Even though this is sort of a quasi-continuation of the whole team history discussion from a few days ago, it's probably better here so the other thread doesn't derail. Speaking of the whole STC thing, the original downtown stadium was going to be rather interesting. IIRC, the stands would have been laid out in more of an oval with a white canopy over just one sideline. From what I remember, it was going to be more of a soft canopy vs any sort of hard roof. Anyway, the leader of the opposition was some clown named Richard Sheir. The night the issue failed, he had some big party at Tommy's Pizza. Ok, that's fair. The last anyone heard of him was soon after the NHL awarded Columbus a franchise and, again IIRC, he relocated to some small town in New England. He hasn't been really been heard from since. I suspect he wasn't just against using public funds for an arena and stadium, but he also wanted Columbus to remain more of a small town. He would have had a hell of a fight. The other forgotten piece of team history was that the original renderings for now-HCS would have had the north stands in the Adidas triangle logo. As we all know, we ended up with the three black stripes for what was once called "the Adidas end".
Sheir was a weird guy but he was consistent: back in the day, people always wanted to build something by raising county sales taxes, and he would lead a campaign to oppose it. Which wasn't hard since trying to get people to pay higher sales tax to pay for a soccer stadium was a tough sell to begin with. He was something of a jerk anyway but I was never sure he made much difference. He was like a guy who saw a parade going by and ran to the front of it and called himself the leader. He left town and nobody shed any tears.
It's a defensible position (anti-tax), but the consequences may not be what folks want either. Oakland chose that path and they now have zero professional sports in the major leagues. They once had teams in all four plus the NASL.
It'd never happen, but an ideal situation might be if there was a way the taxpayers could pay to build the arena and then the corporate sponsor paid the city back in exchange for naming rights. Too bad there isn't *some* sort of third option.
Richard Sheir died several years ago, in his retirement in (as I recall) Vermont. After he was the visible head of the anti-stadium anti-arena organization VAST, he was the head of the opposition to a sales tax to support light rail.
In Cincinnati, Paycor stadium is owned by Hamilton County. The Bengals lease is close to expiring and they want stadium upgrades expected to cost $830 million. The Bengals proposal is that they get credit for money they spent in past years for maintenance, that the city of Cincinnati (which isn't party to the lease) kicks in tax money, and that the team pay less than 25% of the cost. The Haslams are at least offering to pay half the cost in Cleveland plus any overruns.
So, due to that, instead of light rail, which would have been used, we get a strip park along the old CSX right of way from Westerville to Downtown and new BRT lines ("bus rapid transit") like the one on Cleveland Avenue. The trouble is a lot of folks simply won't use busses, and this is well known to planners, but it's what they can do. I really appreciate light rail and other transit of that sort, as I've used it all over the world, most recently in San Francisco, but also in Portland, Baltimore (to get from the suburbs to Camden Yards), Denver, Atlanta, Boston, etc.
All that Shier did was demonstrate that people don't vote for higher sales taxes to fund municipal projects. Its a loser every time. Why would a citizen choose to pay more at the cash register to pay for a stadium for a sport they dont watch or a train they don't plan to riding?
It may get a lot harder to pass any type of levy soon . . . Just make sure to check for your unclaimed funds regularly.
Light rail is famously a money loser all over the country. Thus the puns about "the desire called streetcar". Such systems are sold as being self-sufficient from fares but ridership invariably is less than projected. People who don't like buses generally don't like the subways or light rail much better either. The big cities that have such systems also generally don't enforce rules of conduct vs homeless folks and juveniles either.
That's why I honestly felt that the wildly unlikely downtown monorail idea - insert Simpsons meme here - was, in this singular instance, a plausible plan. Run a loop from the Short North, Convention Center, Downtown, German Village, across the river to COSI, a stop in Franklinton, then on to the Arena District. It would strictly be there to serve entertainment, restaurants, bars, sports, etc. Park your car and make an evening of it or whatever. Plus, it would be somewhat scenic, just a sort of fun ride. The problem in Columbus has always been that even if it were possible to run a rail system to connect up the suburbs for commuters, the cost would be insane and nobody would ride it. It's just a point a to point b plan and Carla Commuter from Dublin isn't about to give up her Lexus, even if it means going pretty slow on 315 sometimes. But as a limited purpose downtown loop, it might work.
