Stadium Discussion

[Seth]

Green line: 30,000
Red line: 25,000

Note that all three years there's been that dip in March and April. It's just too cold up here that time of year would be my guess.

 

[adam]

Green line: 30,000
Red line: 25,000

Note that all three years there's been that dip in March and April. It's just too cold up here that time of year would be my guess.

Retractable roof fixes that problem.

 

[Gotham Gator]

Retractable roof fixes that problem.

Covered seating goes a long way too.

 

[Jon]

Retractable roof fixes that problem.

I don't like the direction that bar graph is going...

 

[FredMertz]

I think the decline could be a function of clearing out speculators who either bought extra season tickets the first or second year and bailed for year 3 after a softer market last year.

Same exact thing happened at the new Yankee stadium after its second season.

 

[Jon]

I think the decline could be a function of clearing out speculators who either bought extra season tickets the first or second year and bailed for year 3 after a softer market last year.

Same exact thing happened at the new Yankee stadium after its second season.

Good point. I dropped my Yankees Saturday plan on the new stadium after the 2011 season. The market was so oversaturated that I couldn't even give tickets away for free to games I couldn't attend.

Same holds true for NYCFC. Supply is high and demand is low so it's difficult to resell tickets for games you can't attend. As a season ticket holder you want to feel like purchasing a while seasons worth of tickets gives you the best price but you can get tickets day of game for pennies on the dollar.

I'd love to hear people's thoughts on closing more sections of the main level off to lower seating capacity.

 

[Seth]

I don't like the direction that bar graph is going...

I meant it when I mentioned the cold weather for the first two months (especially this year). If you look at all three years they go from lower to higher each year as the season progresses. Can't know how this year will go of course but if we're still doing as well at the end of the season as we are now I'd think the right hand edge of the chart will be trending nicely upwards.

Retractable roof fixes that problem.

I like that idea personally but how many years will it take to pay off that investment? Let's say we get an extra 5,000 per game (and I think that might be generous). That's 20,000 or maybe 25,000 extra people added to the season attendance. Those people are going to have to buy a lot of additional chicken buckets to pay for the cost of a moving roof. I'm all for it but it just sounds pretty expensive. Also, just out of curiosity do any soccer stadiums anywhere have them? I can't ever recall seeing one on a soccer specific stadium.

 

[adam]

I meant it when I mentioned the cold weather for the first two months (especially this year). If you look at all three years they go from lower to higher each year as the season progresses. Can't know how this year will go of course but if we're still doing as well at the end of the season as we are now I'd think the right hand edge of the chart will be trending nicely upwards.

I like that idea personally but how many years will it take to pay off that investment? Let's say we get an extra 5,000 per game (and I think that might be generous). That's 20,000 or maybe 25,000 extra people added to the season attendance. Those people are going to have to buy a lot of additional chicken buckets to pay for the cost of a moving roof. I'm all for it but it just sounds pretty expensive. Also, just out of curiosity do any soccer stadiums anywhere have them? I can't ever recall seeing one on a soccer specific stadium.

Atlanta. But not SSS. Did they do it in Brazil?

 

[snugglefarts]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_covered_stadiums_by_capacity#Current_stadiums

From this I found a few soccer specific stadiums with retractable roofs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Stadium

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parken_Stadium

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GelreDome

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arena_da_Baixada

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esprit_Arena

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veltins-Arena

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Stadium,_Warsaw

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krestovsky_Stadium

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stade_Pierre-Mauroy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amsterdam_Arena

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friends_Arena

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nantong_Stadium

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordos_Stadium

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noevir_Stadium_Kobe

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commerzbank-Arena

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arena_Națională

I have too much time on my hands.

(Some of those aren't technically soccer specific but are used mainly for soccer)

 

[Statler]

so yesterday having walked a good distance along the newton creek after parking a mile away from the waterfront for the fireworks, I am still in love with the idea of the stadium going there on borden ave. The only downside I can say is holy shit can that creek smell bad at times. I recall someone saying sometimes at rb arena when the wind blew it stunk.; I can see the same thing happening here. There was an article i read (i cant find it to link unfortunately) about nyc polluted creeks (gawanus, newton, ect.) and it had in info graphic attached about how much raw sewage gets dumped into these canals, yuk. It mentioned a guy, who in a stunt to shed light on how much sewage was still going into these canals, swam the length of the gawanus and he was like i was swimming along trying my hardest not to swallow any water whilst pushing aside floating turds (my words obviously, he was more eloquent).

