Are they going to continue with the horseshoe alignment in 2003? I REALLY hope not, but was just curious if anyone had heard anything. I'm not sure if I can take too many more games of staring across at empty seats.
Change should help the atmosphere. As a fan, I'd be much more willing to spend money to sit midway between the goal and midfield with nobody to my right side and with people across from me than have to sit deep in the corner with 10,000 perfect empty seats along the other sideline. Can someone explain why the horseshoe is better than having fans condensed around midfield?
To clarify: I'm not saying to keep capacity artifically low. I'm just saying that I'd rather have 10,000 fans condensed on both sides of midfield with the ends open rather than have 15,000 fans on one side with 2,500 on each end.
It never bothered me to see empty seats across the field. Aren't you people watching the game, for heaven's sake?
It's not better, it's just cheaper to run the stadium that way. Not opening that concourse means less security staff and concession workers, less clean up time, etc.
as it was made clear to me that there are a couple major reasons for the one-sidedness. 1. they don't want to pay $ for extra staff all over the stadium (concessions and security) [i don't really buy that they can't find an effective way to make everyone happy thru a middle ground on this point though] 2. don't underestimate the power of sponsor $ to the club as it relates to television broadcasts. sponsors want their signs on the field and their commercials on the air to be seen. these sponsors and also people that don't bother to pay the $ to go to the game don't want to see a bunch of empty seats when they sit at home....which is exaclty what you'll have if they open up 2 sides just like in foxboro. [there are a multitude of creative ways that other mls clubs have approached this dilemma....however, the revs management is not creative or caring enough to figure out ways to make it work] plus, i'd throw these out there too: 3. i'll bet both mcdonalds (by contract) have to open for every event. this would not be possible w/o the skewed horseshoe [my conspiracy theory] 4. marketing/experience probably tells them that since they've made the large area between the boxes the most exp price....it forces more people to buy exp tix beforehand and/or at the gates. before, you could buy the $10 tix and sit practically anywhere. you won't see this configuration change anytime soon.
Man in Black - Yes, I watch the game. But I, like 99% of human beings, am affected by the atmosphere as well. If you don't care about the atmosphere, so be it...but don't ridicule those who do. I love the game of soccer and love the Revs, but it wouldn't hurt to see some fans in your vision. Lord knows you don't get any boost in atmosphere from the sound of Revs fans. And to the point about cost-savings: I've seen this brought up, but I don't see how you save money. Are the Revs required by Foxboro or the state to have X amount of security officers per open section? In my friend's limited dealings with event planning, he was only required to hire security based on the number of people in attendance. And what is the harm of opening every other concourse around the stadium rather than every one on one side? Aside from the limited time saved cleaning up, I don't see ANY cost savings.
Rev-eler I never really thought about the sponsors, but that seems like a bit of a stretch. And I don't think the crowd will be too far spread out if you keep them between the 18-yard boxes on each side. I don't want to make it seem like this is a huge thing for me, but I was just curious because it just never really made sense to me, from an atmosphere standpoint. Does anybody know how the other NFL stadium teams are configured?
Re: Rev-eler i know it seems a bit of a stretch....but it the company line i got from the revs. since the revs are the only team that airs all games on tv....projected atmosphere is important to all parties involved. as for the other stadiums.... 1. dc - they do a traditional horseshoe with both midfield sides open. they are actually eliminating some of the upper levels seats this year to shrink the capacity. don't know how this affects prices though. 2. sj (large capacity college football stad.)- both sides open. the shady side is where most of the season ticket holders are. that side has one really expensive midfield section that the sunny side does not. but you can sit on the 40 for like $15 or something. 3. dal - most season tix holders on the shady side. the sunny side (tv side) used to be relatively devoid of people until they made that entire side (yes midfield too) general admission. 4. chi - was open on both sides i believe. 5. ny/nj - open both sides. symmetrical price ranges 6. la - they were interesting b/c they did not have a pricing scheme that was symmetrical about the field at the rose bowl. it was actually based on the sun patterns so it was slightly skewed. end zone was gen admin and the sunny side midfield may have been too.....if it wasn't it was priced significantly lower than the shady side. all that changes in the new shrunken place though. 7. col - its open on both sides i believe and has not only a horizontal price config....but a vertical one as well. 8. kc - i think kc does something similar to the burn with reduced price on the sunny side...maybe even gen admin like dallas as well. i can check. revs are the only team, i'm almost certain, with the majority of the fans/season tix holders on the sunny side and no other option. the only exception i can think of may be dc where the shady side is actually further away from the action since the shape was made to fit their past baseball team. huh, have to check that too. when i asked the revs office how dallas could do what they do....they said "hey, they're in dallas in that hot sun". these guys should really check the schedule and temps. the revs actually had more day games than the burn AND hotter temps for those games and we have no choice but to pay triple the cost for the right to do that.
