i agree with u on that, large stadiums built for NFL and NCAA football isnt the solution. check out my latest post about Expansion and my list of following cities that deserve teams
Kezar is not an option. Unbelievably unaccessible by car, and there is no land around the area, so you can't build a new running track.
I enjoyed the Wembley price comparison, attempting to make it feel like it's not so expensive. They convienently misplaced the figures for the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, which was built in half the time for a third of the cost, and will probably be a better stadium even after Wembley is finished.
I was in Southern California this past weekend and decided to check out Titan Stadium while I was there. I was surprised, its actually very nice and wouldn't need a very substantial upgrade to be MLS ready. The field is very large and the grass was well taken care of. The seats are mostly bleachers with some seatbacks and a large press box/luxury box structure behind one side. The stadium was built in 1992 (for the football team who then disbanded the following year) and was built to be easily expandable to 30k seats by adding seating around the endline and in the corners. The stadium is on the far side of campus located right by the parking structures for the students and faculty. This could be expanded to 22k in a horseshoe type stadium for $10-15 million and be one of the nicer facilities in MLS. Take Chivas, move them there, call them Club Deportivo Orange County and I think you would draw people from the Inland Empire (around 20 minutes away) and from the people of Orange County who resent all things LA.
Chivas will do better when they are out of HDC. The GALAXY keeps beating them there, because the GALAXY believes it to be their house. Chivas to Fullerton is not a bad idea.. Huge field 120 x75 I recall. But the owner will prob. want the team closer to LA proper for image reasons. Another poss. is EAST LA college, already in the 20-25,000 range I recall, and I believe they are starting a renovation project, unfortunately to put FAke Grass in. The AZTECS of the NASL played and won their only championship there a long, long time ago....
Remember, there isn't a point in going to a soccer-friendly stadium if the team can't control revenues (or at least gets Lockhart-type leases).
Titan would have to be a partnership wherein the team pays the renovating and operating cost in exchange for the majority of the revenue. Here's your marketing line - Chivas. Orange County's Home Team. Kind of plays off the whole Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim fiasco, which seemingly angered a lot of Angels fans.
I know what you're saying about those stadiums in Portugal... they had all that trouble getting funding and getting them completed on schedule... but in the end, theyre some of the best cost-efficient stadiums in the world... the one I look to most for MLS is Boavista FC's Estadio do Bessa XXI... they're in a similar situation to MLS... major competing leagues steal their better players... they aren't going to draw huge numbers, with porto going to draw most fans in the city, and benfica and sporting the other two of the big clubs there getting the major draws for sports fans... so theyre the lesser competing sports franchise follwed in their area... drawing a fairly low attendance most of the time... but needed a large stadium to host club cup, and international matches... but what they built is a stadium, completely covered, keeping the elements out, and the atmosphere in... with two tiers all around it, so people in the upper levels are closer to the action... luxury boxes in between the two tiers, so you can sell em to the corpoorations to fund the stadium... and designs in the seating, so it doesnt look empty even when its empty... http://www.stadiumguide.com/bessa5.jpg there is a little bit of the excess to the exterior of the building, which costs could be cut from, but overall this stadium only cost like 30 Million Pounds... which back then was in the area of 45 Million dollars... now take away a bit of the exterior luxuries... cheaper building materials (like plexi-glass roofing, less press boxes on the corners, plastic exterior..... use of earthen molds for seating... and the staged expansion of the stadium... this thing could be up and running in MLS seating 8K on each side of the stadium... and then expanding 2K on each lower tier on the ends... later expanding 2K more in an upper tier, and roof covering... for like 20 million dollars... but operating within the 1st year of construction, and expanding for 2-3 more seasons whenever the money is available... https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/http://www.stadiumguide.com/bessa3.jpg now compare that with the $250M which the metros new stadium in harrison, nj is projected to be... before any additional costs are assessed... and I would take this one any day of the week over the other... I often dream that there could be a stadium like do Bessa, or Rhein Energie Stadion, or any of the staged progression English stadiums which have grown over time, and all have roof coverings, and pitch right up close... built right there in South Boston, which is never going to happen with Kraft involved... but the thing is... you dont even need to build brand new stadiums like this... there are fields all across this country which are either being abandoned, or used for smaller functions, which MLS could buy-out and then rennovate... adding a natural grass pitch, roofing, and some plastic form seating, and maybe some bleachers until it could be expanded further.... that for me would be a far preferrable approach places like Herndon Stadium in Atlanta, Memmorial Stadium in Seattle, even an indoor facility like the Alamo Dome in San Antonio, or Ford Field in Detoit given some natural grass, and suddenly for simple rennovation costs... especially if MLS were to start their own sod company... you suddenyl have first class stadiums in sensible expansion areas, which to draw from
You'd pretty much be paying just as much for renovation as for building a new stadium. The only reason I see this working is if land costs are so insane that teams have to go this route.
