New England Revolution Stadium | 173 Alford Street | Boston-Everett

[shmessy]

Re: Somerville Soccer Stadium

CBS, I like your moxy, and that was a very detailed argument, but the Krafts are big league businessmen and the team will be moving to Somerville, Boston, Allston/Brighton or Revere.

It all comes down to money, marketing and visibility.

And then there's this:

http://blogs.marketwatch.com/capito...e-only-state-with-unemployment-over-8-in-may/

"Rhode Island is now the only state in the nation with an unemployment rate north of 8%, according to Labor Department data released Friday, as the Ocean State’s unemployment rate eased to 8.2% in May from 8.3% in April. The state with the second-highest unemployment rate, Nevada, which the housing-market collapse hit particularly hard, saw its rate fall to 7.9% from 8% in April"

It just doesn't make any business sense.

 

[Proposition Joe]

Re: Somerville Soccer Stadium

They will always be the New England Revolution, just like how New York City's football teams are both the "New York _____" and the MLS franchise is the New York Red Bulls (and Yankees FC be damned those guys aren't changing their name) despite all of them being in Jersey. Nobody outside of this country knows or cares where the Meadowlands or Harrison are, either.

The Revolution are going to eventually rebrand. Their current branding is abysmal and the only reason that it has lasted, crayon logo and everything, is because thats how little the ownership cares. Any ownership group that moves the team to Boston would drop New England in favor of Boston (and any ownership group that moves the team would try to adopt Providence before being launched into the sun). The only reason the New England label exists is because the Patriots and Revolution play in the middle of nowhere and can't honestly use Boston as a prefix.

Boston has a strong enough hold over the New England region that the New England prefix is unnecessary, as Rhode Island and Vermont days at Fenway Park prove. This is why the New York Jets and Giants are the New York Jets and Giants instead of the Mid-Atlantic Jets and Giants.

The franchise is literally being choked to death in Gillette. You want to talk about shadows? Instead of leveraging the joint ownership as is done in Seattle, the Revs are suffocating and drowning under the weight of Pats Nation. The Krafts, without whom MLS doesn't exist, are being reviled as the league's very worst owners. In response to this, they appear to have gotten more serious about moving, and yet - somehow - by all accounts, the city of Boston is rebuking them.

Could it be that my point and my argument is actually valid? Maybe it really is the case that the Krafts want to move and Boston doesn't want the Krafts to move in. Maybe the needs of the city come before the needs of a sports franchise, and maybe there will never be a soccer stadium in Boston unless and until the interests of the city coincide with that of the franchise.

I have seen no increased effort on the part of the Revolution's front office in regards to anything stadium related and I think its ridiculous to assume that Boston is 'rebuking' them. There is no evidence of any rebuking. If anything, we can see that the mayors of Somerville and Revere have made statements welcoming a soccer stadium being built in their towns and yet no shovels have hit the ground, which indicates that if their is an issue with a urban stadium being built it lies with the Revolutions front office.

The fact that the front office keeps repeating and copy and pasting the same statements about how they are "actively trying" to get a stadium deal done or avoiding such questions altogether also doesn't inspire any confidence. The fact that the Krafts are a downright embarrassing ownership group doesn't inspire any confidence either.

And maybe, just maybe, in spite of all that, there's another city that has strong and close ties to Boston. In that city, many of the challenges facing the prospect of new venue space in Boston and of establishing a physical presence and cultural foothold for the soccer team just aren't there. Just maybe, in Providence, the city would be far less resistant to a stadium and far more open to a partnership.

If that's the case, then the "opportunity cost" is not "move to Boston right now or move to Providence right now," its actually "move to Providence right now or do nothing, waiting and hoping that conditions change and the forecast improves in Boston."

And if its the latter, then how long are you willing to wait? Even knowing that very real damage is being done to the Revs franchise and MLS itself by the Gillette arrangement, how many years of no plans and no action and no willingness for a stadium in Boston or any of its border communities are you willing to endure? 10? 20? 30? Indefinitely?

