Re: Somerville Soccer Stadium
Because the New England Revolution have been in Foxborough this whole time and the Krafts have done little to nothing to build any interest in the team.
Agreed. But there's plenty that they could be doing long before an actual stadium move and they've done none of the other things either - as evidenced by lackluster media coverage, poor advertising of the team, lackluster community engagement (other than the World Cup viewing party at City Hall, what was the last event the Revs sponsored or helped produce in Boston?), no attempt to even leverage the Gillette Stadium commuter rail stop for the barest hints of a mass transit connection to the stadium - never mind anything like a party bus or other shuttle - and so on, and so forth.
The list of problems goes long beyond the lack of a soccer stadium but this thread is about a soccer stadium and it's the largest problem that could hypothetically be solved without a protracted fight over the Revs ownership rights.
There is a huge difference between being accessible by rapid transit and being accessible by commuter rail; rapid transit has higher frequencies, lower costs, and is easier to use.
I think you are also being a bit dishonest about the time and effort it would take to get to and from games in Providence from Boston using the Commuter Rail because you're ignoring the transfers that would be required for such a trip. To get to a stadium in the Jewelry District you would need to take the T to a relevant Commuter Rail station to get on a Providence train, take the Commuter Rail to Providence, and then transfer to whatever public transit in Providence would take you to the stadium. That isn't convenient at all and would take far longer than any trip within the T's rapid transit system, especially if you rely on a bus transfer or two to get you to the T in the first place.
Prime real estate for a soccer specific stadium on the north side of the Jewelry District is reachable on foot from the train station - it's about a 10 minute walk.
I don't think I'm being dishonest at all. Lower frequencies on the Providence Line relative to the subways are not a function of either mode, and frequency can - and will - improve on the Providence Line. The speed of travel between South Station and Providence Station can easily get brought up to the point where it takes about as long to make that trip as it does to ride from Alewife to Silver Line Way.
The fact is that no matter where you place the stadium, it's always going to be closer to some people than it is to others. The center of Boston is about the only place in the city where it could go and be readily accessible to everyone in the metro area with about the same distance/effort to travel there.
It probably isn't going into the center of Boston even if it moves into the city. It's going somewhere like where South Bay Center is, or the seaport, or - yes! - Assembly Row, or Readville. All of these places are easier for parts of the city to access and harder for other parts of the city to access. It's the same with Providence - people near South Station or in Back Bay or somewhere on the Red/Orange/Fairmount Lines are going to find it easier to get to than people in Lynn or Newton would.
Even if Providence pays for the stadium does it still make financial sense to move to Providence? This is highly debatable and you can revisit the arguments made in the last few pages.
I'm open to seeing the hard numbers crunched on this, and I'm sure we're going to get some ideas of what those numbers are when this thing moves forward if it does indeed move forward.
The singular team that plays in an NFL stadium other than the Revolution are the Sounders. That stadium is downtown and transit accessible.
The reason that the Revolution are not doing well compared to other teams has nothing to do with the city of Boston, is has entirely to do with its front office. You keep blaming problems that are caused by the Revolution's front office like their inability to get a stadium deal and their inability to market their team on either Boston's city governments or Bostonians.
I don't think the city of Boston or its residents can escape culpability here since it took 18 damn years for just one publication to find the testicular fortitude to actually call the Krafts out for being terrible owners, and - again, I can't stress this enough - almost all of our sports-specific media is
still MIA on the Revs.
In order to escape blame for this, Boston needed to be a hell of a lot more vocal, and it hasn't been.
That is assuming that he needs to get "through" Boston, or Somerville, or Revere in order to get a deal done.
If you have seen nothing to indicate that Boston (or Somerville or Revere) would want a soccer specific stadium then you haven't been reading this thread or been following this discussion.
This
article was posted a few pages ago. In it Mayor Walsh talks about the idea of a soccer stadium, with no mention of the Olympics whatsoever. Somerville and Revere have also been in talks for a stadium for years now, long before any serious talks or discussions for the 2024 Olympics materialized. Fans have been pushing for a soccer specific stadium ever since the Columbus Crew built theirs in 1999.
