The view from the cheap seats. The problem with the wide field at HDC was that near corner action wasn't visible from the side with the upper deck. This was the same as it was at the Rose Bowl. I commend AEG for getting it right, all the seats on that sideline were obstructed view with the action that close to the stands. Now we get to see the scrums down by the flag.
Very nice stadium, congratulations to the Burn. Well it does make me remember our stadium here in Modena (Italy), built in far '30s and completely renowed between 2002 and 2003. Here's a link to see how the stadium was in the original plan http://www.modenafc.net/foto/eventi/6g09.jpg Some works are still in progress, but we already had a game @ home and we are about to host a derby on sunday, wish us good luck. As soon as possibile I'll post a pic of the stadium how it is now. bye
I took this pic from the flyer of the stadium opening day, a couple of weeks ago. On the left the mainstand, the same built 70 years ago (we can't crash it), just added yellow and blue seats (can't see in the pic). On the right, the other mainstand, pretty english-style: yellow seats and the blue ones "Modena F.C.", we drove crazy when we heard about it and much more when we saw for the first time. You could see those iron "arms" ... yes because the whole stadium will be covered within season 2004/2005, so we are going to have a great looking stadium with almost 21000 seats! that's great - IMHO - for a 180,000 town! here it is http://www.geocities.com/webmaster_modenafc1912/stadio.JPG
This is a very nice stadium. Everyone wants MLS to copy those sort of designs, but unfortunately, any stadium that's build now has to have about 25,000 seats with room for expansion to 40,000+. It's kind of like having to design two stadiums at once.
Right denver_mugwamp. There's something similar in Italy too. We came back to serie A at the end of the season 2001/2002 (after almost 40 years away) and we had an old, ugly stadium: less than 14000 seats, stands far away from the fields (while now our "Curva Nord" is just 5 meters behind the net, much better believe me) and go away. The soccer league points that every serie A team stadium must have at least 20,000 seats, so they gave us 1 year (summer 2002 -> summer 2003) to put everything in order. And so we did, as you see: the atmosphere is better, everything is better.
Why don't they just create dugouts instead, so that the team benches wont be obstruting the view for the fans in the "courtside" seats?
Are u talking about Modena stadium? or the Dallas Burn one? About the first, the quality of view has been largely improved, the team benches infact have been completely rebuilt and now are half up and half under the ground (as in San Siro, Milano for example) just to make people behind watch better. About the dugouts, well ... there's already a dugout which takes players from the dressing rooms straight to the left bottom corner of the field (as we often see during Champions League matches ... cool). I don't know if all people would accept dugouts even in front of the benches. Most people want to see the players, their faces, their feelings, want to see them stretching before and during the game, enjoy every minute of it, as a part of the game. Specially we want to see away players, sent off after a fault into the area which makes the referee give us the winning penalty kick!!! Apart from joking, it's all a part of the whole game ... and we'd like to enjoy it 100% even if we 'd have to move left and right to watch.
Stadium looks great, congrats Frisco. So is a larger roof considered out of the question now? Or could it possibly be in the final product?
seats that are at field level, are like sitting in the front row at the movie theatre, sure it's fun when you're a kid, or you're just there to goof off, but if you're there to actually watch the game, you have to be higher up, or you'll miss alot of action.
Just make the front row seats the same hieght as those in Columbus Crew Stadium and not like those in the HDC. The front row seats at Crew Stadium look perfect on TV and they don't look to low for the fans to have a bad view. Dugouts should also be created instead of those tall 8 foot glass/plastic benches. Dugouts work fine for baseball and even many soccer stadiums around the world use em.
Re: The view from the cheap seats. Aha! This explains why the field is not centered on the space. I thought it was just so they could put it a little closer to the luxury boxes. (cynical, moi?)
Not only that, but the people who say "Bring the stands down low and put in dugouts" forget about the $15 million that Frisco ISD is spending for this to be their new HS football stadium. In football, everybody stands along the sidelines -- coaches, players, linemen, trainers, a whole score of people. Well, I suppose they could all crowd into the soccer dugouts, but let's be realistic here. And all those people standing along the sidelines are anywhere from 5' to 6'6" tall. So if you were sitting in the stands that come all the way down to the field, then you'd see nothing of the football game except for a bunch of people's backsides. So to me, it would be goofy in the absolute extreme for HSG to spend money to build stands that would be absolutely useless for the people who are spending more on this stadium ($15 million) than HSG is ($10 million). Besides, it's very difficult to even make the case that those seats would be in anyway desirable for the soccer patrons.
I don't really care but: A. Those are fun seats to sit in. It's a different experience. Kids would love it. And there must be something to be said for being close to the action or more coaches would sit in the stands. (I don't know why they don't.) Make these the cheap seats; it's worth it if they'll give this stadium its own television signature. B. Football fans don't have to sit there, but I bet kids will. They're not watching the game anyway. We're only talking about a few rows - how often will high school football sell out this stadium? (I know it's popular.) Again, it's worth it if it'll give the stadium its own signature.