Lord, if any of the stadia will use Field Turf for the tournament, I'd just rather it go somewhere else. Not because I don't think you could play a game on Field Turf for the World Cup. I'd just rather not give the international community any more ammo to attack American soccer. EDIT: No, I don't think USSoccer would even consider it.
Yeah, there is no question that fields with FieldTurf would be replaced with grass. If we do it for meaningless European exhibition games, they would have to do it for the World Cup.
I'd be curious to see how many 1st rate English stadiums have those dimensions. Most of them are packed right up to their sidelines and I don't think they hit those numbers.
I know alot of those venues have fields that are too small or have a crown in the middle, but it's just too, too funny to think about HOW MANY damn places the US has that are huge. I mean, hey, let's just use cities that start with C or D...we could shatter every record for highest attendance. We could just use the states (Texas, LA, MS, AL, and FL) that border the Gulf of Mexico.
And how, precisely, does that stadium not measure up to those you cited: Glendale, Arlington, Houston and Seattle? Really?
Good point. I think the dimensions of most BPL pitches are about 101 x 68 meters. I guess the question is how much space is on the sides. Don't know the answer to that, though I would suspect it'd be an easier sell to Premiership clubs that they have to remove a couple rows of seats to get into the WC than it would be for some US stadium owners. We may see.
NYC should have those stadiums measuring up their stadium, not trying to measure up to other places. The fact this is even a question speaks volumes. To answer your question, no roofing, retractable or otherwise. Looks like no Super Bowl for NYC for the next 30 years. The outside design is boring and old fashioned. They might as well have just renovated Giants Stadium. No, aluminium louvers and lights that can change to blue, green, or red do not make it something special. The aluminium doesn't even look good.
Huh? It's apparently as good as the places you cite as places that should hold the WC, which was your standard to begin with. The above-sentence barely makes sense. Why would that matter for a summer WC? Are you being sarcastic? I can't quite tell.
I'm not sure we would shatter the attendance record, but going on FIFA's "standards" you could host the entire tournament just in Alabama and Mississippi. Some (most?) of the fields would be minimum-width. Venues: Legion Field (Birmingham) Bryant-Denny (Tuscaloosa) Jordan-Hare (Auburn) Ladd Stadium (Mobile) Veterans Memorial (Jackson) Davis Wade (Starkville) Vaught-Hemingway (Oxford) You could also expand Movie Gallery Stadium and MM Roberts Stadium if you needed to. I'm sure Florida, Texas, or California could host the whole tournament without outside help.
Just for fun, and because I know the Texas crowd is very nationalistic about their state, the Texas World Cup bid: JerryWorld - 100,000 Darrell K Royal - 94,113 Cotton Bowl - 92,200 Kyle Field - 82,600 Alamodome - 72,000 Reliant - 71,500 Rice Stadium - 70,000 Jones - 56,333 Sun Bowl - 51,000 Floyd Casey - 50,000 Amon G. Carter - 44,000 Plus the baseball stadia, the Astrodome, etc...
Who's making this "apparent" decision? Apparently as good to who? US Soccer? They named off the 70 most well known stadiums or just the largest stadium(s) in a given state. The standard is ingenuity, unique design, functionality, and aesthetics, all of which the New Meadowlands fails at miserably. For 1.4 billion dollars, you should have the greatest stadium the world has ever seen. Instead, you have what looks like a generic football stadium covered in aluminium that can change into 3 colors. Congrats. You missed my whole point entirely. The next World Cup in 2018 or 2022 held here should showcase our grandest stadiums. Boring, generic NFL stadiums and old stadiums from 1922 that look like they haven't been renovated since they were built isn't going to impress anybody watching around the world. I'm sorry if this is hurting your "NYC is the Greatest City in the World" ego, but the new stadium is average, especially for the amount of money being spent on it. The New Meadowlands Stadium is ugly, greatly generic, and is pretty much everything a brand new stadium in 1980 would've wanted to be.
ego-schmego. you can't keep a world cup out of the nyc mkt, period. doesn't matter wtf the stadium looks like. what, you think giant's stadium is a work of art?
Wembley Stadium and Emirates Stadium, the two new gold standards in new English stadiums, are both 116x75yds (105x68m) Just thought I'd throw that out there... Edit: As for the extra space around the actual playing surface, dimensions weren't available but I know there is some space, especially at Wembley. Pulling that off at some of the NFL stadia would be expensive as you guys stated before...
Again -- huh? You said that the top stadiums in the country are Houston, Glendale, Arlington and Seattle, then threw out that other stadiums in the country don't measure up -- namely Soldier Field or anything in New York. To which I responded that the new Meadowlands Stadium seems to measure up to YOUR STANDARD, and for you to explain how it didn't. I'd say at that point it was up to YOU to explain why Meadowlands II wasn't as good as the ones you referred to earlier. Follow me so far? Leaving aside that the WC probably wouldn't give a rat's ass about those criteria (can you really tout, say St. Denis as beautiful?), I ask how far Meadowlands II falls short of the supposed paragons of stadium design to you -- Houston, Glendale, Arlington and Seattle. I guess if that's your standard, then I can think of one stadium in the world that should hold a WC match -- Allianz. Right? Of course, I think you're the only person in the world who would hold a stadium to that standard, but still. Yes, I missed it since you were rather late in making it. But now we have it -- that it should showcase the grandest stadiums. Please, explain how any stadium in the country is more grand than Meadowlands II. I don't mean to sadden you, but if the US hosts it again, EVERY host stadium will be a NFL Stadium or an old stadium (e.g., Rose Bowl). None of them will be able to change into 3 colors. I think the one with the ego problem is you. I don't really think that about NYC, but leaving that aside, the WC would be played here even if it were in the old Giants Stadium. Plus, I happen to think it's as pretty and unique as any other NFL stadium.
