World Football Thread VIII - The beautiful game?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by DanS
And it doesn't look bad on TV. 20,000/32,000 wouldn't look bad.

Eh... that's 62.5% of the stadium full. There will definately be areas that look poor.

Anyway:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DC_United

Average attendance
regular season/playoffs

1996: 15,262/18,946
1997: 16,698/20,202
1998: 16,008/14,903
1999: 17,419/12,647
2000: 18,580/missed playoffs
2001: 21,518/missed playoffs
2002: 16,519/missed playoffs
2003: 15,565/15,202
2004: 17,232/18,842
2005: 16,664/20,089
2006: 17,441/ (As of May 13, 2006)
All-Time: 17,250

For playoffs the most they've gotten on average is 20,202. So why is it imperative to go to 32k when they have 27k planned?

As for growth, by the time you are worrying about a 32k stadium, it'll be time to build a new one. Besides, hockey teams in Detroit, Canada, etc., have a greater demand than seats available and it doesn't hurt them. Better to grow a little too slowly than reach too far. The extra 5k seating isn't going to be free after all.

[DanS]

I think people are at least slightly too sensitive regarding open seats. The problem at the beginning was that you had these 70,000 seat football stadiums with 10-15,000 fans. That looks really bad. 20,000 out of 32,000 doesn't look too bad. Baseball does worse than this ratio all the time and it's no big deal.

Hockey is a little different. They have lucrative TV contracts, for one. The MLS needs asses in seats in order to pay the bills.

Anyway, a 27,000 seat stadium would be good too. This is just a little tweak. I think DC United could put 32,000 seats to good use.

[lightblue]

Originally posted by duke o' york
Henry's resigned? So he is going to Barcelona after all then.

The fans turned against Rosicky in the past couple of seasons because Dortmund weren't doing that well, and he was seen as lacking in effort. He's so cheap because he has a £6.8m release clause in his contract, and Dortmund must need the money.

Makes you wonder why an 18M player has a 6.8M release clause, seems like silly contract business.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Ask Dallas how bad it looks . 20k/32k doesn't look that good on TV, and baseball doesn't have to worry about the perception. MLS doesn't want to seem like a league that hardly anyone cares about. They'd much rather promote a full stand, like you see in the Galaxy/Chivas USA derby. MLS needs ALL the good PR they can get, and they know that.

And you don't want to overextend yourself on a new stadium (it's not like they are pulling in the big bucks). If you feel that much expansion will happen in the next 10 years (I doubt it), then have plans that allow for stadium expansion like the Harrison stadium for Red Bull NY.

[DanS]

The stadium is being funded by the DC taxpayer as part of the plan to revitalize Anacostia. MLS isn't funding this. This is soccer's only bite at the apple for 3 or 4 decades.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Entirely by the DC taxpayers? I'd think they'd be interested in not overspending for the soccer specific stadium then. As in you are building a stadium that is over 10,000 seats of the 2005 average attendance, why in the world would they need 5,000 more, and who's going to pay for it?

Hell, if they can constantly sell out a 27,000 seat stadium, then they'll have enough cash to build a newer, bigger SSS in the future if they please. Or, they can trumpet how many sellouts they have to drum up interest on TV.

[duke o' york]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
. . . yeah, to sign swiss star alex frei, who has 23 goals in 42 caps from Stade Rennes and was last years goal scoring champ in the french ligue 1.

Do Rennes give out caps for games played for them?
I saw them beaten by PSG in 99, and they weren't all that.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

in 99, frei was playing for FC Thun.

[DanS]

Entirely by the DC taxpayers? I'd think they'd be interested in not overspending for the soccer specific stadium then.

Entirely by DC taxpayers (e.g., me). The considerations are vastly more complicated than you believe.

The soccer stadium will be built in the ghetto right across the new $400 million bridge from the new $700 million baseball palace. South Capitol Street is being changed from freeway to boulevard for lord knows how much money. Metrorail is spending on the order of $100 million for new station entrances to move many people very quickly. Billions of dollars are being spent by developers to put up mid-rise condos and the like.

The soccer stadium is intended to link Anacostia into all of that. It needs to be a first-rate facility of a comparable sort to the baseball palace and nobody's going to bat an eye about the $10 million difference or whatever for some more seats, if it fits in well with the plan.

[Imran Siddiqui]

And yet, they didn't ask for the extra 5k seats... perhaps it is because that's all they were willing to spend on it or perhaps because of the crowd on TV factor.

Or, as the Washington Post article says:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45646-2004Sep23.html/

D.C. United now plays in the 56,000-seat Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium and has been clamoring for a new playing field for more than two years. Across the country, Major League Soccer teams have been seeking new venues to replace giant stadiums originally built for football and other sports in hopes of increasing the value of their tickets and making fans feel less lonely in the stands.

Best to have 7k overflow from the average rather than 12k if part of the goal is to have to fans feel less lonely in the stands (ie, improve the atmosphere).

Furthermore, a 27k seat stadium would tie the Home Depot Center in LA for the biggest soccer specific stadiums in MLS (no other team is planning a stadium with more than 25k seating). And you know that LA probably could fill more if it wanted to... I'm guessing 25-27k is considered a cozy atmosphere for an MLS game.

[DanS]

That article's a couple years old. A lot has happened since then. At least get a recent one to support your point!

And anyway, DC United is in a different situation than LA. F.e., the Home Depot Center is in a suburban neighborhood, IIRC. DC United is in an urban setting and has and will have subway access. Also, DC United has rather steady fan support and a good game atmosphere, so it's not like many of the other teams.

[Imran Siddiqui]

How does an old article change the motivations for getting a new SSS?

And it doesn't matter that HDC is in the suburbs. It could fill more butts in the seats if they wanted to expand (their average attendance during the MLS' existance and the last few years is far higher than DC's). But they feel that 27,000 is perfect size to keep an intimacy to the crowd. Obviously that is the same thought process that DC United's front office is thinking. They don't want fans feeling "lonely in the stands". They want to build an atmosphere. If they thought they could get the same intimacy and not see a lot more empty seats on TV, then maybe they'd go for 32,000 seats. The fact they didn't speaks volumes.

Hell, Red Bull New York's brand new stadium will only be 25,000 seats. And even though they haven't done all that well in attendance lately, they still have a greater average over the MLS's existance than DC United.

[Colon™]

It's because you guys keep calling it soccer. People are going to American rugby games because they think that's football.

[DanS]

You both are ridiculously wrong, but for different reasons.

How does an old article change the motivations for getting a new SSS?

Well, I can't help but note that the preferred capacity quoted has crept up several thousand over the last several years...

[Imran Siddiqui]

They decided to match the HDC in size (probably just to say they matched them). That doesn't change the fact that the goal seems to be an intimate setting that 27k right now appears to be the high point for that.