Some days it’s hard to decide what to write about here. There’s always some kind of stadium and arena news burbling beneath the surface, depending on what you consider “news,” and if I tried to write about it all every day, it would leave me no time for anything else, not to mention nothing left over for the Friday roundup, and then where would we be on Fridays? So instead I scroll through the news feed and wonder, is it worth writing about this Guardian article about the Oklahoma City Thunder?
Oklahoma City Thunder are the team of the future. But where will they play?
OKC have a host of young stars who could help them challenge for the NBA title. The only problem may be finding a long-term home
I mean, it’s a dumb premise, to be sure: The Thunder have a bunch of good young players and a pile of draft picks, but they play in an arena that is (checks) 22 years old, and it’s “a bare bones building” or maybe “a bare-bones building” (the Grauniad‘s copy editors can’t seem to decide) according to (checks) the head of the local chamber of commerce, and so CRISIS! Rehash some numbers about how much other cities have spent on NBA arenas, discuss who would pay for one in Oklahoma City (checks: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯), and sum up by restating your premise (“So as fans look to a bright future for the Thunder, there remains a looming uncertainty over where the NBA’s potential next great team will actually play”), cut, that’s a wrap, time to file for your first freelance check in seven months, it’s a rough journalism market out there.
Or maybe the San Antonio Business Journal’s article about how the Spurs have one really good young player but are stuck playing in a non-downtown arena that is (checks) 21 years old thanks to “a lack of political consensus and a willingness to settle” and how there’s “increasing chatter” about a new downtown arena but no consensus or even a hint of a plan in how to pull that off” and architect Janet Marie Smith once said that getting development around a baseball stadium requires planning “to allow for that organic growth to happen” and what does this have to do with, you know what, never mind, just keep on going, there’s almost enough words here to make an article, just reach into your “conclusions” folder and pull out something like “It’s free advice that Alamo City leaders should certainly consider,” now hit publish, time to go see if there’s any breaking human resources news that is also your beat.
But maybe neither of those seems like quite enough for their own post? What, then, about D.C. councilmember Charles Allen’s cleverly contrarian op-ed “Yes, D.C. needs a stadium deal. But not at RFK“? Which turns out not to be, as the Washington Post’s headline writers seem to have thought it was, possibly without having read the whole thing, about how D.C. needs to build a Commanders stadium somewhere other than the RFK Stadium site, but rather about how what D.C. really needs isn’t a football stadium but a basketball/hockey arena to replace the one the Wizards and Capitals play in that is (checks) 25 years old and is “showing its age” in unspecified ways that don’t require spelling out in an op-ed. Anyway, if the teams moved to (checks) ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, “it would send the message that we’ve given up on the downtown of the nation’s capital: Who wants to open a new store or restaurant or convert a commercial property to apartments in an empty, destabilized Chinatown?” And nothing says “stabilizing” to D.C.’s Chinatown like a new or renovated arena!
On second thought, maybe none of these are worth writing about, or asking you to read about — is it really necessary to pay attention to every slow-news-day article that the nation’s remaining news outlets throw at the wall? On the other hand, if I write about this today, then if tomorrow’s another slow news day, I can punt on posting then and just skip straight to the Friday roundup and be done for the week. That’s free advice that I should certainly consider.
I’m not going to pay to read that, so I’m not sure what his idea was, but where else other than the RFK site in DC could the WFT’s stadium go?
I agree with him that, everything else being equal, the arena should stay where it is, but Ted Leonsis should pay for it.
The op-ed has nothing to do with an NFL stadium. The headline writers just either 1) didn’t realize that or 2) didn’t care.
Haha
Is there any real effort to replace the Rogers Centre with a true baseball only ballpark with a retractable roof? I imagine redeveloping the site of the Rogers Centre will be quite attractive to Rogers Communications.
I’m not sure Toronto really needs a retractable roof. Minnesota, Chicago and Boston get by without a retractable roof. Yeah, some games are snowed out in April, but they cope.
They’re not about to replace Rogers Centre barring a building collapse. Just yesterday Taylor Swift announced 6 dates at Rogers Centre in November 2024.
And yes, the roof will be closed for all 6 shows.
Taylor Swift isn’t a reason to keep it if the Blue Jays could make more money off of a new stadium.
They probably don’t ‘need’ one for spring snow and rain, no, but the July and August high humidity and heat make it beneficial.
Given how infrequently it is open (like many other retractable roof facilities) I wonder if a fixed roof isn’t more practical (though I don’t like fixed roof facilities as a fan).
John, Rogers is in the midst of a (self described) $300m upgrade plan for the former skydome. They did look at building a new stadium but ultimately decided on renovations (before they broke up the concrete infield to put in full dirt basepaths… as you might remember they had Vet/Three rivers style sliding pits around the bases before then).
I would guess that the idea of a new publicly funded (or even partially publicly funded) stadium for the Jays was put to elected officials and quickly abandoned.
I guess we can’t know what a future government might do for the Rogers family/company, but there seems little appetite for publicly funded stadia in Ontario at the moment.
* They are still ‘officially’ considering a longer term replacement we are told, but it’s hard to see that flying when they are spending the kind of money they are on the existing facility.
Hey, Neil, did you see this one?
https://news.yahoo.com/hard-stomach-wink-hartman-arena-131831873.html
Ha! I have now!
Of course the Wizards and Capitals need a new facility. It’s soooo old, there’s and actual dark room in the photographer’s work room.
In other news, they actually build a place for sports photographers to work, something more modern stadiums have been definitely doing less of.