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    Default Atlanta Awarded Next Expansion Team

    http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/t...on-market.html

    http://www.ajc.com/news/sports/pro-s...atlanta/nfSzm/

    Another turf field non-soccer specific stadium shared with an NFL team. Lowered roof will help with sound but this is going to take some work to develop.

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    Don't know if I like the sounds of the way things are going. They might be moving to fast.

    First how many teams does MLS plan to have?

    Another issue is are they jumping to early into markets that do not have proper stadium plans for a MLS size stadium? Yes Seattle has done well in the Seahwaks stadium, they have sold over 35k a year. Vancouver has done well by selling out the bottom deck of BC Place and hiding the upper deck. This does not mean it will continue to work forever tho. There was loads of NFL stadiums that looked bad in MLS and we have finally got rid of most of them. Yet we seem to be bringing them back? Not many teams can sell more then 17k-23k range. Atlanta stadium could easily look like shit if the stadium isn't full. New England stadium perfect example of nice stadium, but it looks ugly for soccer, and it needs to go. And New York also just got a new team, but seem to have no solid ground of where they might play. They have had some issues getting to build a stadium in Queens right in the area where the Mets play. They are now also looking to play next to Yankee stadium instead if they can use City park space, something that may also have major issues. They currently look like they will play at Yankee stadium for the first few years (and maybe longer if they ever get space in NYC to build the dam stadium, New York has very limited space, and Mets and Yankee stadium areas are probably the only options they have).

    Im just getting a little worried with some of these new stadiums, maybe they should slow down and only grant cities a team that have future plans to get a stadium built for MLS size. Atlanta has shown in other sports a tough market to sell tickets, and I don't like the idea of MLS teams going back into NFL stadium markets with no plans to move out in the future.
    Last edited by james; 04-07-2014 at 02:59 PM.

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    silliness!

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    Stadium is too big, Field turf is shit... another non soccer stadium being brought into the league.

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    No issues with the rapid growth rate of the league, as the demographics in the USA can support it. The admission of non soccer specific stadia however is another story, and could be detrimental to the longevity of those franchises.

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    Remember when the Don stated that he wanted all teams in Soccer Specific Stadiums...?

    They've just tossed that out the window...

    Field turf, bed sheets hiding empty seats, NFL lines on pitches = BUSH LEAGUE!

    Carts...
    "...Money wasn't tight, but it like, it wasn't right..."


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    Quote Originally Posted by ManUtd4ever View Post
    No issues with the rapid growth rate of the league, as the demographics in the USA can support it. The admission of non soccer specific stadia however is another story, and could be detrimental to the longevity of those franchises.
    In the USA, yes, but I'm not sure about Atlanta. The city has lost 2 NHL teams, 2 NASL teams, and the Braves are moving to the suburbs in a few years. Their MLB/NHL/NFL/NBA teams have 1 championship out of over 150 combined seasons.
    Good luck to anybody that want to spend their money putting a franchise there.

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    Seeing more board room thinking than game day thinking behind a lot of these current moves by MLS.

    Personally I think a team can work almost anywhere if you do it right. But there's not much of this Atlanta stuff coming down in a way that I would say is a product of "doing it right."

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    Quote Originally Posted by jaahuuu View Post
    In the USA, yes, but I'm not sure about Atlanta. The city has lost 2 NHL teams, 2 NASL teams, and the Braves are moving to the suburbs in a few years. Their MLB/NHL/NFL/NBA teams have 1 championship out of over 150 combined seasons.
    Good luck to anybody that want to spend their money putting a franchise there.
    I think every single team Atlanta has had a rather hard time selling tickets in one way or another over the passed decade. All it seems to take is a losing season and attendance drops poorly. That said it doesn't mean a soccer team won't do well, but I think if you take a gamble like this, playing in a massive NFL stadium in a city like Atlanta you should make sure they at least got a Specific size soccer stadium in the plans. In that case if you have a 20k stadium even if they draw around 15k fans it still does not look that bad. Now having 15k fans in a 60-70,000 seat stadium it will bring MLS back into the bush league status.

    I think any team in the south is a gamble, and none of them should get a team without a MLS size stadium. Atlanta is not Seattle, and there stadium will not be like BC Place where the whitecaps play, and they are not like New York City, a city that is at least hoping to get some deal done to build a new stadium in a city where if they get it built the rewards for the league will mostly likely be huge in a market that size. I think this will be a fail if they go for Atlanta in this NFL stadium.
    Last edited by james; 04-07-2014 at 03:40 PM.

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    Blame Vancouver and Seattle for getting MLS FO thinking reduced configuration in a football stadium can work (and TBF, there is a case that this might work elsewhere)
    “Years have gone by and I’ve finally learned to accept myself for who I am: a beggar for good football.