They did have a free downtown bus loop for a while. Worked well. Mrs KG and I used it. As I recall Covid killed it.
It wasn't necessary COVID that causes the end of CBUS, but they were starting to run sponsor money dry. They also had their C-Pass or whatever downtown workers get. IMO, part of what made CBUS great was it also worked for visitors. I *think* NightOwl came back and I know late night service was recently restored in hopes of 24-hr service. AirConnect came back on a limited basis a few years ago, then nothing. The actual buses used for CBUS have been repainted and are on regular COTA routes now. They're buses 1401-1406. I think they still have the blue seats inside. https://www.dispatch.com/story/news...culator-downtown-isnt-coming-back/8196863002/ However: There's a study to make COTA go fare-free, so CBUS may not be necessary. https://www.dispatch.com/story/news...-system-studying-going-fare-free/83081599007/
I didn't realize Nature Made was a Crew sponsor. Those giveaway hats rarely fit me anyway. Though, I would take one to put on the shelf, or whatever.
I'm to the point where I have so many scarves I have no idea how to display them (not just Crew, of course).
Me too. For the last ten or so years, I take most of that stuff, like stm gifts and such, and give them to random kids in the stadium. I need more junk like I need a hole in the head. I just wish I knew what to.do with 20 or so old Crew jerseys. Im not much for.eBay and most of.that stuff never sells anyway. And that leaves aside the issue of the roughly 6000 Upper Deck WorldCup players cards that have been taking up shelf space for 25 years. I'd even be willing to give them away but nobody wants them. I told.someone that a kid could assemble multiple full sets and sell.them for 50 bucks a pop but I'm not gonna do it myself.
FIFA, the wildly overstaffed bureaucracy that consider themselvea the finest event managers in the known universe: (From Inside World Football) June 17 – Even to the casual television viewer watching DAZN’s broadcast of Paris Saint-Germain versus Atlético Madrid at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, during FIFA’s Club World Cup, it looked brutally hot. Now we’re hearing from the fans and media who were actually there – and it’s an absolute horror story that should have the brass at FIFA headquarters asking questions. Conditions on Sunday have been described as “dangerous” and “horrific” – hardly words you’d associate with a world-class event at an historic venue that serves as home to UCLA’s American football team and hosted the 1994 World Cup Final. This is the Rose Bowl, not some third-tier stadium learning how to host major events. Game-time temperatures of 88 degrees turned the Rose Bowl into the ‘boiling hot bowl’ when mixed with the inexplicable policy of forcing supporters to dispose of full water bottles just to enter the stadium. Once inside, fans faced 45-minute queues to buy overpriced water – if they could find it at all. “There was no way to simply buy water,” John Celmins, a resident of Santa Barbara, said of the match which kicked off at midday in California. “You could go to a beer-only stand, but there were no water stands and no extra water stations. There were long lines at every vendor and even at the drinking fountains.” Here’s where it gets confusing. The Rose Bowl website clearly states that unopened or empty disposable water bottles are allowed, as are reusable water bottles provided they’re empty. However, FIFA’s Club World Cup code of conduct says “empty, transparent, reusable plastic bottles” up to one litre may be brought in but explicitly bans all other types of bottles – aside from those needed for medicinal purposes or baby bottles. So which rule applies? Apparently, nobody thought to sort this out before 81,000 people showed up in blazing California heat. This is an administrative embarrassment that shouldn’t happen at an event of this magnitude. “The stadium knows how to handle nearly 90,000 fans, but today it struggled with 81,000, which I do not understand at all,” Celmins said. “I am much less likely to try and attend the World Cup after this poorly run experience.” Instagram user Val Wright painted an even more damning picture: “Dangerous experience. It should have come as no surprise the weather was 90 [degrees] and there was going to be 90,000. 45min queue at every vendor for water. Lines so long there was gridlock between sections 13-20 before and during half-time. Even Pasadena fire department taking away sun stroke victims struggled to get through. I’ve been to football matches all around the world and we [never] felt this unsafe. We left at half-time.” This sounds like a serious case of crossed wires between the venue and FIFA. When you’re staging matches in California in summer heat, ensuring adequate hydration isn’t rocket science. It’s basic event management that should have sorted months in advance.