Talks that, I should note, have gone absolutely nowhere. We got a name change of one of Somerville's streets to Revolution Way and that's about as substantial a result as I can think of coming from these talks.
I'm not psychic, but I'm willing to bet that Somerville and Revere are just as disinterested in paying for this thing as Boston is and that's why the talks have gone nowhere. And again, the economics of Providence paying for a stadium - because they desperately need the venue space - make sense. That's the true reason I support the move.
As for Walsh?
Mayor 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.”
As far as wish-washy statements from politicians go, this is far from the worst I've ever seen, but I'd hardly call this a ringing endorsement - and, pointedly, this particular piece of information is coming on the heels of Boston making the Olympics shortlist, bringing us right back to the idea that the soccer stadium is only moving forward as a rider on the Olympics package.
Going to a Revolution game has nothing to do with anyone's ability to engage with this discussion. Someone who doesn't follow soccer at all can see the differences between moving to Providence or Boston.
And I don't think anyone is saying that they would stop being Revolution fans if the team moved to Providence. What I see in this thread, on other forums, and from people in real life is that people aren't Revolution fans but would become fans if the team moved to the Boston area.
You keep saying that people are slamming Providence or that people are holding their fandom hostage over a potential move to Providence but I'm not seeing any of that happening.
Maybe I'm reading all of these posts wrong, then, but it's time for a montage!
Providence Slamming Montage said:
Didn't mean to attack the messenger. Just that the article is so much fluff. A couple of RI pols called the Revs office and the Revs office were polite and didn't choke laughing. In fact, the Revs may use it as a negotiating tool in their talks with pols from areas where they could actually MAKE MONEY in the long term (i.e. in a state that doesn't have the highest US unemployment rate).
This discussion is getting ridiculous. Seattle puts 40,000 butts in the seats of their downtown stadium. New York is establishing a second team in subway-connected Yankee Stadium. MLS is growing year. Providence would leave a TREMENDOUS amount of money on the table. Why move the Pats there while we are at it?
In the short term, the Revs are not going anywhere. In the long term, they are moving to metro Boston with rapid transit access. Kraft is not an idiot. The team will move at time and to a place where it will make more money for him than it does right now in Foxborough. Some other location with a big parking lot is not going to significantly increase attendance from what they already pull. Only an URBAN location is going to make a big enough difference to justify the cost of the stadium.
This just in: Providence "not an urban location," declares fattony on popular architecture Boston dotcom forum site.
This whole argument is getting pretty silly. I know Rhode Islanders feel the need to compensate for their small size, but Providence vs Boston, seriously?
Being the number one team in Providence would still generate less revenue than being the #4 team in Boston. Its the same reason you don't have the Garden State Giants or the NJ Jets. If Providence wasn't so close to Boston sure it makes sense to locate a major sports team there. But it's perpetually in Boston's shadow, and nothing is changing that.
There is also national, and multinational appeal to consider. Half the people in our country probably couldn't find Providence on a map. I lived in NY and was only aware of it from road signs. Outside this country, probably no one. EVERYONE knows Boston.
The first use of Providence vs Boston in this thread was not by me. Also, ha ha, size jokes about a state! Those are always funny and never played out!
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.
But moving the Sonics to OKC WAS unbelievable, and moving a team back (Sacramento, Minnesota, LAC, and even OKC) or starting a new franchise gets talked about all the time. And at least OKC is a growth area. Providence as a growth market? It's a nice town, but no. The Nielson media market rankings have them below Buffalo, a city with a football team desperately trying to move to Toronto. Meanwhile, you'd be leaving a Boston media market that Nielson ranks 7th, and that's A) been growing recently, and B) is home to some of the biggest spenders in the country. Why, if you were the business people in charge of MLS, would you do that?
Again, why would MLS leave the big bucks of Boston for the relative small bucks of Providence? Who's filling those luxury boxes in Providence? Which corporations are springing for pricy season seats? Who's paying to advertise on the shirt, Dels?
