I'm assuming this is at least past the point where every MLS team is in a SSS, but it's an interesting question to me. A few things I'm pondering. What would the best city be? Are we thinking DC since it's the capital or would we want to stick it somewhere taking into account the population or how "international" a city is. What would the forseeable capacity be? Would there be a means to pay for it and enough interest in the reasonably near future? As of now international play is much more popular than MLS but I'm not sure on the finer details as to how much more. *Daydreams of a MLS cup selling out a sss of that size*
It's moronic to have a single national stadium in a country that is large as the USA with a population as spread out as the USA's. But other than that, awesome idea.
Nah. I don't think its going to happen. Its great having the team travel around and give more people a chance to see them play. And I imagine US Soccer believes it makes more money this way.
Is a national stadium really necessary in the US? Besides, aren't the national stadiums in other countries usually occupied by other clubs anyway? So why not just designate an already existing stadium as the national stadium?
I think it is a horrible idea, maybe it wouldn't be that bad to travel from the east coast somewhere to a DC stadium, but it would become very cost prohibitive for us on the west coast to see our team play. It makes a lot more sense to have the team travel around the country. Plus, since soccer is not hugely popular I think it would really hurt attendance having all the games in one city. I go to every game that is within reasonable travel distance and budget, one because I love US soccer, but two because there is not guarantee of when the next game will be close enough for me to go.
The main difference is the Olympics is once every four years and USMNT game are much more frequent than that.
Yeah, the international press would love sending ten times the people to cover the olympics. Who's going to pay for the cross-country flights for athletes from poor countries? And that Olympic village idea was soooo 20th century. Good point.
There are so many high quality stadiums in the US, so many large cities, and the country is so big that this isn't needed. If there was one part of this country that you could point to as the soul of US soccer, maybe. But I'm not seeing that. I could see one stadium in each region being designated the go to place for big games. Columbus seems to have earned just about every qualifier against Mexico for instance.
Things like that - traditional stadiums for certain specific games - seems defensible and perhaps even desirable to me. But there will never be a national stadium in the US. And there never should be for the reasons already stated by others.
The only reason to have a national stadium is: 1) if SSS in the country are lacking.(Canada) 2) if the country is small and the national stadium is accessible for a good majority of the fans.(England)
But that wasn't a "national/regional stadium" idea; it was more of a "put the games where we get the fewest Mexico supporters" idea. And on top of that, it didn't work. (It REALLY didn't work for the 2005 qualy.)
Like others have said, the US is just too big and has too many major cities for a national soccer stadium to work. Not having a national stadium is fine. Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain play their competitive matches in more than one venue and nobody seems to complain.
Well I can see the plans now... If we get the Olympic bid, and Chicago builds the 80000 seater for the 2016 Olympics and this will help the US bid for the 2018 World Cup. The WC finals could be held in the Olympic Stadium (Chicago is an easy drive from cities that can hotel many fans Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Detroit) After the US team wins that world cup....that will be our 'national stadium'. Hopefully by then, the MLS will be huge and the Fire and many Internationals would be home to that stadium. Because after the World cup, it would be known as a soccer stadium! It's a hope....
I thought that Chicago's Olympic Stadium would be temporary. Apparently it would be reduced to a 5,000 seat stadium after the Olympics.
Chicago's Olympic Stadium would actually be a good choice as a national stadium, but in a smaller capacity than the olympics. The Fire (or an expansion team) could move into it after the olympics are over.
Or to be torn down and totally rebuilt, talk about a hole. About an Olympic Stadium, remember that they have tracks.