Cascadia's Fields of Dreams

by Dave Clark on Dec 22, 2009 2:35 PM PST in Other Professional Soccer (non-Sound)

Stadium news from our Cascadian brothers today, as both the Whitecaps and Timbers have some announcements and renderings concerning their stadiums.

Up to the North we find out that the temporary facility looks better than many of the permanent stadiums down here. The Empire Fields site will be used for all of 2010, and part of 2011 as BC place goes through its major rennovation. At one point Garber was surprised by the need for a temporary stadium, but honestly if it is this good, it would be better than PizzaHut Park, Crew Stadium and puts it on class with BMO Field. Duane wonders, and I concur, why not just stay at the temporary site?

Down South, the Timbersfinally have some renderings with of their field. They will have seating at either 20,000 or 24,000 with improvements to nearly all aspects of the stadium. The nearly century old baseball stadium will bean adequete MLS stadium, and have better capacity than most MLS SSS. Notable is that they still mention that there will be 250 events there a year. How do they get to that without AAA baseball?

Lastly, note that in BOTH cases the playing surface will be one that is hated by most MLS fans - Field Turf. Considering that both sites will be used by more than just soccer, I prefer good Turf over situations like we saw in Houston.

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the obvious reason not to stay

…is Empire is not downtown. BC Place is.

The renderings for BC Place can be found here: http://www.whitecapsfc.com/stadium/bcplace/renderings/

It also gives the Whitecaps the option to expand seating, like the Sounders at Qwest.

by PeterJH on Dec 22, 2009 4:03 PM PST reply actions

but not revenue control

Which is a big deal. Revenue control is how Dallas is profitable despite their attendence.

I am not a Supporter
I am not a Fan
I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart

by Dave Clark on Dec 22, 2009 4:25 PM PST up reply actions

how are the Sounders profitable?

What revenue control would there be at Empire?

I think it makes more sense to compare Vancouver with us than Dallas. Vancouver is going to be a very cool addition to this league with big attendance numbers, I have no doubt about that. We’re looking at a team that has direct ties to it’s original NASL name-sake (look no further than team President Bobby Lenarduzzi for that lineage), that has done nothing but win throughout its history, within a city that can legitimately claim to be Canada’s soccer capital (with all due respect to Toronto and Montreal).

Also, it’s a stretch to say the temporary stadium is on par with BMO (which is in downtown Toronto). A Canadian field is 110 yards long, with 20 yard end-zones, or 150 yards in total. This is the reason the CFL rejected the Argos attempt to move into BMO, to the great relief of TFC. BMO didn’t have the length for a CFL game. In Empire, unlike BMO, the fans sitting in the end stands will end up being some distance from the field of play for soccer matches.

by PeterJH on Dec 22, 2009 4:45 PM PST up reply actions

Sounders ownership has revenue control over the stadium

for all uses.

I am not a Supporter
I am not a Fan
I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart

by Dave Clark on Dec 22, 2009 5:29 PM PST up reply actions

are you sure?

Joe Roth, Adrian Hanauer and Drew Carey are making money off Seahawks’ games???

http://www.stadium.org/

Maybe I’m misunderstanding what you mean by revenue control.

by PeterJH on Dec 22, 2009 5:39 PM PST reply actions

Vulcan owns 25% of Sounders

I am not a Supporter
I am not a Fan
I am a Sounder
Sounder At Heart

by Dave Clark on Dec 22, 2009 5:52 PM PST up reply actions

I guess this is all fine and dandy

and we could get into the details of the ownership and revenue structure of Qwest…but the temporary stadium for the Whitecaps and Lions is being built and run by the same publicly-owned corporation that owns BC Place. So none of this is really an argument for the Whitecaps to stay in the temporary stadium.

by PeterJH on Dec 22, 2009 6:29 PM PST reply actions