And in other stadium and arena news this week:
- The New York Islanders are reportedly close to a deal to play about half their regular-season home games at Nassau Coliseum until their new arena at Belmont Park is ready in 2021. (The rest would still be played in Brooklyn, I guess? Same arena owners, so a lease should be manageable.) In less-good news for the team, Metropolitan Transportation Authority Joe Lhota has looked at the same maps that Aaron Gordon did for the Village Voice and realized, hey, those train tracks only allow you to get to Belmont from the west, so “there’s no way going from where most Long Islanders would take [it] if they were taking the Long Island Rail Road as opposed to driving to go see the Islanders.” If it turns out that fixing this would require prohibitively expensive Klein bottle technology, can New York state still back out of the deal?
- Austin could be reconsidering whether to let the owner of the Columbus Crew build a soccer stadium on public parkland, now that they’ve realized everyone hates the idea of building a soccer stadium on public parkland.
- FC Cincinnati‘s owners have signed an option to buy vacant land from the Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing Authority in the city’s West End, but team president Jeff Berding has promised residents concerned about the impact of a new stadium that it would “lead to win-win outcomes for all parties.” Reassured yet?
- Apparently it’s “rethink your MLS stadium site” week: David Beckham’s new partners in his maybe-someday expansion franchise are now considering possible stadium locations other than Overtown, including possibly the former site of the Orange Bowl. Which was already rejected once three years ago over concerns about possible demands for below-market rent on city property and the concern that some residents could be forced out. This really is going to go around and around forever, isn’t it?
- Still lots of good seats available at the new Red Wings and Pistons arena!
- Maricopa County board chair Steve Chucri is “optimistic” that mediation will soon resolve its lease dispute with the Arizona Diamondbacks, which is maybe good news for taxpayers, though it all depends on what “resolution” looks like. Arizona state law only requires 24 hours of notice before a new lease is voted on, but Chucri has promised he’ll give any deal a full public vetting.
- Here’s a New York Times business section article about how downtown development has surged in Minneapolis since the Vikings stadium opened, which is an excellent excuse to link to my favorite chart about how correlation doesn’t imply causation.
- South Korea’s new winter Olympics stadium will be torn down after being used exactly four times, for a cost of $27.25 million per use. I guess that’s one way of avoiding white elephants, but man.
- Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi has noted that Seattle and New York have figured out how to build arenas without public money, so why can’t the Flames?
- The Atlanta Falcons say their dysfunctional new stadium roof will be working by next season, and definitely by next year’s Super Bowl. It’s all about the positive thinking.
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Have a great weekend, and see you Monday!
The Blackhawks and Redwings last night was embarrassing at puck-drop. Especially for a O6 rivalry. It looked more like a Hurricanes game. It would be interesting to see what the “payback” from the “development” of PizzaPizza arena; I seriously doubt tax dollars are exponentially generated when there is no one in attendance.
Weren’t the residents of the Orange Bowl neighborhood already screwed over by the Marlins and their stadium?
Also, since you rightfully point out journalistic quirks… you really should put “home” between “regular-season” and “games” as without it the other half would technically be the Islanders’ road games.
Thanks for the copyedit — fixed!
Why would anybody get displaced for a soccer stadium at the old Orange Bowl site? It’d be a smaller stadium than the Orange Bowl was, presumably. I clicked through on the link but didn’t really see an answer to that.
Because, as Dave says below, the Marlins stadium is already taking up most of it.
A disposable stadium was one of the few things I liked about the Chicago 2016 bid. (of course the thing I liked most was we didn’t win it) No one needs an 80,000 seat track and field stadium except for the Olympics.
Your comment made me want to see what the attendance was at pro (Diamond League) track and field events. They do not appear to publish that information (but they do sell tickets). I think the main reason is that they comp or discount the tickets heavily and do not feel it would be helpful to publish paid attendance (misleadingly low) and tickets allocated (misleadingly high). We all know sports that like the misleadingly high method and have enough logic-locked boosters that provide cover but apparently track fans are a little more grounded.
Anyway, the attendance at major pro track events are significantly less than 80,000 and usually just annual events.
They should develop a “medium track” series. Larger than indoor track (200m), but smaller than official track (400m), that would fit in standard US/Europe football/soccer stadiums. You could have meets in more cities, and give empty stadiums some dates.
I want to see the javelin at the Cowboys stadium. It could be like that Apple commercial from 1984.
LOL. Let’s hope so… while a gigantic image of Jerry’s face is on the screen…
Regarding the orange bowl site: the Marlins Park and parking garages occupy most of the land. There is a patch of grass nearby, but it’s unlikely you could fit a soccer stadium on it without raising more if the housing nearby.
The problem isn’t being able to make a stadium fit, it’s the Marlins being able to control the soccer teams sponsorship revenue.
MLS clearly doesn’t have it’s shit together on Miami expansion. Delay it and let Sacramento and Cincinnati into the league ahead of Miami.
But but but…. David Beckham… something something… spur development…. mumble mumble… spin off revenues…. baaaa badddaa baaaaaa…. investment…hhhrrrrmmmmmphhhhhaaaaa… employment….ummmmmmm…everyone wins.
Miami is run by Cuban politicians and local Cuban royalty have partnered with Beckham. Don’t be surprised if the stadium gets built at Port of Miami after all. However I think it’s all just speculation at this point.
How exciting! I don’t think anyone would be surprised since most fell asleep long ago.
Ha ha
Since the U moved it’s football games out of the Orange Bowl and into Joe Robbie stadium (don’t care what company is presently paying to have it’s name associated with Stephen Ross’s incompetently run NFL team), their attendance and general level of support has plummeted.
And since the Orange bowl – almost always full to overflowing for both Dolphin and U games during it’s day – was demolished to ‘clear blight’ and make way for a modern sports facility that would spur development and be an economic driver for the area, next to no-one goes to sporting events there (admittedly, it’s the Marlins, but still… if a new sports venue draws 1/7th of the fans the one it replaced did…)
Since professional sports and the business of developing venues for same is all about the ‘economic impact’, what conclusion can we draw from the fact that fans mostly don’t bother to go watch the teams that used to play at the Orange bowl (at least not in the numbers they used to go to the Orange bowl) and now don’t even bother to go to the shiny new venues that replaced the Orange bowl?
I bet no franchise owner or sports league is willing to pay Andrew Zimbalist or Mark Rosentraub to study this phenomena.
I don’t want to sound, you know, petty… but haven’t the Islanders ownership only won the “competition” for the right to develop the Belmont lands for an arena thus far?
Most media outlets seem to be reporting that the new Islanders arena will be ‘ready’ in 2021 (or maybe 2022). There is no design. There is no financing plan. There is no transport plan. No construction company has been hired.
Even as ‘formalities’ normally go in arena shakedowns, that’s quite a lot to gloss over isn’t it?
The Islanders do have a rendering of the arena and the area around it:
https://archpaper.com/2017/12/islanders-come-home-new-arena/#gallery-0-slide-6
Ownership hopes to complete the arena by the early 2020’s and the ownership plans to fund the construction. The 64K question is funding the transit infrastructure; I believe ownership believes Andrew will take care of that.
Neil, you may be losing the “arenas don’t stimulate economic development” argument. I went hiking with two down the line left-wing friends yesterday and they both credit the Kings & Lakers arena in LA as the catalyst for downtown’s revival. Guessing that the NYT article helped.
Sturgeon’s Law applies to left-wingers as much as to anybody else.