Is Providence such an awful place compared to Boston that you'd rather have the Revs suffering through their 50th year of being second class citizens in their own home before you'd be willing to eat the "opportunity cost" of moving to Providence? How many years of insisting that a move to Boston is definitely going to happen before we're forced to accept that it probably isn't going to happen any time soon?

If you opened a stadium in Providence tomorrow (which would have been easily possible if plans had been in place by 2010) and Boston doesn't become open and receptive to a downtown relocation of the Revs until 2034, the Providence stadium would have seen 20 years of active use before Boston even said "yeah, we've decided we actually want you guys in town after all" - never mind establishing a plan and getting shovels in the ground. And since Providence needs more venue space, the stadium wouldn't need to be torn down even after the Revs were moved out by the start of the 2040 season.

Now imagine what the Revs are going to look like over that same 20 year stretch if they spend every season playing backup to and being overshadowed by the Patriots, with the Krafts making regular overtures to and being summarily rejected by the city, all the while sinking further and further into irrelevancy and dragging MLS down with them.

Is that really better in your mind than allowing them a shot to grow and flourish in Providence, even if temporarily?

This is all assuming that it is impossible to build a stadium in the Boston urban area or that the obstacles for doing so are the fault of the various city halls in the inner core, which is not actually the case.

 

[George_Apley]

Re: Somerville Soccer Stadium

Pretty sure that Curtatone has been actively courting the Revs since IKEA pulled out of Assembly. Somerville even renamed Ikea Way to Revolution Drive. People were speculating that Kraft was pivoting to Boston based on the comments about the Seaport from the city, but it could also be a bargaining move against Somerville.

 

[davem]

Re: Somerville Soccer Stadium

Everything said above, plus:


It's not a Providence vs. Boston thing, because Providence isn't even in the running. It's walking a 5k while Boston is doing a marathon. It's in no way like Baltimore and Washington, an older established city doing its own thing, and a newer city doing a completely separate thing, both of which are not large enough to attract the media attention they do, but together are. (Also keeping in mind that DC and Baltimore both kinda suck to live in.) Providence leaches off of Boston, profiting from Bostons status as a mass-media hub, a transit hub, an educational hub, etc. Without Boston, Providence would be like Montpelier. Without Providence, Boston would be... basically the same. Probably a bit larger and wealthier, with more CVS's and lemonade. It's a parasitic relationship, not a symbiotic one.

Seriously comparing Providence and Boston, or implying they are in any way equals or have nearly the same branding draw, is ludicrous. I really like Providence, would consider moving there, and have always had fun in the city. But, saying that Providence and Boston are linked just makes the entire rest of your argument loose credibility and fall apart. They aren't going to move to Providence because it moves them further away from an iconic city, and ties them to a B-class one. Them playing at Gilette links them to the Pats, which links them to Boston. Moving to Providence gets rid of that tie.

They will either stay in Foxboro and rot, the franchise will be bought and moved to another region entirely, or they will move to Boston/Somerville/Revere.

 

[Scalziand]

Re: Somerville Soccer Stadium

I don't think we can say for certain whether or not CSN wants the UConn broadcast rights but there's a very real possibility that they do, and are being barred from acquiring them by some combination of the NCAA and ESPN.

That's quite a big possibility, as UCONN is essentially the home market for ESPN after all, being based out of Bristol, CT.

 

[bobthebuilder]

Re: Somerville Soccer Stadium

I'm one of those on the fence about the revs and soccer in general. I like the sport, I played it for 12 years, I love Boston sports, I like the atmosphere that surrounds soccer games. If the revs are moved to Providence, I will probably just forget they exist at all. If the Revs move to Boston/Somerville/Somewhere I can get to by the T, I will likely become more of a fan. I speak for myself when I say that, but I feel like there are probably a lot of people out there of the same mindset.

Deliver the revs to me and I'll eat it up, move them further away and I'll forget they exist.

