again, in the recent Phil Rawlins interviews the stadium is planned for 3 stands initially, capacity 18K and the final side/stand would be how they expand the stadium if necessary. so much like SJE stadium it will have an open end to start with, according to Rawlins. or, he says it could have the one end not open but just without a roof so it could be expanded more easily. he had been saying that previous to the funding passing. either way the plan is for a 2 phase construction of the final stadium since they did not get one of the pieces of the funding they were hoping for, the state level funding of about 20M, since it got tied up with other sports funding including something for the Miami Dolphins and it never came before the state legislature. the hope is that next year they can get this state level funding and that will fund the 2nd phase of the stadium construction such that both phases are done before the stadium opens. http://soccer.si.com/2013/10/23/orlando-city-phil-rawlins-q-and-a/
Probably not. Just like the Galaxy and Rapids stopped playing July 4 at the Rose Bowl and Migh High once they moved into their own digs, and Kansas City hasn't been back to Arrowhead, Houston hasn't been back to Reliant, and I don't think Chicago has been back to Soldier Field. Once you've got a mortgage, renting out someone else's house for a party doesn't seem like a smart idea.
The doubleheader that FCD played at the Cotton Bowl in '09 struck me as a bit short-sighted at the time, and it seemed like a short-sighted concession to the mindset that Frisco is on the moon or whatever and that trying to grow attendance there is a lost cause. It struck me sort of like the Fusion's three games at the Orange Bowl in their final season. Obviously, things have gone a bit differently for FCD since then. It helps that they moved the stadium 60% closer to Dallas.
More strange is that cheap Kraft still using the Revs as tax buffer for the other football and playing on that awful fake grass.
Eh. After nine years of "OMG FCD WILL NEVER DRAW ANY FANS TO PHP BECAUSE ITS IN OKLAHOMA WHY DIDN'T THEY BUILD IN DOWNTOWN DALLAS LOL" and people's posting 30 year old maps of D/FW to show that there was not a soul anywhere in the vicinity (This is not an exaggeration, BTW. Somebody actually did this.) and other similar idiocy from people with nary a clue about the local geography or demographics and with nary an interest in admitting that they were wrong, I feel fairly confident in stating that I have not yet begun to overplay this joke.
ElJefe I am quite sure that stadium did not move closer to downtown.... Downtown moved closer to the stadium
"what? theres a Buc's game tonight? man i can't make that, unlike their coach I have a job to get too tomorrow! hiyooooooooooooo nah but really their coach is dick. theres a stigma over suburban soccer stadiums, that its wiser to build as close to downtown as possible since presumably a centralized location with more to do and easier access will draw more people. not a bad thought certainly, but dallas (or texas in general) being so drive heavy wouldn't seem to fit the bill honestly. its not New York where anything without public transportation connected to it is out of luck drawing most of the city in any substantial way (unless you're the NFL) each area works differently I guess.
Which drives a certain (almost exclusively very young) segment of the posters here nuts. They have an insatiable need for one size fits all solutions.
this be the cause of many a pro/rel argument... I'm telling you if we can just jam this square peg into this round hole hard enough it'll fit because respectability or something!!! oh wait another example of suburban stadiums not necessarily being a death sentence: kansas city, thats not exactly centralized to either KC and its doing more than fine.
Indeed it does. On top of that, some southern cities don't necessarily have "more to do" downtown than they do in suburban spots. The best spot for nightlife in my city (Jax) happens to be outside of our unapologetically immense city limits. The Burn's nomadic life between from the Cotton Bowl to Southlake and back the Cotton Bowl didn't do the team any favors. Teams like Sporting KC and San Jose were fortunate enough to find stadium locations within a mile of their current locations (Sporting Park is one large city block away from CommunityAmerica). Kansas City already had about 10,385 people whom they could rely on to consistently watch them in their "new" location, and they built from there. San Jose has about 10,525 people with the chance to do the same. Dallas had to rebuild & retrain their fan base three times. Chicago faced something similar, too. It's one reason why numbers have been more erratic in those areas.
I think the problem with Frisco had less to do with retraining the fanbase than it did with the plumbing. With the North Dallas Tollway and, to a lesser extent, The Sam Rayburn to the NDT, completed as far as the stadium, it's a much more viable trip to the stadium now than it was just a few years ago.
So, it appears that a little attendance tidbit got overlooked. RSL just sold out a Wed night regular season game against CHIVAS! If I mention that Sandy, Utah is a "suburban" location, will that give this fairly remarkable fact more traction? Are we now so used to the day of the game not mattering that 20K plus in a small market garners almost no mention at all? If so, wow have things changed for MSL!
I don't know specifics but I'm pretty sure every new stadium (non-renovated) built from Rio-Tinto onward had expansion in mind. I know PPL park can expand to 30K, Sporting park has expansion plans, even Red Bull arena.... Rio Tinto was the same architect and is very similar to PPL, so I'm sure they likely have the option as well.
RSL broke their all-time attendance record this year...again. Six straight years of attendance growth, second straight year above 19k, second straight record. If they win anything this year I'd start thinking about expansion plans.