Preach. It is the best spot outside of Manhattan, hands down. Hope it's still a possibility.

 

[SanBartG]

Preach. It is the best spot outside of Manhattan, hands down. Hope it's still a possibility.

Can someone educate the non-new Yorker where this is?

 

[snugglefarts]

Can someone educate the non-new Yorker where this is?

It's right here.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/7...f036a6f6e93a04!8m2!3d40.7397816!4d-73.9472081

 

[Gotham Gator]

I still like the approach at the indoor stadium in Glendale, AZ, where the field rolls outside to grow and back inside for play. Of course, a stadium with a roof will kill any ability to expand.

 

[Fantazma]

Preach. It is the best spot outside of Manhattan, hands down. Hope it's still a possibility.

i thought area was too small for a stadium

 

[Christopher Jee]

i thought area was too small for a stadium

It's basically the Fresh direct site right? From memory we needed to buy up some land around it and maybe move a road.

 

[NickFromAstoria]

It's basically the Fresh direct site right? From memory we needed to buy up some land around it and maybe move a road.

Or a still somewhat used rail line to the south.

 

[sbrylski]

i thought area was too small for a stadium

Either need to move the tracks along the river, or buy the air rights and build over them. If I recall correctly, the tracks themselves are basically not in use right now, so it's plausible. But FreshDirect's lease lasts until like 2020 or something, so nothing will happen soon there, if they're even considering it.

Another challenge with the site is station capacity. The Hunters Point Station is tiny and barely used. Vernon-Jackson is slightly bigger, but only has three turnstiles at each of it's two exits, I think. So it would probably take a rebuild of Hunters Point Station and a redo of the janky footbridge that would take you from the station, under the highway, to the site.

Top three plausible stadium locations are definitely GAL, Willets, and Fresh Direct though.

 

[Seth]

i thought area was too small for a stadium

It's basically the Fresh direct site right? From memory we needed to buy up some land around it and maybe move a road.

Page 232:
http://nycfcforums.com/index.php?threads/stadium-discussion.21/page-232#post-129673

 

[Statler]

Or a still somewhat used rail line to the south.

It's basically about re-routing the rail line (which has long since been discontinued for passenger rail), and there is actually space to re-route given the creek. Also possible the tracks could be abandoned as the LIRR has no plans that I've seen (other than posturing) to resurrect the Lower Montauk branch. When the line was closed (20 years ago), it had a ridership of like 7 people.

http://www.nytimes.com/1998/03/15/nyregion/end-of-the-line-for-lirr-s-10-loneliest-stops.html

ETA: Apparently they still run an ~ once-per-weekday train from Jamaica to LIC over these tracks, but given that you could go between those two stations on the main line, there's no reason they would need to. All the other stations on the line have been abandoned.

 

[NickFromAstoria]

It's basically about re-routing the rail line (which has long since been discontinued for passenger rail), and there is actually space to re-route given the creek. Also possible the tracks could be abandoned as the LIRR has no plans that I've seen (other than posturing) to resurrect the Lower Montauk branch. When the line was closed (20 years ago), it had a ridership of like 7 people.

http://www.nytimes.com/1998/03/15/nyregion/end-of-the-line-for-lirr-s-10-loneliest-stops.html

ETA: Apparently they still run an ~ once-per-weekday train from Jamaica to LIC over these tracks, but given that you could go between those two stations on the main line, there's no reason they would need to. All the other stations on the line have been abandoned.

You could reroute or just bury the tracks underground, but that would probably add significant cost to the project. And the LIRR might not have plans to reactivate them at any point in the near future, but at least one Council Member from the area wants to see them reactivated as a light rail line - and they get the final say on land use decisions for the site.*

*Note that it wasn't actually Jimmy Van Bramer, who represents the actual site, who said that the line should be reactivated - but it seems likely he wouldn't want the option permanently foreclosed, especially if developers are going to start looking at that area more.