Columbus Crew Stadium's chance to host 2003 Women's World Cup games might not be the slam dunk it first appeared. FIFA apparently requires a minimum of 30,000 seats for the games, and both Crew Stadium (22,555) and the new Home Depot Stadium (27,000) in Carson, Calif., are below that. Dan Flynn, secretary-general of U.S. Soccer, recently was quoted as saying he thinks both venues could reach the 30,000 figure with add-on seats, but that seems a pretty tall order for Crew Stadium. The stadium's largest-ever crowd was 24,741. At this point, Crew officials officials don't seem worried. There may be some leeway in the 30,000 figure. They may even have a plan. ---------- hmm... Anyone else wonder what this "plan" could be? Would expansion be feasible? It wouldn't be easily done since we're right in the middle of the season now. They could expand on the south end, in front of the existing stands, but they'd temporarily lose the party on the pitch.
Party on the Pitch needs to go. That area would be good for concert stages but seeing how they don't really have concerts they should put seats in that area.
IMO, they really don't need seats there. There isn't enough demand for them right now It might be a good idea, since they'd be kroger end seats and just be sold to kroger, but do they really need those many more empty seats in the stadium? I say build them when they're needed. And they really aren't needed now.
Let's be practical about this. Under the circumstances, 30,000 seats is a goal, not a bright-line minimum standard. With this little lead time, FIFA and USSF have to be flexible. They owe Lamar Hunt, and Columbus has a proven base of local soccer fans (including people who will go to women's games). And just how many paying customers do you really think the big game between (say) Argentina and Ghana will attract, here or anywhere else, anyway?
No fukking sh1t! What kind of dumbass rule is that for the WWC. Wake up, Ladies! What happened in 1999 is an anamoly.
If they don't drop the prices from the levels of the last few trips; it will be immaterial how many seats are available. $50-70 to watch the Argentinian women play the Ghananian women will only need 4,000 seats. Most women won't pay that and parents certainly will have a problem forking over for the younger kids. This is the same admin group who were asking more per ticket for a Women's meaningless exhibition game than the Men's WC qualifier! It appears their elation from the last Women's WC hasn't dropped back into the realization that the WC was a onetime magical capture of the public's imagination. Victory tours have a short shelf life.
Absolutely on the money here. US/China? Better book Giants Stadium or RFK. Swaziland/Upper Volta? CCS is excess capacity. Particularly with so little marketing and lead time, they'll only look stupid trying to fill the Orange Bowl at $50 a seat for bad thrid world Women's teams.
Some of this will depend upon scheduling choices. In the past, women's world cups have been presented as doubleheaders, and I understand that's the plan again. If the "overcard" match is US-Germany, the official attendance for the warm-up Argentine-Ghana match will be a sellout, no matter how few butts are actually touching seats.
I think the plan is to add temperary seats on the south side for the event. With that and SRO they should have 30,000 spots available. They won't need it, but it will be enough to satisfy FIFA.
the tickets will probably be sold as packages. you will have to buy like a 3-game ticket package in order to get tickets to the matches, in those packages you will get; two crap matches and one us match. the us team is going to be traveling to all the stadium venues just to get the tickets to be purchased... 30,000 is a fifa requirement.
Got my vote. Anyway, does FIFA ave any leverage in this thing? They should be sucking USSF's collective c*ck. USSF should have free reign to do what they want to make it work.
Update: The new venues for the Womens World Cup will be Eggy's apartment. Matches will be played during their breaks away from cleaning my kitchen and hand washing all of my clothes. It's BYOB but food will be on sale just as long as there are players who know how to cook properly.
Where did you get this information? I can't see FIFA mandating 30K since when the WWC was held in Sweden the stadiums they played in barely held 10K