    I go about the world, hand outstretched, and in the stadiums I plead: ‘A pretty move, for the love of God.’

    And when good football happens, I give thanks for the miracle and I don’t give a damn which team or country performs it.”

    -Eduardo Galeano

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    Quote Originally Posted by Yohan View Post
    Blame Vancouver and Seattle for getting MLS FO thinking reduced configuration in a football stadium can work (and TBF, there is a case that this might work elsewhere)
    It's more than that. Location is becoming the key element.

    SSSs are failures all over the league, they wind up deep in the suburbs (Dallas, Denver, Columbus, Chicago, even LA and NY have been pretty tough in terms of attendance). The only real SSS successes are at SKC and here at BMO, both of which are pretty central.

    You need to be in the center city, which in bigger MSAs means multi-use, because the real estate is just too valuable to sit unused a lot.
    “What the world needs is more geniuses with humility; there are so few of us left.”

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    I see this as a continuing trend, similar to what's going to happen to BMO. Businesses want to maximize the utilization of their assets. You will have better profit margins by combining two sports into one facility than building two facilities, one for each sport. Who cares about esthetics? The best Atlanta supporters can hope for is that they go the Hybrid Grass route with double the number of synthetic fibres per inch.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Yohan View Post
    Blame Vancouver and Seattle for getting MLS FO thinking reduced configuration in a football stadium can work (and TBF, there is a case that this might work elsewhere)
    If I remember correctly, the Whitecaps wanted to build a downtown SSS paid for out of their own pockets and not the taxpayers. But the city wouldn't give them the land for the stadium so they ended up settling for a refurbished BC Place with the CFL Lions.

    But yeah, MLS teams need their own stadiums, and not some shared facility with a pro football team. Seattle shouldn't have gotten theirs without one, but they lucked out with the crowds they've drawn there. Atlanta is no Seattle, by any stretch. Trying to sell soccer tickets in a stadium designed first for an NFL team in a city with a horrendous reputation as a sports town is going to prove embarassing in the long run.
    TORONTO FC, 2017 MLS CHAMPIONS!!! (Still the greatest in league history!)

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    I don't think Arthur Blank is a stupid billionaire, and he's not paying 70mil expansion fee (or more) and lobbied 6+ yrs (if stories are true) for an MLS expansion team.

    Every city is different, and depends on marketing, organic supporters movement, any city can support an MLS franchise. (apparently 220+ paid members in Terminus Legion already) And Atlanta has 3 years to get ready for MLS.

    I'm taking a wait and see look.
    “Years have gone by and I’ve finally learned to accept myself for who I am: a beggar for good football.

    I go about the world, hand outstretched, and in the stadiums I plead: ‘A pretty move, for the love of God.’

    And when good football happens, I give thanks for the miracle and I don’t give a damn which team or country performs it.”

    -Eduardo Galeano

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    Frank Blake is 71 and far from stupid. But I just read this and kinda wonder:

    "Blank said he met his girlfriend, Angela Macuga, when their sons were playing on the same soccer team.

    “It’s a love rooted in soccer,” Blank said.

    In early February, Blank and Macuga became engaged — two years after their first date."

    In 10 years, when the team has been around for 7, and he's into his 80's, who's going to have a passion for that franchise to succeed? One of his 6 kids from his other marriages?

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    I'm actually excited to see Atlanta getting a MLS team I was rooting for then vs a 3rd Cali or Texas team... Not stoked on the half empty looking field or the turf at all, although it they can do what the caps are doing and do a hybrid type grass and no lines I think it'll work. They have to put the silverbacks in there rebrand potentially

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    It looks like they will be doing what B.C. Place does for the Caps in the new Atlanta stadium giving the stadium a more intimate feel to it for Atlanta MLS games which will be fine as long as they fill most of the seats available for soccer, however, I hope they install a form of natural grass and not a pure artificial turf. Furthermore, we need to add Real Salt lake's SSS and Philadelphia's SSS to successful SSS stadiums and Montreal's SSS too.

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    Quote Originally Posted by ensco View Post
    It's more than that. Location is becoming the key element.

    SSSs are failures all over the league, they wind up deep in the suburbs (Dallas, Denver, Columbus, Chicago, even LA and NY have been pretty tough in terms of attendance). The only real SSS successes are at SKC and here at BMO, both of which are pretty central.

    You need to be in the center city, which in bigger MSAs means multi-use, because the real estate is just too valuable to sit unused a lot.
    I just checked on google map because I was curious where the Sporting park in Kansas is....it is nothing like BMO field. It is way out of downtown kansas city. It looks like its not even in Kansas City, it gets really rural in that area. If that was Toronto it probably wouldn
    t be in city limits, Kansas City just happens to include massive land area of 826 sq. km, compared to Toronto 630 sq km.

