Thursday, February 14, 2008

Finally

We've got our 27,000-seat soccer mecca out here in L.A., and now the nation's capital will have its own 27,000-seater as well.

It looks as if D.C. United will finally get the soccer-specific stadium it so desperately needs. Makes sense too, to have one of the league's best franchises in its own stadium. I mean, how the Rapids have a nice place but D.C. has to play in a fossil of a stadium is strange.

I've never been to RFK Stadium, and while it looks decent in some parts watching it from television, I don't think it will be missed. I heard the press box there smells like cheeseburgers and french fries, since it's situated above some concession stands, or something to the effect.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that when the stadium is built - and I'm not sure there is a timeline yet - that the MLS Cup will be played there as well as the All-Star game within a year of opening.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/14/AR2008021401819.html?hpid=moreheadlines

Anonymous said...

who cares what the press box smells like?

The Hammer said...

Seems a little bit shortsighted in my opinion. If I'm sitting in DCU's offices, I'm thinking, we're the 2nd highest attendance in the league at +20k. We closed off the year with 3 +23k attendances. Add to that the natural attendance spike from a new stadium [couple with the team's historical consistency] and the 2 or 3 years we have to roll up our sleeves and do marketing work like nobody's business before it opens, and I'm sure if you put 30k seats in that place, you can sell them.

One last thing... the stadium design is nice, but I really wish they'd start thinking about their fans. Are their supporters going to have to move to an end-line?

I love the HDC, and some of the new venues are nice, but somebody's gotta start thinking out of the box here. do away with the traditional bowl approach. Who wants to try an oval stadium? What about a boxy stadium?

Creativity, baby. Creativity.

EdTheRed said...

You've never been to RFK? Typical West Coast media bias... ;-)