Stadium/Arena Saga Omnibus

[FrutigerAero]

5 hours ago, Digby said:

 

Vermont is number one on this list, which is a searingly obvious tell that the methodology is too flawed to take seriously.

 

Real numbers say SLC's public transit usage is pretty anemic. Not really out of the ordinary for American cities but I'm not seeing this as a special selling point necessarily.

My comment was unclear but I was saying the public transportation is pretty serviceable, and the traffic in the metro is pretty good, all of which is evidenced by their #5 ranking in the "transportation" (both public and private) category.

 

 

Here is an interesting image from the New York Times.  Interactive version here.  It is 10 years old but I'd guess things are mostly the same, probably with the Astros and Dodgers having grown their territorial strength due to having lots of success the past decade.

 

Takeaways:

-Yankees are basically the default popular team everywhere, especially along the entire eastern seaboard.  They are probably numerically maybe the most popular team in Florida which explains why the Rays basically function as FenYank park south.

 

-The Braves basically own the south.  There are holes in Charlotte and Nashville but you're basically still in Braves country.  This makes me wonder if Raliegh is actually the better long-term option for relocation/expansion, all things being equal. 

 

-New Orleans is up for grabs too.

 

-Vegas is a Dodger stronghold.  From an attendance standpoint you want the A's to be in the NL west to get those Dodger ticket sales.

 

-Utah is a state of free agents, as they don't root for any of the "local" teams.

 

-Mariners have a pretty strong reach into Portland.  I still think a team could do well there but I think you'd want them to be rivals to the Mariners?  Or maybe not.

 

-unfortunately, no map of Canada, It would be interesting to see Montreal.

 

By the criteria *of this map only* here is how I would rank expansion/relocation options:

-Raleigh

-Charlotte

-Salt Lake City

-NOLA

-Nashville

-Las Vegas (actually going to happen)

-Portland

 

[The_Admiral]

1 hour ago, FrutigerAero said:

-The Braves basically own the south.  There are holes in Charlotte and Nashville but you're basically still in Braves country.  This makes me wonder if Raliegh is actually the better long-term option for relocation/expansion, all things being equal. 

 

I could be wrong, but the vibe I get, at least from the Venn diagram of New York transplants and haughty Hurricanes fans, is that Raleigh is starting to see itself as the southernmost point of the Northeast whereas Charlotte is much more firmly in the South. I think they're wrong, of course, but I can see their ill-founded argument for breaking out of Braves Country. 

 

I still don't see expansion or relocation anywhere on this map. One team is trying to relocate and it's not even working. There are no good options.

 

Also, I need to find that article I read years ago about how the MARTA lines were all designed to be the biggest failure possible. Well, in the meantime, enjoy this ridiculous video.

[FiddySicks]

7 hours ago, The_Admiral said:

There are six actual transit cities in America: New York, Chicago, DC, Boston, San Francisco, Philadelphia.  A seventh, Los Angeles, has deceptively high ridership numbers but would never cross anyone's mind as a transit-oriented city. Everything else is just "we actually have a surprisingly good light rail system." That goes for Atlanta, St. Louis, Dallas, Minneapolis, Denver, Miami, Seattle, apparently now Milwaukee for some reason, and yes, Salt Lake City. 

Considering the heavy car influence from the behemoth to the west, I would probably put Phoenix in the second category, too. 

[Digby]

Every American transit system outside of New York is very hub-and-spoke though, no? 
 

To LA’s credit, they are building out their transit system right now at a scale that I didn’t think was possible in post-1970s America. At least that’s how it looks to me. Though things don’t connect the way they should. I was almost excited for a train to LAX option.

[The_Admiral]

16 minutes ago, FiddySicks said:

Considering the heavy car influence from the behemoth to the west, I would probably put Phoenix in the second category, too. 

 

I didn't even think Phoenix could have a light rail without someone shooting it and yelling "GET OFF MY PROPERTY"

[LMU]

12 minutes ago, The_Admiral said:

 

I didn't even think Phoenix could have a light rail without someone shooting it and yelling "GET OFF MY PROPERTY"

I mean, the one time I was on the Phoenix light rail the guy next to me had an ankle monitor so you're not that far off.

[The_Admiral]

35 minutes ago, Digby said:

Every American transit system outside of New York is very hub-and-spoke though, no? 

 

Marta is more of a big X, and I'm not sure what you'd call the Metro. Chicago has pretty much every railroad converging upon one square mile, and every plan to come up with a line that doesn't pretty much dies on the vine.

[LaGrandeOrange]

10 hours ago, FrutigerAero said:

 

-unfortunately, no map of Canada, It would be interesting to see Montreal.

 

The Jays are on national tv here and those who continue to follow the sport tend to have converted to them, although I'd say for the most part it's hanging on by a thread as a spectator sport. Of course, my experience is not the median.

