Centrally located to whom, though? I know a lot of people who come from South OC and Northern SD counties to the games, and DTLA, some of them have already said, would be too far for them to travel. L.A. is unlike many metropolitan areas in that it is very spread out, and the downtown area is not what I would call central to many. I will say, though, in the past few years, DTLA has made many strides in attracting more people to that area, but L.A. is very much a car culture. Even with metro making it more accessible to get to DTLA, I still think a great majority would still prefer to drive to their destination.
I know LA very well, downtown is central to the metro area. It is also re-surging and every year is getting better and better. I meant central more that you can walk from the Staples center pre/post games to a plethora of bars, restaurants, clubs, etc. That adds a massive amount of atmosphere around the stadium and if we had our stadium there we would have meetups at bars before and it would get people coming to stadium on time. Galaxy march to match would def interest onlookers and who knows how many people would be downtown for the day and would go to a game as a last minute decision (no chance of this happening at hdc)
The only way I would be for this is if , and only if we get our stadium and to fit our needs at about 30k. I dont want to end up in another cavernous football stadium. It would be taking a step back for our franchise. No way do I think we go to Farmers field or anything equivalent. That is way to big for our needs. I also assume that we need to stay long enough to recoup the initial nvestment at victoria st. and some margin of profit.
Yea I agree, I think MLS teams in a NFL stadium are a joke (looking at Seattle). No matter how much they want to say it was designed for soccer too it feel like you are a mile away from the game. As for recouping investment the easiest most obvious way would be to sell to Chivas. This is all pie in the sky and I doubt we are looking at a new stadium at all though. Only will happen until we are selling out every single game and have well over 5K demand for tickets to each game.
I know this subject has been argued ad nauseum, and in different threads, so I apologize for continuing this dialogue. However, unless and until (not likely) we get the geographic stats of the people who go to the games or who would potentially go to the games (definitely not likely), I don't think it matters that DTLA is central to the metro area. Also, atmosphere is great, but it is not the only thing that attracts (or detracts, in the case of no atmosphere) people to come to the games. There are many factors that dissuade people from going to games, and I think the biggest (personal opinion) may be price, at least in this economy, right now.
i disagree about price, i think the galaxy don't create enough buzz in LA and atmosphere creates that. sounders are built off that and it seems to work. look at how dramatic KC and Houston changed when they built their own stadiums in prime areas