    There are other inner city SSS's tho. You also have Houston in downtown, and Montreal rather near downtown Montreal on the subway line. And then there is Portland, it wasn't originally built for soccer, but it was renovated for soccer, and it to is downtown. Vancouver, Seattle and DC United being downtown but they were never originally built for soccer. Columbus not in the downtown core, but are within city limits, probably not to different then Kansas City, maybe even closer then that. You are right tho all the other teams are not really in cities, Dallas being probably the furthest out, way out of Dallas, way in bum town no where. New England probably just behind that.

    That said in some cases in USA cities there is more life in the suburbs then in inner cities. There is a lot of cities in USA that are in major decline, lots of boarded up buildings and the inner cities can be rather ghost towns and no go areas after dark. I don't know to much about Atlanta, so not sure what its downtown core is like, but I know there is some really bad areas in the city you wouldn't want to go. How close to the downtown that is I don't really know. But point is some USA cities are better off in the suburbs, in Canada though you for sure would want a team smack dab in the downtown core.
    Last edited by james; 04-08-2014 at 12:34 AM.

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    Atlanta was always a potential market in the running for an MLS franchise for several years now, so I'm not in the least bit shocked with this news. That said, I think I share a bit of the disappointment in the fact that there are no plans as of yet to build a soccer-specific facility for the future club. It's crazy how an SSS used to be a very unflexing stipulation that the league had mandated for new franchises, but I guess all it took was Seattle to dictate their terms to Garber and the league board and now here we are.

    It's actually not that big of a letdown though, as the new Atlanta stadium they're building in 2015 was designed with soccer in mind and I'd imagine a hybrid turf for the playing surface is a possibility.

    Deadspin Reports: Atlanta Is Up Next For An MLS Team

    Aside from that, Atlanta is a very appealing market for soccer. The Silverbacks get respectable crowds for the NASL and the whole Atlanta/Northern Georgia area has a population of about 5.5 million. Compare that to Salt Lake City which has a local population of just over a million or Denver/Commerce City which has about 2.5 million people.

    By the way, I've seen a couple crests ideas some people have created which look pretty cool. This one in particular sticks out the most in my mind:

    Did the USA , of all countries, just fix soccer? - C. Ronaldo, May 27th commenting on the FBI-led investigations into fraud and corruption throughout FIFA.

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    Atlanta is maybe the worst Sports town in the USA all there franchises have always had trouble with attendance hell they have lost 2 NHL clubs the Braves are leaving for the Burbs and the Hawks are drawing flies I cannot see MLS working. there has to be way better Markets out there like St Louis, San Antonio, San Diego and Minneapolis.

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    Quote Originally Posted by james View Post
    I just checked on google map because I was curious where the Sporting park in Kansas is....it is nothing like BMO field. It is way out of downtown kansas city. It looks like its not even in Kansas City, it gets really rural in that area. If that was Toronto it probably wouldn
    t be in city limits, Kansas City just happens to include massive land area of 826 sq. km, compared to Toronto 630 sq km.

    There are other inner city SSS's tho. You also have Houston in downtown, and Montreal rather near downtown Montreal on the subway line. And then there is Portland, it wasn't originally built for soccer, but it was renovated for soccer, and it to is downtown. Vancouver, Seattle and DC United being downtown but they were never originally built for soccer. Columbus not in the downtown core, but are within city limits, probably not to different then Kansas City, maybe even closer then that. You are right tho all the other teams are not really in cities, Dallas being probably the furthest out, way out of Dallas, way in bum town no where. New England probably just behind that.

    That said in some cases in USA cities there is more life in the suburbs then in inner cities. There is a lot of cities in USA that are in major decline, lots of boarded up buildings and the inner cities can be rather ghost towns and no go areas after dark. I don't know to much about Atlanta, so not sure what its downtown core is like, but I know there is some really bad areas in the city you wouldn't want to go. How close to the downtown that is I don't really know. But point is some USA cities are better off in the suburbs, in Canada though you for sure would want a team smack dab in the downtown core.

    If I am not mistaken I think Sporting Park is Located just across the road form the Speedway in Kansas City Kansas

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    Quote Originally Posted by GuelphStorm2007 View Post
    Atlanta is maybe the worst Sports town in the USA all there franchises have always had trouble with attendance hell they have lost 2 NHL clubs the Braves are leaving for the Burbs and the Hawks are drawing flies I cannot see MLS working. there has to be way better Markets out there like St Louis, San Antonio, San Diego and Minneapolis.
    The Flacons get pretty good numbers, though. Last year they saw crowds of just over 70,000 which is higher than the league's average. The Braves get above league average attendance as well (31,000). I think it's really just their indoor teams that have failed to draw big crowds.