Ooh and maybe if we move them to Boston it'll help boost ridership on the SCR and make it slightly less of a sham.

 

[underground]

Re: Somerville Soccer Stadium

But you misinterpreted the point. The point was that the Bills out-earn the Jets and Giants combined per fan - but overall value wise, the Bills are a little better than half the value of either "NY" team. The obvious conclusion is that there are less Bills fans out there than there are fans of either NY team, yet the value of each Bills "fan" to the franchise is far greater. Why that is, I can't tell you, but I can suggest that it indicates one of two possibilities: either the value of teams is fixed based on values other than straight population (see the shitty product theory), or the correlation between the two is negative (unlikely.)

And yet you still haven't shown that the Bills have the same ad revenue as the Giants and the Jets or even close to it. Those numbers are no where in the Forbes report. Per capita revenue per fan, which you'll note I did mention, is not the same as gross ad revenue. All it tells you is a team has X value and Y number of fans. A team could out earn the entire league, but have everyone in India as a fan. And that team could match up poorly against an imaginary team on the low end of the income spectrum that only has 10 fans. But that tells you nothing about ad revenue or value added by location. Find those numbers and I'll buy your claim that moving the Revs to Providence will have no impact on their ad revenue. You haven't done that though. Honestly, I'm not even sure why I'd want to know what per capita fan income is. What's that supposed to be showing me?

The one thing the Forbes report does include, is a breakdown that they call "Market" as a stand in for value gained by metropolitan location. There, the Giants come in first at $324 million, the Jets second at $278 million, and the Bills come in a decided last with only $113 million. That's not ad revenue either, but I think you'd have to agree it in itself makes the strongest argument from the Forbes report about the value of changing metro areas. Going even further in the Forbes report, they have a number they call "Sport" as a stand in for the amount of shared NFL revenue each team gets. That's also not ad revenue, but I'd have to assume it's some combination of NFL-wide licensing added in with ad revenue. There, the Giants get $828 million, the Jets get $775 million, and the Bills get $635. So again, the Giants and Jets are getting more money than the Bills. Is that obviously due to location? Unclear, but it's another data point that makes it painfully clear there's a major difference in income between the teams in NYC and the team in Buffalo. An even better comparison between Boston/Providence than NYC/Buffalo is probably San Francisco/Oakland. There again, the wealthier 49ers Market valuation is $187 million compared Oakland's $92 million, and the Sport valuation is $865 million compared to $650 million. Here it seems that even a minor location change has a gigantic financial impact.

 

[kjdonovan]

Re: Somerville Soccer Stadium

Noted in article posted by fattony in Boston 2024

http://www.bostonglobe.com/business...story.html?s_campaign=email_BG_TodaysHeadline 60,000 seat stadium (apparently the new capacity guideline) near Cabot Yard

Deep in the article:
Later, it could be reused as a soccer stadium (something that Bob Kraft would love for his New England Revolution) or a concert venue. That’s an important element of a plan that is modeled after those in London and Barcelona, which hosted the Summer Games in 2012 and 1992.

 

[chr31ter]

Re: Somerville Soccer Stadium

http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/r...acks-discussions-for-pro-soccer.html?page=all

Move over Somerville and Revere; the newest contender for a $130 million soccer stadium is the city of Boston.

In an interview with the Boston Business Journal, Mayor Martin J. Walsh said he will consider a soccer stadium to house the New England Revolution.

“It’s something I’d be interested in,” Walsh said. “It’s worth looking at. I’m open to a lot of ideas. It’s about the growth of Boston. It’s something I wouldn’t turn down. There will have to be a lot of discussions about the location. I don’t know where it would go. We will have to see.”

 

[datadyne007]

Re: Somerville Soccer Stadium

Woo baby. Fire up that hype machine again!

 

[AmericanFolkLegend]

Re: Somerville Soccer Stadium

Apologies if this has been brought up before, but what do you guys think of a soccer stadium where the Bank of America pavilion is? That way it could double as an outdoor concert venue.
From looking at google earth it seems like the Pavilion Parcel is approximately 4 acres and an adjoining underused parcel would get us to 6.5 acres. No idea if that's enough space. I tried to look up Fenway's footprint but couldn't find it....