i think it's generally understood that fifa made a lot of exceptions for us stadia for the '94 world cup since many of the stadia used didn't meet the fifa regs in place in '94. back then it sounds like fifa was working very hard to crack the usa market, including getting the us to promise to start a domestic league (mls), and apparently, cutting us some slack on stadia requirements. this time around, with mls already here, and with stiff competition from other nations, they might be far less willing to cut us any slack. the "recommendations" in that huge document are pretty much obligatory for all WC finals games. that means pitch size, grass area, ban on bleachers, "cover" requirements, sightlines requirements, etc. etc. blah blah would all have to be met by most if not all stadia in a quality bid.
The Hedges were unhealthy back then and would have needed to be replaced anyway. This way, the olympic committee paid for it. That is not to say it wasn't controversial, but they took clippings from the original hedges and cultivated them at two different locations in order to replace them for the start of football season 1996. Note: I was at the women's final and I grew up going to GA football games. Here are a couple of articles on the subject http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1008537/index.htm The Games uprooted the hedges. (O.K., they would have been uprooted anyway, because they were old and needed to be replaced, but the Olympics paid to have them dug up.) Soccer, that hyperpedallic import, required a field 50 feet wider than your standard U.S. gridiron. But Billy Payne, who headed up the Olympics, is an old Georgia football star, and, well, whatever Billy wanted.... And it's not as though the hedges were allowed to die. There were still hedges behind each end zone, and clumps of hedgery in pots surrounded a utility box on the north sideline. Furthermore, a new generation of privet, grown from four-inch cuttings taken from the original hedges, was being nurtured at R.A. Dudley Nurseries in Thomson, Ga., to be installed when the field is restored to football width in time for the Bulldogs' game on Aug. 31 against Southern Mississippi. A second crop of properly pedigreed Ligustrum was standing by at an undisclosed location in Florida. http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/070906/sports_20060709031.shtml The greatest challenge was "transforming the football field into a soccer field and, in six weeks, back into Sanford Stadium in time for the first football game." Part of that challenge was controversial for some die-hard fans - planting hundreds of cuttings from the stadium hedges, removing the hedges, which were unhealthy anyway, and re-planting the daughter hedges in bottomless planter boxes to keep the roots from spreading under the field and damaging the underground utilities.
How does it measure up to my standard? I already told you where it falls short. Allianz is ugly. The changing colors thing, like with The New Meadowlands, doesn't save it from it's ugly design. I made it in my original post, pretty early in fact. I don't care if NFL stadiums host it, just use the ones that aren't generic. Changing colors isn't that big of a deal. I don't think Allianz Arena is some tremendous stadium just because it changes colors. How are they more grand? Tell me, what is impressive about this stadium? It looks like 20 other NFL stadiums with the exception of a lot of aluminium siding and the ability to shine red, blue, or green. For $1.4billion, you better be able to do better than that. Of course it will be played there regardless. The city is too big not to include. That doesn't justify the stadium design, however, which, as I've said more than enough times, is pretty generic. You think the New Meadowlands is a unique as other NFL stadiums? Lets not forget the fact that more NFL stadiums look alike than look unique. Seattle, Arizona, Houston, and Dallas have unique stadiums. Indy and Detroit have unique stadiums, albiet domes so they can host collge basketball, the NFL Combine, and the Super Bowl. Giants Stadium, is about as un-unique as it gets, and Meadowlands II doesn't look much different outside of the aluminium siding and the ability to change 3 different colors.
u have got to be kidding...1.4 billion for the new meadowlands?? obviously someone failed at the design level since the new cowboys stadium looks WAY better and cost slightly less...but then again this is New York we are talking about who just finished building the new Yankees stadium and it looks EXACTLY THE SAME as the old yankees stadium..of course someone will say it looks the same to preserve the "history" of the old stadium...whatever the hell that means
FWIW, California should have its high-speed rail system up and running by 2022, and possibly 2018. At least SF and LA would be connected, with SD also a strong possibility by then. I could see the US trying to showcase that, along with the probable new stadiums in all three of those locations (49ers, Chargers, LA team).
http://www.ajc.com/sports/content/sports/falcons/stories/2009/04/09/falcons_stadium.html Might help the south get some WC games if this comes through.
GREAT!!! Another large empty building for the Atlanta sports scene. Is there a worse place, north of Miami to dump money into sports teams?
Actually, the Falcons draw pretty well despite being a crappy team most years. The Braves draw really well. I can't speak for the Hawks because I don't follow the NBA. Georgia Tech sells out pretty much every football game. And the Georgia Dome is used for lots of stuff even when football season is out. Not to mention the sold-out bowl game every year and the recent pre-season college football game (Bama/Clemson was awesome in the Dome, and Bama/Tech will be this year, too). So... which empty buildings are you referring to? I will agree that Atlanta is not the best sports town in the world, but it's not exactly flushing your money down the toilet to own a team there either.
Don't bring college football into it with the roving RV communities that follow football teams around. The Atlanta Braves for the past 6 years have been on the bad half of attendance in the National League. While your at it look at them historically. Except for a few years in the late 90's and '00's they have been a poor draw. The Falcons in 2008, as a percentage of stadium seats had the third emptiest building. Only the Dolphins and Lions had more. The Falcons had the 8th lowest attendance last year. They beat the Cowboys, but that is because Texas Stadium is tiny. The Hawks and Thrashers regularly have plenty of seats available.