Will Salt Lake's stadium be Football marks/lines free for opening day?

Discussion in 'MLS: General' started by Juan Luis Guerra, Nov 24, 2004.

  1. NattyBo

    NattyBo Member+

    Apr 30, 2004
    Nunya
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    --other--
    So in short, yes, we can expect football lines for at least the latter part of the season if not the whole season?
     
  2. GutBomb

    GutBomb Red Card

    Aug 28, 2003
    Outside Boston
    yes, it's ugly but in the big scheme of things, it's just grass. (or fake grass). i don't give a rat's ass what color it is as long as people are playing soccer on top of it.

    besides, having the grid lines there help out a lot on close offside calls.
     
  3. AndyMead

    AndyMead Homo Sapien

    Nov 2, 1999
    Seat 12A
    Club:
    Sporting Kansas City
    Which matters one way or the other because......????

    Were you considering flying out from DC to a game in SLC, but have changed your mind because of the lines?
     
  4. NattyBo

    NattyBo Member+

    Apr 30, 2004
    Nunya
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    --other--
    It matters because as I said before, it makes the league look amatuerish. And before you throw it in my face, yes, I realize baseball infields do the same.
     
  5. Sempuukyaku

    Sempuukyaku Member+

    Apr 30, 2002
    Seattle, WA
    Club:
    Seattle Sounders
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I agree 100%.


    Football lines look like complete crap on the pitch. The sooner we get SSSes up, the better.
     
  6. the cup

    the cup Member

    Jul 10, 2002
    Club:
    Real Salt Lake
    Tell that to the Metros fans that had to watch their team play on carpet. Not Field Turf, but actual carpet, back in 97 or 98.

    It was a disgrace to the sport.
     
  7. the cup

    the cup Member

    Jul 10, 2002
    Club:
    Real Salt Lake
    Thats just sick and wrong.
     
  8. Wahoo

    Wahoo New Member

    Aug 15, 2001
    Seattle, USA

    Ah hockey... I remember the old days when we had a pro hockey league in this country... Canadians played too :)
     
  9. Sanguine

    Sanguine Member

    Jul 4, 2003
    Reston, VA
    one has broken ground, the other has not chosen a site, hired an architect, or announced a plan for funding.

    Neither has anything to do with the other. While it's possible that RSL could have a stadium up by '07, it's nowhere near a sure thing.

    Heck, DC is a lot farther along than RSL at this point, and I think it's unlikely that DC United will hit their goal of a stadium for '07.
     
  10. AndyMead

    AndyMead Homo Sapien

    Nov 2, 1999
    Seat 12A
    Club:
    Sporting Kansas City
    Do baseball infields make the NFL look amateurish?

    ----

    And to Sanguine. It takes a lot longer to get anything built in Washington, DC than in Salt Lake City.
     
  11. aosthed

    aosthed Member

    Jul 16, 2004
    40º30' N 111º52' W
    Club:
    Real Salt Lake
    Nat'l Team:
    Sweden
    Except that RSL has two cities very motivated in putting a deal together... basically Murray has the site and "how it would happen" all worked out. The problem is that Checketts would rather have the team in downtown Salt Lake City - the mayor is also very motivated to do this, but he has to deal with the realities of limited land availability.

    If Checketts wanted to sign a deal - he could very quickly do that with Murray and have a great location (just not his 1st pick). I prefer Murray because it is very convenient to the valley (fans)... but I can't blame Checketts for wanting to put the stadium downtown.

    Note - Murray is 10-12 minutes from downtown (so it's not that far out). It is dead center in the Salt Lake Valley (with the valley spanning about 22 miles North to South - downtown is on the North end of the valley).

    Supposedly, per the RSL FO that I spoke to, they were planning on having the site picked by either Dec 1 or Jan 1 (I really don't remember which it was)... so we'll see, I guess, if it happens or not.
     
  12. OldFanatic

    OldFanatic Member

    Jan 12, 2004
    Bay Area
    Club:
    San Jose Earthquakes
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    That's their problem. MLS fans should be able to be grumpy about this issue irrespective of what people in Mexico feel (or what fans of NFL teams with baseball infields feel).
     
