http://www.boston.com/dailynews/266/sports/Sports_agency_and_Giants_reach:.shtml Y'all are so screwed. Ok, seriously, discuss.
Re: Re: NJSEA and Giants come to last-minute agreement Mabe...and maybe this pushes uncle phil to pony up more money, especially since he sold the rapids
We may be screwed, if renovations begin after the 2004 season as the NY Times reports today. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/24/sports/football/24stadium.html If Harrison isn't ready 'til '06, that may leave Metro homeless in 2005. Riverfront stadium in Newark, anyone?
I think the football stadium at Rutgers is more likely. I saw the U.S. vs Colombia in 95 and it's not a bad place. The worse thing about it is the amount of traffic in the area.
I wouldn't be too smug about your team right about now... the Dallas and New England game doesn't say much about the Fire's end of season form does it? and in this league thats all that matters...
Um, guys... I just want to point out that the "OK, seriously" means that I really don't think you all are screwed. And yes, I know my team appears to be going down faster than, oh never mind. We beat the Gals. Hope to have you at NSF. Question: is there a train from NYC to New Brunswick, in the case that the Metros would play at Rutgers?
How much more screwed would we be in another stadium than we are now in Giants Stadium? Frankly, anything which gets Metro to move into another stadium -- ANY other stadium -- is a positive development. There are plenty of options in the event that the GS renovations force Metro out for a year or two. Rutgers, Columbia, Riverfront in Newark, a "temporary" stadium at Aqueduct, St. Johns, Long Island, etc. None of these options are perfect, and some of them are unlikely for a number of reasons. Maybe Metro can rotate amongst different stadiums, and play some big games at Shea. Who the hell knows. Regardless, they will figure out a solution, and it will probably be a better one than the current situation at GS where they won't even clean up the lines for us and there are 60k empty seats and hostile security and all the other ridiculousness. If they can find a solution where 10-15k people can go to watch Metro play somewhere in or near the metro area, I can deal.
Considering that the renovations will take two years, there has to be some way to hold events there during construction since the Jets & Giants both need the stadium for their 2005 season. Maybe they'll start with upper deck renovations in the spring/summer of '05, not do anything during the fall when the NFL is in session, then move to renovating the lower deck & mezzanine in spring/summer '06 when Metro will be gone. If we have to be out during construction, perhaps it's possible to do something modular in Harrison for '05 if necessary, or use Riverfront (especially since the future of the Bears is reportedly shaky). Considering how badly the Burn are doing, and that we only got 3,000 at Yurcak for the USOC match, I don't think they'd want to relocate to the big stadium and abandon their fan base in North Jersey.
Here's an article with more details: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/24/sports/football/24stadium.html The Giant are completely funding the renovations on their own, while the Jets (and the Metros) are bystanders. The Giants keep all the money from football and split fifty percent of the net revenue from nonfootball events. The Giants also get two-thirds of the money from corporate naming rights. The optimistic timeframe is to start construction in 2004, and complete it in two years. It will be interesting to see what the official Jets reaction will be. Some other tidbits: "[Zoffinger] added that he expected the new stadium to attract enough business so that the sports authority would keep enough revenue to repay the $160 million in outstanding stadium debt that the state subsidizes." "The team is exploring an option to turn the mezzanine into club seating."
Is "Club Seating" a real money maker? For the NFL? For MLS? What has the Galaxian experience with selling the Club Seats at HDC? Club seats take up almost 16,000 seats at Fed Ex, all the best seats in the second tier at Gillette. It seems like it takes away seat from the real fans, and give it to corporate types who use it as it as a Dining Club. AEG has to be considering it for Harrison
Club seating is a BIG deal in the NFL because the home team does not have to share a penny of club and luxury box seating with their opponent. The 2 NFL teams playing on any given day share the gate for the regular seats. So, the Giants have 124 club seats and the Redskins have 15,000. That's a big difference in terms of revenue that the Redskins get to keep for themselves.
There is a stadium in Paterson where the New Jersey Eagles played while in the A league that was before MLS started up. The stadium sits around 1o k (not sure) but looks decent and its off Rt 80 . I don't even know if that stadium is available its been 8, 9 years ago but could be a temporary solution.
Re: Um, guys... There's a train. It takes 50 minutes from Penn Station NYC to New Brunswick, but the sport fields are not near the station. There is a campus bus. There's a walk, wait, and ride that all together adds about another 30 minutes. If a temporary solution is needed, then there will have to be reliable, quick transportation from NYC. Rutgers doesn't cut it.
I believe you are refering to Hinchcliffe (sp?) Stadium. While being a good alternative in a pinch, last I heard the place needed a lot of work.
Hinchcliff has worse astroturf than the old Vet in Philly. The city of Paterson has talked about refurbishing it. Metro could never play there because there's no place to park. Fixed up it'd be good for a lower division team.
How 'bout we play where the Jets and Giants will play? I know that they could probably play through the construction (having the construction during the NFL off-season), but still. Even if that's the plan, they need a back up plan just incase there's a stall. Also, can they redesign/rebuild an entire top tier of 20K seats in a few months?
The head of the NJSEA was on MSG on the show Angles with Al Trautwig..... he said that construction will start after the 2004 NFL season. he also said that no construction would take place during the following NFL seasons. Construction would take place during the summer, and their summer events at Gianats Stadium would be severely rolled back. Does this mean the Metros will have to find a temporary home till Harrison is built?