Interesting about Colorado. So does that mean they have a triangle-like configuration? Where they sell higher-row seats in the middle of the field but not in the corners? I never thought of that, but that would seem ideal to me for all parties involved. Dallas is also interesting, and although I like the thought of grabbing a nice GA seat at midfield, I know I couldn't stand sitting out on the sun for 2 hours. Then again, I guess that's why those seats would be discounted. Thanks for all the stadium info.
Not sure exactly what you mean by "triangle". sort of i guess. let's say lower mid is cat I. upper mid and lower 40's would be cat II. upper 40's and lower 25's would be cat III and so on. don't confuse the "upper" and "lower" terms here as different decks. i believe the lower level is higher and extends further back away from field than gillette does. i could be wrong. just go to their website and look at the seating chart. like i said before......we, as revs fans, are forced to sit on the sunny side already and were subjected to this day game scenario more often (and in hotter temps) than dallas was last season. at least season tix holders in dallas were in shade.
well, just checked the rapids website and its seems to be a straight horizontal price tiering now. but at least you can sit between the pen boxes and pay $23 (mid), $19 (40's), $16 (25's) [instead of our $22 across the board for new season tix holders]....plus, season ticket holders under 16 (if not 18) get another 50% off those prices listed above. [revs have no "youth" season discount] ohhhh.....and they have ticket exchangability too! (like ALL the other teams besides the revs) whereas we have to eat unused tix. not to mention both sides of the field are open. all right, i promise not to go into my diatribe any further.....okay george and rev-oke?
one-sidedness Not to mention that the TV cameras show a more crowded stadium when we are all lumped into one side.
Re: one-sidedness I have to admit that this layout does look better on the tube, whatever its other merits (or lack thereof).
personally, i don't really care what the game looks like on tv to people that aren't buying tix to support the league.
For all the hype about "the greatest stadium for soccer in the United States" Gillette is a huge albatross around the Revs neck for anything but Cup Finals and big international doubleheaders. Until the team can regularly fill the lower bowl with crowds of 28-32,000 there is no real way to have any kind of atmosphere at the grossly oversized wind tunnell that is the Big Razor. Despite all our mostly reasonable griping about the way the upper management (not the contact folks, they are great) treats the soccer customers the only way that change can be effected will be through demand. 30,000 people constantly show up and the bowl will be open, end of story. Otherwise, we will have this configuration for my lifetime (I'm 60 years old) or until some mad monied footy fanatic buys the Rev and gives them their own playpen. HAPPY NEW YEAR! JIM DOW
The real question is whether you care about having a team in NE. If the team ignores economic realities, the losses will be greater than Kraft would be willing to bear. The whole organization (and league) are pushing towards making it a profit-making enterprise; they aren't going to keep subsidizing our love of soccer forever. As for what it looks like on TV, opening up both sidelines, presumably at the expense of endzone seating would look horrible on TV. The crowd shots that really stick in the viewer's minds are the seats behind the goals, because those are the most exciting situations. Nothing looks worse than watching a team attack the goal with a sea of empty seats behind it. No major sports league in the television era of US history has ever succeeded without TV, that's where the big money is. So even if they don't have a decent TV contract now, they are not going to stop trying to make it the most attractive TV package they can. The league won't get over the "hump" until they get a big TV contract.
In KC, one end is completely closed - except for when there are fireworks or a post-game concert. If it's a concert, the other end is then closed (as that's where the stage is always set up. The end that is open is the "Wiz Zone" - family pricing, general admission. the cheap seats, as it were. The sidelines have identical pricing, which results in most folks choosing the shady side, leaving the sunny side - which also happens to be what the cameras show - being mostly deserted. It is amazing that they Wizards have never adopted the stragegy employed by the Burn.
In actuality, I didn't hate the layout as much as I thought I would going into the season. It had some positives. I would say the MLS stadium with a lower bowl most similar to Gillette in terms of layout and capacity would be Giants Stadium - both have very large lower bowls with 35-40 rows that essentially surround the field. In NY they allow seating everywhere in the lower bowl (as well as some mezzanine level) and the crowd never looks that impressive. Games from Gillette with the typical 15-16K certainly look better on TV than the same sized crowd does at Giants Stadium. I would say atmosphere is a wash - it hurts the atmosphere having to look at a sea of empty seats, but it would also decrease noise to further disperse the typical 15-16K crowds across the entire lower bowl. (Current layout) In my opinion the best option would be to have a symmetrical on both sidelines - blue seats in the corners (101-104, 115-117, 124-126, 137-139), white in the sidelines (105-107, 112-114, 127-129, 134-136), and red in the center (108-111, 130-133), plus blue seating in 143 for the Fort. That would keep essentially the same amount of seating open, as well as approximately the same amount of seating within each color/price range while giving everyone a better seat, getting people out of the sun, etc. The south endzone would be empty, which as someone stated might upset McDonald's. A slight variation from the above plan, we could move the blue seating nearest the south endzone (115-117, 124-126, or perhaps just 115-116 and 124-125) to the remaining sections in the north endzone (140-142), which would in effect shift from the current "north-east-west horseshoe" with an empty south end to a "south-east-north horseshoe" with an empty west end.
