Revolution Stadium Groundbreaking "12-24 months" Part XVII

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The Energizer's Revolution Stadium Groundbreaking thread. It just keeps going and going and going.....

 

Do we needs to close this and start part XVIII?

 

Revolution Stadium "Groundhogging"

 

I suppose I'm in the minority that actually likes it at Gillette Stadium. I think going to where the "Pats play" is part of the appeal.

THe lower section was pretty much full at some of hte games last year. I think having flexibility in the number of sections they can open up is a good thing.

 

Don Garber, as quoted in The Athletic:

“Our views of stadiums and stadium development have evolved over time. I came in and said, ‘We have to build our own stadiums.’ It was part of our reorganization. Then Seattle comes in and says, ‘Well, we’re doing pretty well with a football stadium.’ Atlanta says, ‘We’re doing really, really well with a football stadium.’ Charlotte is doing really well, better than we expected, so we’re still sort of in this mindset of we don’t have to put a line in the sand and say, ‘a building needs to be this'..."

I had actually been wondering recently about whatever happened to the league's SSS mandate. Dead, apparently.

 

Realizing just how hard it is to get anything done in the Boston urban core, some of me is resigned to just accepting a new SSS across the street in Foxborough. I know urbanites don't want to hear this but for me it's 6 of one, half dozen of the other, as I live on the South Shore. It takes roughly the same time for me to get to F'boro or Everett, on a Saturday.

 

That would be a massive mistake IMO - build a stadium in near-Boston area or don't do it at all.

They are better off building growing attendance in Gillette than investing all the money in a downsized stadium at the same location. Fix the surface problem in Gillette if we end up staying - IMO that is going to fix itself within a couple of years when Bill Belichick is no longer the Pat's coach.

FWIW, at the pre-season STH kickoff, Bilello was talking about how season ticket sales were the best ever. I suspect he wasn't blowing smoke - I looked at re-location options for moving tickets from last week's game and the seats available in my section for other games were a fraction of what I typically saw last year.

 

After a number of years away from the Revs - at least in terms of following closely - I've crawled back over the last couple and finally have myself a ticket package for this season. But since I haven't been following rabidly for awhile, can someone indulge me in what might be a silly question?

What is the benefit to the Krafts in building a SSS - whether that's Boston, Everett, or anywhere else?

I mean, they own the team and they own Gillette, so what exactly would they get out of fronting the millions for a SSS?

I know what the fans would get out of it. I know what the league would get out of it. But I just can't come up with a scenario in my mind where it makes sense for the Krafts to build it. The financial outlay would be significant and does playing in front of 20K in a 23,000 seater really give them a greater return than 17K in a 60,000 seater?

I loved Foxboro/Gillette in the early days but that's because I lived - quite literally (grew up in Wrentham and lived there for much of early era MLS) - a stone's throw away. I'm back in with my first ticket package in nearly a decade and realized on Saturday just how much of a pain it is to get there from the city. I'm in for this year, but as the kids get older and we (probably) remain a single car household I'm not sure they'll keep me long term, no matter how much I enjoy it.

I actually don't mind the atmosphere, no matter how poor it shows on television, and I just can't fathom why the Krafts would move the team away from a stadium it already owns and had paid for.

 

Very little, evidently, or they would have done it.

There was a time when MLS was insisting that teams needed to play in their own stadiums (or stadia, if that's how you roll), but the league seems to have abandoned that. But while that was the policy, the Krafts had to at least pretend.

You could make the argument, I suppose, that a stadium could pay for itself if you kept it busy -- with the Revs, the reincarnated Breakers, international matches, exhibition matches, college matches, concerts, USL, etc. Just charge $12 for a hot dog, and Bob's your uncle.

But to an extent you'd just be cannibalizing Gillette, so it's probably a wash, financially. Add in all the headaches, and it's probably a net negative for them.

But we, the fans, will never give up on this thread. Hasta la muerte!

 

You make very good points.

 

In simplest terms, you want your stadium to be closest to the largest number of people to get the largest number of butts in seats. That means putting it in the densest population center, and in New England, that's Boston. If the Krafts could have a stadium in an urban area where people could just walk a half mile and be at the stadium, a la Fenway, rather than have to make an event of it, that sets a much higher floor to their attendances than Gillette can guarantee. And it increases their potential pool of attendees.

(Admittedly, Foxboro isn't terrible because it sits between two population centers, Boston and Providence, but Foxboro and the towns around are themselves a population trough, relatively speaking.)

Plus, while we do talk about it being a "soccer-specific" stadium, there's no way the Krafts wouldn't put an Everett stadium, say, to work as a concert venue or whatever when there's no soccer being played. Urban outdoor concerts are a popular thing -- trust me, I can hear Fenway's events when I walk my dogs.

 

The attendance we get most of the time at Gillette could easily fill one of these 18 to 20k SSS's. But there's no pressure on ticket prices with a huge NFL barn. I think it's a misconception that we get bad attendance. We are nowhere near the bottom. It just looks bad on TV because, again, NFL barn.

RE: Concerts, I'm not sure of your point as Gillette routinely holds concerts all Summer long and even into the Fall.

 

One thing that Kraft is, that I think few would deny, is a smart developer. He bought a cement pit of a stadium and look at what's there now - a pretty incredible change and one that's take him from just another pretty rich guy to a multi-billionaire.

I believe he sees similar investment opportunities with an urban stadium - the building itself would be a loss-leader, but the surrounding development opportunities, partnerships, additional buzz for a team that is suddenly at a venue with limited supply and exploding demand, the cache that comes with owning a Boston team, being able to host many other high-profile events, ... all these things are great economic opportunities - something that's probably pretty close to peaking out in Foxborough.

 

And the Krafts would get twice that if they had an urban venue, was basically my point. You put the huge shows in Gillette, and the slightly less huge shows in Everett (or wherever). Cha-ching.

 

Agreed. I was just offering some more perspective on our actual attendance.

 

Maybe, but that market is also served by TD Garden. I suppose they could have some success working with the casino.

 

Arena concerts and stadium concerts are very different. I don't think they'd be competing with one another. The Xfinity Center in Mansfield would probably be the main competition.

 

Got it! Thanks.

 

Fenway would be the primary competitor in the city.

 

Meh, not really. Fenway is a unique venue that has a very small number of concerts every year. I don't think they'd be competing for the same acts as Fenway.

 

Or whatever Harborlights is called these days.

I've seen plenty of acts there that could outdraw the 5,000 capacity but there really isn't another outdoor concert venue in the city and (like Gillette) Great Woods isn't exactly accessible. I think it's something that Boston would benefit from and if it doubled as a soccer stadium then all the better.