October 23, 2009
Atlanta suburb votes down Falcons stadium before it's even proposed
Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank has barely even started his new stadium campaign, and already prospective sites are taking themselves out of the running: The tiny city of Doraville (best known, it appears, for being the birthplace of The Atlanta Rhythm Section) voted this week to oppose any plans to build a Falcons stadium on the site of the city's shuttered GM plant. "The county seems to think a stadium would be a wonderful thing," Doraville Mayor Ray Jenkins told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "Our citizens overwhelmingly are not for that." Not that anyone has actually proposed a stadium there — DeKalb County supposedly has a "conceptual plan" for one, but hasn't made anything public — but better safe than sorry.
October 09, 2009
Here comes the next stadium wave
Blame it on Cowboys Stadium, or blame it on Ed Roski, but there certainly seems to be a rush of teams looking to get back on the new-stadium line these days, despite having old stadiums that aren't even of legal drinking age.
The latest is Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank, who yesterday reiterated that he wants a new home to replace the 17-year-old Georgia Dome, ideally as soon as the dome's bonds are paid off, which could be as soon as 2015. "The Falcons are falling behind other teams in the NFL in terms of the experience for our fans," Blank told reporters, in what has to be an allusion to the Cowboys' new building. The Falcons owner was previously reported to be scouting sites around Atlanta for a new building; he says it would be paid for by a mix of public and private funds, which doesn't actually explain anything, but sounds good in the papers.
Also upping the ante: NFL VP Frank Supovitz, who the day before told the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce that the Miami Dolphins' 25-year-old Land Shark Stadium — don't worry, only a couple more months of this before we can go back to calling it Dolphins Stadium — may not be modern enough to host more Super Bowls after this season. "You have to look at what the other cities are offering in terms of comfort," said Supovitz, noting that in Miami fans and players are actually exposed to the weather. "I'm not going to have anyone rained on in North Texas. They're not going to get rained on in Indianapolis." Dolphins CEO Mike Dee said the team is "working with the NFL to see what should be done," which is certainly a nice way of casting the league as Bad Cop should the team demand a new or vastly renovated stadium.
Then there's Milwaukee, where the Bradley Center just turned 21 years old last week, and Ulice Payne, the chair of the arena's board of directors, declared Tuesday that the buildinghas only eight years left before it turns into a pumpkin. (Among Payne's complaints: Its scoreboard is 14 years old, and it has ceramic tiles, which are so 1990s.) Bucks owner Herb Kohl hasn't commented yet, but he's previously proclaimed his desire for a new, younger facility. As for Payne, he first got involved in sports as a member of Miller Park's board, which he then parlayed into a turn as CEO of the Brewers — so it's always possible he's just angling for a job in basketball this time.