Seattle completely renovated what was then the Seattle Coliseum in 1995, which included a sponsor changing the name to KeyArena. This kept the Sonics in town until 2008 when they bailed for a better setup in Oklahoma City. KeyArena was gutted starting in 2019, keeping only the original roof from when it was build for the 1962 World's Fair, to be rebuilt into Climate Pledge Arena for the Seattle Kraken to start playing in this fall. Essentially the arena was untouched for 33 years, but has been completely rebuilt twice in the last 26. Despite that it only lasted for 13 years after the first rebuilding before the reason for the rebuilding left town anyway for a better arena.
OKC Thunder were created because the city treated the Pelicans (who were then the Hornets?) so well. Will a similar thing happen with Tampa, home of the Raptors?
As for historic stadiums, while they have very long term leases from their NCAA tenants, I do wonder about the future of the Coliseum and Rose Bowl. How in the world will they get events now? Sofi will outbid them for everything.
The good weather in SoCal certainly helps with this. Stadiums in the midwest and Northeast have to endure extreme temperature swings with the seasons, plus snow and ice which damages structures.
Well Texas and Atlanta both had some circumstances that led to the premature deaths for their former venues (both of whose old venues were repurposed into football/rugby stadiums oddly enough). Texas it was the weather, their stadium should always have been a dome in the oppressive heat and humidity of Texas, much like Houston's. But at the time Arlington opened, the retractable roof stadium hadn't been solidified as a viable option. That didn't happen until 4 years later when Bank One Ballpark opened in Phoenix. Not to mention the cost and the fact they'd played outdoors for years at the old Arlington stadium. Was it totally necessary to abandon the Ballpark in Arlington? Probably not, but there were some legitimate reasons to move across the street into their giant BBQ set. Atlanta was simpler... Turner Field while only 20 years old was falling apart. I went to a game there the year they got their deal to get the new stadium in Cobb Co. I've only seen 3 stadiums personally that were in worse shape than Turner, RFK Stadium, the Oakland Coliseum, and Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego. And as anyone knows, all three of those venues either have been or should be condemned. Turner Field had brick facade that had literally crumbled to dust inside the grout, rebar showing through the concrete all over the place (and not just on the occasional stair I'm talking showing through the center of the large slabs), and there was so much rust I felt like I needed a tetanus shot walking out. And as it had been built as an Olympic venue designed to hold more than double it's final capacity, it had these massive empty concourses that were not needed and weren't even being used on the upper part of the 1st deck, and the main concourse under the stands (also an anachronism in this day and age), was dark, dank and frankly reminded me of the Oakland Coliseum's main concourse. It may have been built during the early Camden era which has produced some gems (like Camden itself), but Turner was clearly built quickly to meet the Olympic deadlines, on the cheap, and was a compromised park from the outset.
Not to mention Fenway Park, Wrigley Field, Ohio Stadium, Harvard Stadium, the Yale Bowl, portions of Soldier Field, Lambeau Field,... I could go on with examples from both the US and overseas, but weather is not an excuse for a stadium's longevity.
In most of those cases, though, some chunk or another gets rebuilt more or less entirely every decade or two. Soldier Field is essentially a brand new stadium built in 2004 on top of the old one. The Green Bay Packers have done two stock offerings in the last 25 years to fund Lambeau Field renovation and expansion. (When you go, you can very much see the line where the stadium originally stopped.) Any old stadium, at least here in the Midwest, is more or less a ship of Theseus by this point. Weather really does do a number on the buildings.
I guess one aspect of stadium longevity was the proliferation of multi-purpose stadiums from about the 1950s to maybe the 1990s. The stadiums being bad is largely an American phenomenon because of the disparate needs of baseball and football. These stadiums attempt to shoehorn both sports into the same building, usually at the cost of being only marginally well suited to either. Many of these mixed use stadiums have been replaced with sport specific stadiums. It’s much easier to play both gridiron and soccer football in the same stadium.
That was my biggest surprise on my one visit to Ann Arbor. Somebody pointed out the Big House to me and from the street it looked pretty much like a one story building.
I mean the same is true in California. Sun is very destructive as strange as that sounds as it destroys anything made of plastic. Plenty of changes, replacements, new seats, new walkways, etc... have been added to Dodger Stadium for example over the years. Same can be said of the LA Coliseum after the most recent rebuild. I'm always impressed by teams, school, etc... that buck the trend and keep their stadiums up to date and top notch even if it undermines the prevailing bullshit that teams need new stadiums every 30-40 years or so.
I fully believe you, but honestly, the costs of new versus renovated aren't all that different. In the cases of the big Midwestern stadiums, they're essentially ripping out a section and rebuilding it, concrete and all. The main separator between the choices seems to be the ease of acquiring land and the "historicness" of the stadium in question. Very few people lament the loss of the concrete doughnut that was Milwaukee County Stadium in favor of what is now American Family Field, but that was a falling apart mess, and part of that awful multi-use stadium trend.
Angels stadium is one of the oldest now too isn’t it? It’s had some changes over the years though. First to accommodate the Rams then to unaccomodate them. It’s a lovely place to watch baseball these days.
Also true. Anaheim today at more than 56 years old is in far better condition materially than Turner Field was 5 years ago. And that's WITH the team angling for a new ballpark or yet another renovation to the old one.
USC actually owns the master lease for the Coliseum, operates and manages the Coliseum, and paid for those renovations. It's not technically USC's stadium, but it's effectively USC's stadium.
They probably didn’t have to find parking at the stadium however if they were credentialed media. It’s a known clusterf’k and will be a mess for a while
Hi. Former Wiz(ards), current Sporting, fan and native Kansas Citian here. That is patently false. Arrowhead was a tomb when crowds were in the 5-10k range. They were passable with just 15k fans in the stands. The magic started at about 20k. Anyone at the 2001 USA/CRC WCQ with 35k (and a packed lower deck) will never forget the atmosphere. Did anyone say the 15-22k DC crowds at 58k RFK were terrible? No. It really is amazing what 20,000 fans feels like in an NFL stadium when they're not allowed to colonize the upper deck. It's not ideal, but if the Fire can get back to around 20k/game, the atmosphere will be great. If they can't get to 20k/game in Chicago at Soldier Field, well, that's an organizational problem. We know the interest in soccer is there. The Fire have to just rebuild their fan base and they'll be fine.
The Fire's all time highest avg season attendance was 17,887 in their inaugural season of 98. By 2K, they were down to 13,387, both at Soldier Field. In their last pre-covid season, 2019, they averaged 12,324 out in the burbs. Fire need a better setup than Soldier Field. Chicago is a big market so something bigger than the usual MLS 20K but Fire probably couldn't sell out a Nashville or FCC sized stadium consistently.
I can’t imagine anyone building smaller than about 25k. It would seem the marginal cost of adding seats to go from 20k to 25k would be relatively small. Heck, the cost of Q2, Lower.com and TQL are similar, yet one has 6k more seats than the other two.
Domestic league soccer as a spectator sport in the United States is in a far different place than it was when the Fire left for Naperville. It's like people holding the Scouts against Kansas City whenever NHL expansion or relocation talk starts up.
I think UT spent $175 million on the south end zone renovation that's finishing soon. That is not too far off from these new MLS stadiums, and you are talking about a single end zone with some fancy amenities for recruiting "unpaid" athletes. The view of the south end zone of DKR from the press box. #HookEm pic.twitter.com/IYaWBGY3cZ— Jeff Howe (@JeffHowe247) April 24, 2021