thats not true at all Herndon Stadium in Atlanta... where the Beat used to play all you need is a section of 3K bleachers on either side of the stadium, which could be built for ike 10-20K dollars... and then add some roofing to it... for like 20-40K dollars... so for 40-60K dollars, let's even say just for the sake of it... you put $250K instead of the $250M, youve got a 20K+ seat roofed stadium... with a lush green pitch, based right in downtown Atlanta, a few blocks away from the Georgia Dome
If roofing cost less than $50,000, then PHP and CCS would have them and SSS that have roofs would have them on four sides. It's not a simple matter of stapling a giant piece of wood on the top bleacher. These things have to be able to stay up there forever and take abuse from the weather. Just having cheap roofs on two sides would cost at least $5 million.
no... they dont have them because they try to incorporate them into the whole building structure, and chose the same building contractor to handle something they dont normally do... it is as simple as a putting up some steel framing and supports, and then putting plexi-glass, or tin roofing terraces on up on them.... If you look around to smaller club stadiums that have them... you will see that they didnt spend millions on the stuff the 20-40K for roofing is derived from advertised prices from small company websites, and jobs theyve done for football and baseball stadiums for the prices some of these people are paying they should have roofs comprised entirely of solar panneling... but just for the sake of it, let us take your $5M figure, and then add on another $2.5 to get roofing on all 4 sides.... thats now $7.5M... as opposed to $30M or, $250M in Harrison, NJ
um.. i missed the humor but yeah, just like st jakob in basel switzerland a 2 tier 30K seat stadium with 4 sides roofed in, and i didnt mean solar panels on top of an existing roof, but that works as well. I meant more an entire solar power park up over the entire roofed structure which could generate huge profts for the club's ownership picture a team in Las Vegas, putting up a solar panel roofing up over Sam Boyd Stadium, and a natural grass turf down on the field... it'd be perfect
#1) I doubt that you would generate "huge" profits off of the solar power. Granted I haven't done my research on solar panel technology lately but I don't think it is efficient enough to provide that much of a profit. It may be enough to run the stadium but not enough to put a noticible bump on the power supply side of the power supply vs. power demand equation. #2) I have pictured a team playing on natural grass in Las Vegas. It was the DC/LA game from LA a couple weeks back. I don't think I want to see soccer played in conditions where the field temperature is somewhere near 130. Players who fear they will melt on the field so they don't move much is not my idea of entertaining soccer.
I took they whole Solar paneled roof to be some kind of far out ultra expensive idea that no-one in their right mind would do. And thus posting that St Jakob's roof is covered in Solar panels, to be that its not that far off idea.
Weingart Stadium at East LA college is a dump..no renovation will save that pile. On the bright side, it does have an LA Coutny Sheriff station on-site......
Photo-voltic should not be laughed at. With some kinds of lights and in areas with Peak Power Penalties in the rate structure the makes real financial sense (the costs to turn on the lights would run them for hours). How? For the long time between games and the use of the lights, the solar cells quietly sit on the roof charging batteries or super capaciters. When it is time to turn on the lights the big surge comes from the stored energy not the metered grid power. It also will provide backup power in the event of a elecrical outage.
