March 27, 2005

Dodger Stadium next up for makeover?

Hey, maybe the news of Fenway Park's pending renovation has started a trend. Yesterday, Los Angeles Dodgers of Los Angeles owner Frank McCourt told the San Bernardino Sun that he's looking to do more renovations to Dodger Stadium, possibly including replacing all 56,000 seats and a new centerfield food court and entrance pavilion, on top of the 1,500 new field-level seats that were added during the off-season.

"We want to continue to upgrade the entire facility," said McCourt. "We want to keep the same feel of Dodger Stadium, but we also want to give our fans all the amenities of some of the newer ballparks." Though McCourt didn't say, my guess is that he'd be replacing the old seats with wider ones, making for a bit more elbow room while reducing capacity, much as was done at Yankee Stadium during its reconstruction in the mid-1970s. At 57,500 capacity, Dodger Stadium is currently far larger than most other ballparks - which, in an era when teams are as much about marketing ticket scarcity as in attracting the most fans, could be seen as a liability for a team wanting to jack up ticket prices.