 

edit: I'd add that if you were concerned about a potential "rivalry" that's really more of a Leafs/TFC thing, the Jays were never a traditional rivalry since they were never good simultaneously during interleague play, and we don't have that much hostility towards Toronto sports otherwise- the Raptors are pretty popular around here.

[FiddySicks]

9 hours ago, The_Admiral said:

 

I didn't even think Phoenix could have a light rail without someone shooting it and yelling "GET OFF MY PROPERTY"

I once had a geriatric psycho yell at me that I was a “:censored:ing thief” because I was using light rail as a student, and apparently that meant I wasn’t paying as high of a tax rate as him (which is such goddamn bull:censored: it’s really hard to wrap your head around). Then when I told him to mind his own business, his frail little wife flipped out on me for “disrespecting my elders”. Phoenix is great. 
 

9 hours ago, LMU said:

I mean, the one time I was on the Phoenix light rail the guy next to me had an ankle monitor so you're not that far off.

There are pretty much constant fights on Phoenix light rail because the handicap seats are all taken up by some lush who’s passed out and drooling. 
 

 

 

All that being said, it’s a great system. Cheap, too. 

[The_Admiral]

Just now, FiddySicks said:

I once had a geriatric psycho yell at me that I was a “:censored:ing thief” because I was using light rail as a student, and apparently that meant I wasn’t paying as high of a tax rate as him (which is such goddamn bull:censored: it’s really hard to wrap your head around). Then when I told him to mind his own business, his frail little wife flipped out on me for “disrespecting my elders”. Phoenix is great.

 

Topped my joke with an actual anecdote. What a great idea that city was.

[VampyrRabbit]

On 2024-03-07 at 2:17 AM, FrutigerAero said:

Amazing how people will defend Oakland as if they deserve to keep their baseball team while a team with similar success would be selling out all season long in Salt Lake City.

If the A's were in SLC currently playing in the last dual use stadium which got flooded by :censored:water on the regular and fielded a team that was on course for a third straight 100 loss season, with the owners blatantly sandbagging, there is no way on earth they would be selling out that stadium on one day, let alone eighty one of them.

[LaGrandeOrange]

1 hour ago, VampyrRabbit said:

If the A's were in SLC currently playing in the last dual use stadium which got flooded by :censored:water on the regular and fielded a team that was on course for a third straight 100 loss season, with the owners blatantly sandbagging, there is no way on earth they would be selling out that stadium on one day, let alone eighty one of them.

 

Yeah this drove me crazy as justification for moving the Expos at the end and really influenced a lot of how I feel about sports as a business. We were told we didn't deserve the team and were not good fans because we weren't going to the park for ownership who were cutting costs explicitly to kill the product so they could move the team. Why would we come out for that? I don't blame a single A's fan for basically cutting ties with the team- the ownership clearly doesn't want them. It's ridiculous that the media sometimes portrays the noble thing to do as to go out and support them anyway.

[FiddySicks]

1 hour ago, LaGrandeOrange said:

 

Yeah this drove me crazy as justification for moving the Expos at the end and really influenced a lot of how I feel about sports as a business. We were told we didn't deserve the team and were not good fans because we weren't going to the park for ownership who were cutting costs explicitly to kill the product so they could move the team. Why would we come out for that? I don't blame a single A's fan for basically cutting ties with the team- the ownership clearly doesn't want them. It's ridiculous that the media sometimes portrays the noble thing to do as to go out and support them anyway.

 

I think you can find a lot of parallels between these cities who have lost teams because they refuse to be held financially hostage by them. Ultimately it’s painful, but a worthy sacrifice. 
 

 

What unnerves me a bit is that most of the stadium situations in the Bay Area are good, other than the Sharks. They play in an old arena in a city that’s already made it pretty clear they’re not particularly interested in keeping them around if it means a certain level of public funding. Something is going to have to give with that arena sooner or later, then where are you? Who’s gonna blink first? Knowing these Bay Area cities and how they operate, it probably won’t be them. 
 

If you have an ownership group that has any sense, it’s sort of a moot point when push comes to shove. But if you have even an ounce of what they have going on up in Oakland? That’s how you end up with stupid like the Coyotes playing their fourth season in a parking lot while we’re gearing up for the first season of Salt Lake Sharks hockey. 

[The_Admiral]

Warriors and Sharks should have both gone in on San Francisco. 

