Oh, ok. I see what you mean...I thought you were speaking directly about club seats given you said that's where you sit at SF. My fault.
Is the capacity going to be in the 20,000-25,000 range, if so is there room for expasion. Once we start selling out this place where going to need a capacity in the 30,000-35,000 range. I think it looks great, but why dosen't the roof cover the entire seating area in the south section & I wish that the upper deck would over hang more something like in the NSF. I know this is not going to happen but what would look cool would be to connect the east,west and south roofs to make a big "C".
Capacity will be a hair over 20,000. Future expansion is in the S8 (Harlem) End on the north side by adding a second deck. I don't think the whole south (Stage) end is covered because the roof's primary function there is to cover the stage.maybe down the road that could be in the cards...I agree that would be cool. Also to keep in mind is potentially with the seating expansion the Harlem end could be covered.
Aiming to sell more season tickets. The more scarce walk up tickets are the more apt people who want to see them play will buy season tickets. Sell a bunch of season tickets, build a tradition, expand later. The plan is very well thought out and there are tons of reasons the stadium is the size it is.
I remember once, like 3 or 4 years ago, Peter saying something to the effect of 'I'd rather turn away 3000 people than have 3000 empty seats'. I like that thinking if for nothing else than the atmosphere will be better at more games.
General, wishful thinking question pertaining to this new stadium and all of MLS's SSS. If the league takes off and interest warrants it, could these new stadiums be expanded far beyond mid 20,000? Perhaps to 40-50,000?
Considering how many times we've ever seen 25,000 people in a 60,000 seat stadium, I'm not sure that "at least 25,000" makes a lot of sense. I believe going into this season, there were as many crowds of 12,000 or under as there were 20,000 or over, but I think feuerfex or ne plus ultra could check for sure. As for the roof, considering Bridgeview is now ponying up the whole $70 million, they can't afford to give you your free beer in a frosted mug. You'll have to make do with Freddy Adu's plastic cup.
Feel free to check my math All-time at Soldier Field: 79 MLS regular-season games 25 crowds over 20,000 27 crowds under 12,000 12 crowds over 25,000
So, when are we gonna see the first bit of concrete poured? Anything to suggest that the Firehouse won't be ready for spring of 2006? By the way, I know this is way too earlier to be discussing this, but any word/rumors on an official name for the new ground? I would love it not having a corporate name (though I'm realistic to know this probably won't be the case). "The Firehouse" of course would be the best and most obvious choice. But I also kinda like the simple but classic sounding "Bridgeview Stadium," which is shown printed on the roof in the rendering. Heck, they're paying most of the bills for it, so why not?
I do agree that a 20000 seat stadium seems perfect right now, given the experience of the Cardinal in Naperville and several years in Chicago. What is very important, I think, is to make sure all regular season games are on Saturdays or Sundays and other matches like USOC, Champions Cup, exhibitions and friendlies are on Wednesdays if they cannot be fitted on weekends. I don't understand how 15 home games cannot be fitted in the season that spans between April 15th and October 15th (28 weeks). OK, it seems that one game would have to be a Wednesday game but if the season was extended and started on April 1st then this should be no problem. If I was scheduling the MLS season myself, I would actually start it in the late March with games in the warm climate cities and begin showing games in cold winter cities like Chicago, New York, Boston, Washington, Columbus and maybe Denver and SLC right at the beginning of April. It is already very warm here in April. I also think that the season ends too early, too and it could easily extend at least till the end of October with the playoffs played during the first two weeks of November. The weather in November is fairly cool in Chicago but usually very nice. I am writing all this because I think it is possible to fit a 30 game season with one week allowed for the All Stars Game and two Saturday dates reserved for international competition games so no teams suffer from NT callups. All you need then is 33 or 34 weeks plus 3 weeks for playoffs an MLS Cup. This makes the season 37 week long and the offseason is 15 weeks which is almost 4 months anyway. I would go for March 22nd (or so) to October 31st for regular season and November 4th to November 22nd for playoffs to be played. I basically think that a schedule like Fire had this past season where games were clustered and then there were periods of 3 to 4 weeks without a match at home really hurt the attendance and also lowered the attention given by the public. More regularity and continuous feed are needed. If games at home are back to back then some people just burn out from "too much soccer" and during such periods without any action, they simply forget. I know that the schedule of the past season was the result of a domino effect caused by rescheduling the all star match but I just wanted to give an example. With a schedule that is as close to regular as it can get, the new stadium should be almost full or full every Saturday, even at the beginning and end of the season when the weather may be cold but the interest is probably the greatest. Marcin
yeah. a soccer field with some seats around it and maybe a roof. When dealing with a smallish stadium surrounding a large field on a small budget, how much variety could there be? It's not like NFL stadia where they have massive budgets and large numbers of seats/space to work with. As for the stadium itself, it looks great. Hopefully you get something very close to that when it finally becomes reality.
wow beautiful i can't wait... 20k is perfect... 25k is probably a bit big...better to go smaller and create demand as much as possible we don't want room for anyone to go... we want there to be people to be turned away so that they rectify the problem for future games... i.e. advanced/season ticket sales props to all involved
Well, as of a few weeks ago Bridgeview's paying all the bills for it. I think one reason the Fire has been reluctant to call the stadium anything specifically is because they are working on a naming sponsor in time for the groundbreaking. I love people saying 20k is too small. We'll be running at 90%+ capacity all year. What is bad about that? Supply, have you met demand? It's also funny hearing people talk like this is far off still or something. Hello, they've already cleared the site, construction is starting, and ceremonial groundbreaking is in early november. This train be chugging.
Please, nothing Arsenal inspired. Well, I guess an undefeated season wouldn't be bad, but nothing else.
Just as an FYI - LA only had one home midweek league game this season. They had consecutive road games only three times - one of thos eincluded a midweek game so the stadium was only idle for one weekend. Once was in the middle of the season when, IIRC, they had something else at the HDC and didn't play home for a month because of that and the All-Star Game fiasco. The third time was late in the season when they were away for two weeks. I agree with you in theory and as Dallas gets their own place and Chivas starts the groundshare, it will be interestingto see how it all works out. Seems obvious to me that the teams with their own places get Saturday priority and Ihope that continues. Congrats on the stadium movement. You'll have a place of your own. That should nullify all bitching about minute crap.
I find it amazing that some of you Fire supporters are so quick to point out the negative things about the stadium. Who would have even imagined in their wildest dreams that would be even be discussing this. We are getting our own friggin' ground for our club. At the end of the day the stadium is one of the most unique in the league and Wilty have worked his arse off to give the fans what they want. Its obvious they have considered everything and tried to incorporate most of our requests. But at the end of the day we shall never have to play our beautiful game in pointy ball stadia ever again. We can now tell the Bears and Park District to sod off! Just think what you will feel when you walk through the Grand Arch in 2006. I imagine it will feel like the first time I walked into Old Trafford for the first time. Excitement, Anticipation and elation. Go with it people. Peter Wilt is bar-none the best GM in the league.
Last night Channel 5 News said that there was going to be an article in the DailySouthtown. Couldnt find it. Has anyone seen it yet?