    Quote Originally Posted by GuelphStorm2007 View Post
    If I am not mistaken I think Sporting Park is Located just across the road form the Speedway in Kansas City Kansas
    Yeah, Sporting Park is on KC's periphery, but anyone who's visited knows that the whole area is given over to recreational uses. Like you said, there's the Speedway; but there's also the KC Legends Centre which is a MASSIVE shopping and entertainment complex. It's got an metric assload of bars and restaurants, as well as a theatre, arcade, and a few clubs as well. For being relatively far from KC's downtown the place does get a lot of traffic. And that probably helps explain why KC does get above average attendance for MLS as well.
    Did the USA , of all countries, just fix soccer? - C. Ronaldo, May 27th commenting on the FBI-led investigations into fraud and corruption throughout FIFA.

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    Quote Originally Posted by james View Post
    I just checked on google map because I was curious where the Sporting park in Kansas is....it is nothing like BMO field. It is way out of downtown kansas city. It looks like its not even in Kansas City, it gets really rural in that area. If that was Toronto it probably wouldn
    t be in city limits, Kansas City just happens to include massive land area of 826 sq. km, compared to Toronto 630 sq km.
    Sorry but this is lame.

    Google maps is not the way to understand how people perceive the geographies of American cities. The center of gravity has nothing to do with the historic downtowns.
    “What the world needs is more geniuses with humility; there are so few of us left.”

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    Quote Originally Posted by GuelphStorm2007 View Post
    Atlanta is maybe the worst Sports town in the USA all there franchises have always had trouble with attendance hell they have lost 2 NHL clubs the Braves are leaving for the Burbs and the Hawks are drawing flies I cannot see MLS working. there has to be way better Markets out there like St Louis, San Antonio, San Diego and Minneapolis.
    100% Agreed...Atlanta always has been as TERRIBLE sports city...Even the NFL drew HORRIBLE crowds when the team was bad

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    Quote Originally Posted by ensco View Post
    Sorry but this is lame.

    Google maps is not the way to understand how people perceive the geographies of American cities. The center of gravity has nothing to do with the historic downtowns.
    but it is how so many north american cities have so much sprawl. Atlanta has the most sprawl out of all north american cities from what i remember.

    However, this is not the best way to determine if a sports team will succeed
    Last edited by C.Ronaldo; 04-08-2014 at 09:38 AM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by C.Ronaldo View Post
    but it is how so many american cities have so much sprawl
    There are a long list of reasons. Love of the car, race politics, decades of pandering to real estate and development interests, lack of awareness of value of neighbourhoods.

    This book is as good a place as any to start.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dea...merican_Cities
    “What the world needs is more geniuses with humility; there are so few of us left.”

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    Quote Originally Posted by GuelphStorm2007 View Post
    Atlanta is maybe the worst Sports town in the USA all there franchises have always had trouble with attendance hell they have lost 2 NHL clubs the Braves are leaving for the Burbs and the Hawks are drawing flies I cannot see MLS working. there has to be way better Markets out there like St Louis, San Antonio, San Diego and Minneapolis.
    San Antonio would be the best away trip possible

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    Quote Originally Posted by ensco View Post
    Sorry but this is lame.

    Google maps is not the way to understand how people perceive the geographies of American cities. The center of gravity has nothing to do with the historic downtowns.

    um what the hell are you talking about, lol. Point is it is not in Kansas City downtown. It is not like BMO field closeness to center of Toronto.

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    Quote Originally Posted by C.Ronaldo View Post
    but it is how so many north american cities have so much sprawl. Atlanta has the most sprawl out of all north american cities from what i remember.

    However, this is not the best way to determine if a sports team will succeed
    Yeah you are right there. So many cities in USA are actually not that big. There is many factors to look into when moving a team into a location, but sprawl could have some effects. Some cities appear on paper to be these major massive cities, but really they aren't quite so big. Sometimes populations are including massive land areas of rural and suburbs as still city or metro populations, but they can be hours away. Some people would drive far distances to a game, but majority of your regular fan base with season tickets exc. will most likely come from closer distances to the stadium, and the population within the closeness to the stadium may be a lot smaller then the overall population may look like.
    Last edited by james; 04-08-2014 at 10:45 AM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by james View Post
    um what the hell are you talking about, lol. Point is it is not in Kansas City downtown. It is not like BMO field closeness to center of Toronto.
    It's not the right point. Question is whether an SSS works if it isn't easy for lots of people to get to. Sometimes that's "downtown", but in many US cities it isn't.
    “What the world needs is more geniuses with humility; there are so few of us left.”

 

 

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