rrkup, i do understand what you're saying....however, mls and the teams love to tout these "attendance is up" figures and they do little to talk about increases and decreases at the tv and sponsorship level. personally, i'd love for them to focus on getting better attendance in the stadium. in addition, i'm sure there are creative ways to get the best of both worlds: "tv look" and "in stadium atmosphere"...that just haven't been explored. and remember (i know this is a bit apples and oranges here) nfl won't locally broadcast a match if its not sold out. since i go to most all the home games....i really don't care too much if they show them live. maybe it'd be still economically feasible somehow for everyone involved in home games were shown "delayed". that way its on at some point for people that want to tape it, or couldn't make it to the match etc... and it still creates a possible "demand" for people to go and see the game live. [i'm not saying it has to be "sold out" or anything] possible exceptions might be the ones carried by the non-cable stations that have a few games a year. one thing we don't have to worry about is sports radio spoiling the outcome by announcing the scores on the radio or anything.
As someone who's sat in those seats for five years now, it's pretty damn good. Yes, it's sunny over there, but since there's only maybe one or two afternoon games after May 1 in Dallas, that's not too bad. For the 7:30 games, you're staring into the setting sun for the first 30 minutes or so of the game, then it's pretty nice the rest of the game. The best part is that you can score a midfield seat for $12 ($10 if you buy the Flexipass package). Plus, the atmosphere is better on the GA side for a couple of reasons: the various Burn supporters' groups are located there and that part of the stadium draws a demographic that's heavily first and second-generation Latino (mostly Mexican), who don't mind if you stand up and call the referee or the opposition players names. The Burn have even been referring to the reserved seating side of the stadium as the "family side" and the GA side as the "festive side."
one of the ideas that I floated when they were first designing the seating chart was to open only a relatively small midfield section on the shady side... calling it premium seating, or something like that... charge more for these seats to cover much of the expense of opening up some minimal services for this section... this way, there would be more midfield seats (it has amazed me that these midfield sections seem to sell so well even on the sunny side and even at already premium prices) and the patrons on the sunny side wouldn't be staring at a completely blank wall of seats with no fan noise coming back at them... personally speaking, empty side of the stadium hasn't bothered me as much as I thought it might (of course, I am in the Fort and don't have to stare directly at it;-) rand
No offense...but when I was up there for that big metro-rev game in sept. the atmosphere was fantastic. Firstly, It looks great on TV to see all those seats filled up. 2ndly, when everyone one is compacted together, people get more excited, it's natural. Your not putting your feet up on the chair next to you, and just relaxing...your getting up and cheering on exciting plays, your talking to your fellow fan next to you. Having everyone compacted together creates atmosphere...whether you think so or not. Just because you don't like the way those seats stare you down, doesn't mean that there is less atmosphere in the stadium.
Goalkeep makes a very good point re. "compacting" fans. I sit/stand in the Fort, for example. When I go a match with friends who feel like talking and relaxing as we watch the game I sit up in the last few rows of 143 and enjoy a fantastic view and good conversation. More or less like in my living room (and yes, I use the cupholder for my triple-overpriced beer). But if I want to yell, cheer, vent and generally get into it I go down to the front and join the pack where there is a fantastic energy and buzz. I think that opening the two sides with the current level of attendance would so disperse the crowd that the non-atmosphere would turn into minus-atmosphere. Watch Dallas games, for example. Every once in a while a field level camera turns back on the shady side and you see that there are actually quite a few people there. But for the bulk of the match all you see is the sprinkling of folks on the sun side. Now I do think there is a really poor attitude towards the paying fans to put them all in the sun as is done at Gillette but I don't think the basic notion of compacting fans is, in itself, a bad idea. Of course I have a lot of respect for Dallas and LA for having a "sun/shade" cost ratio for their seating. One way the Rev could do it would be to discount day matches to the season ticket holders. That would be an excellent good will gesture far more meaningful than our governor foregoing his salary. Guess how I voted? Grumble, grumble..... JIM DOW