  13. NattyBo

    NattyBo Member+

    Apr 30, 2004
    Nunya
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    --other--
    IMO, yes. Dolphins and Oakland games look pretty bad with em.
     
  14. Crewmudgeon

    Crewmudgeon Member+

    Sep 3, 1999
    Crewdom

    You don't like NASCAR, the sport of the masses? Sounds elitist to me.
     
  15. type_32

    type_32 New Member

    Apr 23, 2002
    No, but a.) baseball infields do not make football much harder to follow and b.) football is the most popular sport in the country. It is not fighting for mainstream acceptance. The fact is that gridiron lines reinforce the widely-held notion that MLS is a third-rate league and that soccer is merely a niche sport.

    Obviously, the lines are a tiny problem in the grand scheme of things, but it's pretty silly to think that they don't turn off people who aren't already hardcore MLS supporters.
     
  16. okcomputer

    okcomputer Member

    Jun 25, 2003
    dc
    As someone who goes to metros games, it is a much more enjoyable experience to go to a game in the beginning of the year than the end due to the football lines on the field. The football lines really make the game seem amateurish and it makes watching the game very annoying.
     
  17. GutBomb

    GutBomb Red Card

    Aug 28, 2003
    Outside Boston
    is there something wrong with soccer being a niche sport? it always has been in this country and probably always will be. even back in the NASL days it was a niche sport.

    There is nothing inherently wrong with being a niche sport. it just is. Lacrosse has accepted it will never be as popular as the NFL. When are soccer fans going to accept it?

    I;m not saying it;s not worth being a soccer fan. far from it. I am as die hard as it gets. However I am not going to forget reality. Soccer is boring to most americans. Even if it doesn't have football lines it will still be boring to them. end of story.
     
  18. TomEaton

    TomEaton Member

    Mar 5, 2000
    Champaign, IL
    Well, sure, people who post on the Bigsoccer MLS boards will watch MLS whether there are football lines or not, and people who don't like soccer won't watch it even if there aren't football lines. But it would be foolish to conclude from this that presentation is unimportant. Attendance plummetted when the Burn moved to Dragon Stadium in Southlake, and it wasn't all because of the location.
     
  19. mpruitt

    mpruitt Member

    Feb 11, 2002
    E. Somerville
    Club:
    New England Revolution
    Agreed. Isn't that part of the point of SSS that the presentation of the game and atmosphere is a lot better? Lets not forget that. Football lines aren't the biggest deal, and calling it 'mutated rugby' or 'grid ball' is just stupid, but it's something that's not exactly trivial either.
     
  20. budalabutt

    budalabutt Red Card

    Nov 4, 2004
    Chi-town
    I think the more important thing to worry about is will there be a good fan base and a nice crow for the home opener?? More important pressing question lie here than lines on a field
     
  21. ElJefe

    ElJefe Moderator
    Staff Member

    Feb 16, 1999
    Colorful Colorado
    Club:
    FC Dallas
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    That sound you're hearing is the sound of Dallas and Chicago fans' laughing their asses off, mostly because both sets of fans heard that song and dance. Maybe the third time is the charm.

    Anyway, it's not the ideal soccer field, but it is what it is. If you don't want football lines on your soccer field, don't rent a football stadium for your soccer team's games. It's like what a certain blues man once sang, "If you don't want a woman who drinks, don't go around, picking up women in bars." MLS is renting a football stadium for the Stormin' Mormons' home games, and some of you people are shocked that there might be football lines there, and that they might even be permanent?

    As an aside, I'm wondering if there was the same level of carrying-on on the 1950's equivalent of BigNFL.com, with people saying that the NFL would NEVER become anything more than a niche league. After all, a vast majority of teams were playing their home games at baseball stadiums (not multi-purpose stadiums, mind you, but actual baseball stadiums) in those days, and that looked so amateurish.
     
  22. mpruitt

    mpruitt Member

    Feb 11, 2002
    E. Somerville
    Club:
    New England Revolution
  23. WHOLMAN2

    WHOLMAN2 New Member

    Dec 4, 2000
    Lahs Angeleez
    That's a nice picture.

    And the point is well taken. Who cares, as long as the product on the field is good!
     

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