I apologize, but I missed the post that Mr. Squirrel must have been responding to, but just a note on his post. While photovoltaics are viable (at least with government subsidies), I rather disagree that the best way to go are batteries to hold the charge. There are many reasons why this wouldn't be the best way to go. 1) The batteries are VERY expensive, and would lengthen the time between installation and profitability to a horizon so distant that it might never be profitable. 2) Energy consumption anywhere in the U.S. is higher during the day than it is at night. Instead of storing the energy, it makes more sense to use the energy from the photovoltaics directly in the daily operation of the stadium--for things like offices, HVAC, water heaters, locker rooms, other lights, etc. Any excess power can be sold back to the grid. Electricity is often more expensive during peak hours (10 a.m. to 4 p.m.), and since these are the hours that the photovoltaics would be at their peak as well, it simply makes more sense to sell the electricity at that time, and then buy electricity at night when the prices are cheaper. Photovoltaics (PV) are starting to be used by stadiums: St. Jakob Park in Switzerland, Middlesbrough in England, and Badenova Stadium in Germany have all either installed or have plans to install PV. If anyone has any information regarding how they have done with their PV arrays, I would really appreciate it if you could forward me the information, or links to the info (just PM me). Thanks.
O.K., now I have read what came before Mr. Squirrel's post. IIRC, and I haven't done this research in two years, the break even point is something like 15 years, though that was when the price of a barrel of petroleum was about $30 or under (it's more than double that now). Most real estate people want to break even in about 3-4 years, with 7 being the outside limit. If anyone is interested, I can look in my files. Also, if anyone is interested, see "Protecting the Box." www.kentlaw.edu/classes/fbosselm/Spring2004/PowerPoints/Protecting the Box - Phillips.ppt
Hospitality Are fixed luxury suites absolutely necessary in a stadium? One-off events like auto races and golf tournaments will put up portable hospitality areas for corporations to pay the big bucks for. In Seattle, the focus of the annual summer festival is the Blue Angels and the Seafair hydroplace races, which are a dying tradition, but that hasn't prevented organizers from selling out its 30 hospitality tents (438kb PDF) for $25,000 each. Could this work in the vast seating areas of a larger stadium?
Re: Hospitality Absolutely necessary? No. Many, if not most, of the older stadiums don't have them. However, they currently represent an important source of revenue, and not just on game day. For example, Lambeau Field in Green Bay uses its suites as a conference center. It hosts conferences, meetings, weddings, birthdays, and a host of other events on non-game days. They are so busy that their suites are booked to at least 2006. That means that they're getting income from the suites about 363 days a year (IIRC they said they only close 2 days a year, and this year it's only one day since there is a game against the Bears on Christmas). This is the kind of income that all stadium owners want. If Green Bay's Lambeau Field, out in BFE (apologies Wisconsinites, but really why else would you go there but for Lambeau and Door County), can get that kind of occupancy, then a stadium in a busier part of the world should be able to get that kind of income as well (and there is a separate conference center in Green Bay, so it's not the only place in town). On game days there is a lot of money to be had as well, which makes initial expense worth putting up suites. For example, at New Soldier Field the price for a suite is generally about $1700 for a Fire game (in Green Bay they've sold every one of their suites for the season for several seasons out, so there really isn't any point in finding out what it could be for a game) for a suite that fits about 20 people. Getting food as well can cost another $1000 for all those people. So even if you got just $300 worth of food (to make the math easy) that's $2000/20 people is $100 per person. That's serious cash. Ideally in the cheap seats (i.e. at $10 a seat, which I think should be the low end ticket price) one full suite equals 200 tickets (and I say tickets, not people, because people also buy concessions--tickets don't). Therefore, selling suites is an efficient way of raising money quickly. When those suites are sold as season packages, the team earns a lot of up front money with one party, as opposed to doing all the legwork for 170 season tickets in the cheap seats.
Thanks for responding, Fuegofan. I worded my post poorly. I agree about the long-term benefits, but I was thinking more about fixed vs. temporary, specifically when the owners/investors are too poor/stingy to build permanent suites or when they are renters. For example, the Sounders are renting QWest Field, which has many fixed suites, but the revenues go elsewhere. Since there's plenty of extra room, is there an economical way to set up swanky hospitality tents within the surplus seating for Sounders games? If the team moves to a smaller, more modest venue without suites (e.g., Memorial Stadium, Starfire, Tacoma Dome), is it worth their while to add these areas on occasion to treat the higher-end consumers?