 

Surveying the NHL cities that lost their teams by refusing to be held hostage, it's actually kind of a split decision. The Twin Cities didn't miss a beat financially with the loss of the North Stars/Met Center; they had a new arena and just built out the Mall of America even more. Everyone felt really bad about it but I don't think it had a devastating economic impact. I don't think losing the Nordiques helped Quebec City but probably didn't hurt it materially. Winnipeg is a rare case where getting the team back did seem to spur on economic development because TNSE captured pretty much all of downtown on the cheap, which wouldn't have happened without bringing the Jets back, so you can say that they were better off with hockey. Downtown Hartford was dying then and dead now; I think the causal relationship between that and the Whalers leaving is pretty solid but it's highly debatable whether Karmanos even held Hartford at ransom or was always going to try for Michigan anyway. Atlanta lost the Thrashers and hasn't felt a thing, but the situation never even progressed to tax-money-or-else.

 

So basically, if you're a moribund, borderline major-league market with very little else going for you but a desperate last gasp of civic pride, you might want to invest in pro sports at almost any cost, but if that's your situation, you may not even be presented with the option to begin with.

[monkeypower]

29 minutes ago, The_Admiral said:

Warriors and Sharks should have both gone in on San Francisco. 

 

Surveying the NHL cities that lost their teams by refusing to be held hostage, it's actually kind of a split decision. The Twin Cities didn't miss a beat financially with the loss of the North Stars/Met Center; they had a new arena and just built out the Mall of America even more. Everyone felt really bad about it but I don't think it had a devastating economic impact. I don't think losing the Nordiques helped Quebec City but probably didn't hurt it materially. Winnipeg is a rare case where getting the team back did seem to spur on economic development because TNSE captured pretty much all of downtown on the cheap, which wouldn't have happened without bringing the Jets back, so you can say that they were better off with hockey. Downtown Hartford was dying then and dead now; I think the causal relationship between that and the Whalers leaving is pretty solid but it's highly debatable whether Karmanos even held Hartford at ransom or was always going to try for Michigan anyway. Atlanta lost the Thrashers and hasn't felt a thing, but the situation never even progressed to tax-money-or-else.

 

So basically, if you're a moribund, borderline major-league market with very little else going for you but a desperate last gasp of civic pride, you might want to invest in pro sports at almost any cost, but if that's your situation, you may not even be presented with the option to begin with.

 

Not to derail this thread any more, but it's interesting reading that with what's happening/happened here in Calgary and this new arena. I definitely think Calgary is above a Winnipeg or a Hartford, but definitely below Atlanta (don't know much about the Twin Cities, but I think it might be somewhat equivalent). However, the interesting thing is that I don't think Calgary is truly a die-hard "sports town".

 

The difference here in Calgary is that all the sports teams are under the Flames/CSEC to varying levels of success under CSEC rule (but I'm unsure how CSEC measures success with the non-Flames teams nor what Hollywood accounting might be in place regarding finances) so if the Flames went, there would have been massive ripple effects.

[SFGiants58]

21 minutes ago, The_Admiral said:

Warriors and Sharks should have both gone in on San Francisco. 

The Warriors seem pretty hostile to the Sharks in general - did the Warriors even offer to make Chase hockey-compatible for them?

[Fowler2]

So it's a possibility the Bay Area could end up with just the 49ers, Warriors & Giants. IF that new arena gets built in San Diego, maybe the Sharks?  Earthquakes owner John Fisher (yeah him again) has complained that PayPal Park is already outdated. 

[BBTV]

3 hours ago, The_Admiral said:

So basically, if you're a moribund, borderline major-league market with very little else going for you but a desperate last gasp of civic pride, you might want to invest in pro sports at almost any cost, but if that's your situation, you may not even be presented with the option to begin with.

 

This is how I feel.  How many cities in the States would very few people have ever have a reason to hear about if not for pro sports?  Like Cincinnati for example.  Nothing at all against the fine people of Cincinnati, but if not for the Reds and Bengals, would >90% of Americans have any reason to know about it or even where it is?  A city like that should (as long as it's not at the expense of funding critical programs) consider providing some level of funding to keep teams around, as the city's reputation and recognition is literally at stake.  If not for the sports teams, the average person wouldn't even know some of these places exist.

 

I'm just using Cincinnati as an example of an otherwise anonymous city - not calling it "moribund".  I honestly don't know anything about it's economic situation.

[infrared41]

6 minutes ago, BBTV said:

Nothing at all against the fine people of Cincinnati, but if not for the Reds and Bengals, would >90% of Americans have any reason to know about it or even where it is? 

 

I think it's in Kentucky. Maybe Indiana. I'm not sure.

[The_Admiral]

There's something kind of grounding about Kroger and Procter & Gamble being headquartered in li'l ol' Cincinnati and not somewhere back east, but also, Kroger is terrible.

 

3 hours ago, SFGiants58 said:

The Warriors seem pretty hostile to the Sharks in general - did the Warriors even offer to make Chase hockey-compatible for them?

Doubt it, but I doubt the Sharks ever looked into it, either. It would have been pretty cool, though. So too would have been a new 49ers stadium at Candlestick, a new Raiders stadium on the Coliseum site, and the A's, I dunno, somewhere around there.