 

[choo]

Re: Somerville Soccer Stadium

Kraft is involved as a 'business leader' in the Olympic discussion. I don't think this timing is a coincidence given the USOC will pick a finalist in the next 12ish months and the IOC in a year. Boston's bid looks much more attractive in the scope and is much more platable locally if the new stadium is "just a scaled up version of what we are building anyway". It actually takes out one of the most significant and controversial parts of the bid very early on. Kraft pitches in some money, likely gets city/state/federal money through some source/tax credit or maybe he builds prior and gets a free expansion 5 years in.

I tentatively support both moves (urban stadium and olympics), so i'm encouraged. That being said, we've seen this movie before from the Revs.

 

[George_Apley]

Re: Somerville Soccer Stadium

Are Bobby and the Mayah trying to get us wasted with all this Seaport Stadium *DRINK* talk?!

Honestly though, I'd be more enthusiastic about a waterfront stadium if the state lined up a GLX to SStation/Seaport. In Somerville you have GLX/Orange well positioned for a future stadium in either Brickbottom or Assembly. Revere's on the Blue. Seaport is on the Silver Line...

 

[Proposition Joe]

Re: Somerville Soccer Stadium

A stadium would necessitate transit upgrades in the area, which could be a good thing in that it will highlight failures with the current system and will make more people have a stake in Seaport transit. A possible stopgap to alleviate transportation issues could be putting a dock near the stadium and having boats run to South and North Stations.

If I were going to soccer games in the Seaport I would probably just walk from South Station though, because the walk isn't too bad for someone in their 20s.

 

[JohnAKeith]

Re: Somerville Soccer Stadium

If Bob Kraft is serious that he wants a soccer stadium to be more accessible, then why would he put it in the Seaport, one of the least accessible places in Boston?

Getting out of Foxboro on game day is easier than getting out of the Seaport on a Wednesday afternoon.

 

[datadyne007]

Re: Somerville Soccer Stadium

If Bob Kraft is serious that he wants a soccer stadium to be more accessible, then why would he put it in the Seaport, one of the least accessible places in Boston?

As I stated previously, the main soccer demographics do not drive. The Seaport is easily accessible by foot from South Station for able-bodied people and is a quick ride on the Silver Line for those who are disabled.

Getting out of Foxboro on game day is easier than getting out of the Seaport on a Wednesday afternoon.

MLS games are primarily on Sat & Sun (a few on Fridays).

 

[AmericanFolkLegend]

Re: Somerville Soccer Stadium

Getting out of Foxboro on game day is easier than getting out of the Seaport on a Wednesday afternoon.

Hyperbole FTW!!!!

 

[JohnAKeith]

Re: Somerville Soccer Stadium

datadyne007 How about downtown Chelsea?

 

[datadyne007]

Re: Somerville Soccer Stadium

datadyne007 How about downtown Chelsea?

I & all my soccer-loving Chelsea neighbors would love it personally, but I honestly would never advocate for it to be in Chelsea. Transit access is abysmal here. The ideal location is somewhere on the Blue Line. Us Chelsea residents can take buses to Wonderland, that's no problem, but we shouldn't be forcing everyone to use the horrific bus service over here to get to a game. The buses can barely handle weekend loads as is.

 

[davem]

Re: Somerville Soccer Stadium

My main issue with putting any stadium right ON the waterfront (ie: the BOA pavilion site) is that it seems like a tremendous waste to have an inward facing venue on a site with such outward facing views. It would make for some great flyover shots, but that's it. Put it further inland and leave the stuff right on the water for residential. I'd say a perfect parcel would be just south of the Pavilion where the pike is briefly exposed, bounded by the Haul Road. Move the state police headquarters and build over that whole thing.

Bonus: direct service via Silver Line way. Perhaps fixing the D street crossing could be part of the project.