleading because while it might be impoverished and declining that right outside that is a very different demographic. excellent. so Detroit or thereabouts is as decent a market as Philly or any other decent MLS team. maybe not Seattle or Toronto but a decent market nonetheless. i can buy that. none of that is my point in THIS thread. in THIS thread i am talking about why blowing a few hundred million dollars trying to renovate the Silverdome into something it isn't and jump directly into MLS is neither the most reasonable nor most likely to succeed method for getting soccer to be succesful in ANY market. Detroit or otherwise. and if this guy was SERIOUS about actual SOCCER he would start a SOCCER team with all of his untold wealth even if it was at a D2 level with the hopes of proving to himself, the city of Detroit and MLS that he could make soccer successful in Detroit. instead he wants to develop some elabourate stadium pipe dream in lieu of all that boring hard work of staring at the D2 level and building something up like Montreal or Portland or Vancouver.
Re: Silverdome to be renovated into 30,000 seat SSS Well I am an architect and I haven't visited the site to check on the "current set up", but from the stated scope of the project and my experience with large scale construction projects, I'd say 200 million is kinda low. Particularly for renovation projects.
Re: Silverdome to be renovated into 30,000 seat SSS What are the traveling distances from the Silverdome to Columbus, Chicago, and Toronto? They would have some great rivalries to get things rolling. No doubt Detroit is a great sports town and did have WC94 there. But they have not been mentioned as a serious contender for #20 or any previous expansion, so it is a bit of a shock.
Re: Silverdome to be renovated into 30,000 seat SSS I'd advise you to stop thinking like this since the "dome" is an air supported structure. So what do you think a Green Building credit gets you?
Re: Silverdome to be renovated into 30,000 seat SSS and where are your numbers saying it will cost less than $200M? please cite them. oh, wait. you don't have any either and you are just pulling "it won't cost that much" out of your ass too. the only thing we have to compare it to is BC Place. both are of similar size, both are of similar age and both are undergoing (supposedly in the case of the Silverdome) massive reconstruction and overhaul. BC Place is getting a new roof and the Silverdome is getting a new upper level/roof SSS and 2 new lower level indoor arenas. you really think that in lieu of any hard numbers from actual plans themselves that taking a rough "guestimate" that such a giant project might cost a bit over half of what it cost to do a similar (if not less) complicated project on BC Place is completely out of line? really? and what in your expert opinion would be a good "estimate" of the cost of such a massive renovation?
Re: Silverdome to be renovated into 30,000 seat SSS So all of that diarrhea of the mouth you just spewed is pretty much a simple way of justifying that: area with a high black population = decreased chance of MLS success. Stop the bullshit, stop the made-up statistics. It's just you trying your damndest to discredit Detroit as a market...with one of your methods being race. You aren't fooling anyone on here you dimwitted twat. Come back to us when you can be a little less thick-headed and a little less racist.
Re: Silverdome to be renovated into 30,000 seat SSS Exactly what I was thinking. The angle of incline and the positioning of the seats would by default be pushed pretty far back from the field. One of the appealing things about the new SSS's is that they have great sight lines and the seating is much closer to the action than in a traditional made-for-American-football stadium. Still, this is pretty creative. I just don't know how much passion there is for soccer in the Detroit area, and I don't know how deep this guy's pockets are. BTW, I used to love following the Detroit Express of the NASL when they had Trevor Francis.
Re: Silverdome to be renovated into 30,000 seat SSS RSL got a team in 2005. Philly got a team in 2008. both got teams when the league was still not even 16 teams. we are talking about teams in 2015 and BEYOND. we are talking about the LAST 4 spots (or so Don says). these are not the same circumstances as before. the bar has been raised or at least it should be. and please explain how showing that RSL and Philly can be successful teams (and they are) means that establishing a D2 team and getting experience running a pro team and establishing a fan base BEFORE MLS isn't a BETTER way of doing it? because it can be done, in an entirely different climate (ie the old smaller MLS days) has absolutely no bearing on whether or not it is the best way to do it GOING FORWARD. please tell me which of the following isn't true: A. the US and Canada are in a position that they now also need a strong and diverse and broad D2 in order to grow the depth and breadth of soccer fandom and soccer development in the country. B. ALL of the established D2 teams that have made the move up to MLS have not just been moderate successes but THE MOST SUCCESSFUL teams in the league today. and the ones on the way next year have already shown they will follow that trend. (by success i mean with fans and off field not necessarily only on the field) again. i never said it was IMPOSSIBLE to succeed coming straight into MLS with "new" new team. obviously that hasn't been true. RSL and Philly have been quite succesful. what i DID say was that going FORWARD MLS might be best off if they established that to get into MLS IN THE FUTURE a city/ownership/team needs to prove itself in D2 FIRST because the stakes have changed, the circumstances have changed and the competition for the few remaining spots has skyrocketed. would you care to actually address this point i DID make and not some other peripheral point you just made up?
Re: Silverdome to be renovated into 30,000 seat SSS Does anyone know if the Apostolopoulosesses have ever even talked to MLS? Have they ever mentioned paying the expansion fee (indicating that they knew it exists and demonstrating some knowledge of the league)? I haven't found anything that suggests he knows anything about MLS.
Re: Silverdome to be renovated into 30,000 seat SSS I'm not certain the comments are really racist. Look, part of the reason that MLS has been slow to move forward with Atlanta is the question about whether the black population will embrace the game here in America. No one seems to know... Believe me, there's a reason that Kobe (a basketball player, not a soccer player) is doing the Ronaldinho stepover in a recent commercial. Sports marketing gurus are trying to find a formula to capture the attention of the African American audience regarding soccer. They know that once they do, they will have tapped into an enormous trove of fans that get very passionate about sports, and attendance could get yet another bump. Conventional wisdom says that the African American population couldn't care any less about soccer. Conventional wisdom could easily be dead wrong. If MLS owners are going to invest what could be $100 million into Detroit or Atlanta, I'm sure they'd love to know the answer to that question beforehand.
Re: Silverdome to be renovated into 30,000 seat SSS $800 million. Don't know how much he could drop on a soccer team, though.