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Re: Site in Hub top choice for a soccer stadium

Shawmut said:
Building a new state of the art training facility in Foxboro! Rumors that they want to build an additional soccer specific stadium on site also.
http://www.thesunchronicle.com/news...cle_aee21b75-7281-5771-a03a-d9e70fd12e0d.html
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A new training facility in Foxboro doesn't mean that an urban stadium is off the table. In England, for example, just about every Premier League team plays their games in an urban stadium but trains at a posh, expansive center out in the 'burbs. Just for the top London clubs: Spurs train out here, Arsenal out here, and Chelsea out here. (Also, count the number of pitches at some of those sites! Blimey!)

I think that even in the NFL, the Pats are one of the few teams that train and play games at the same location.
 
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Re: Site in Hub top choice for a soccer stadium

JumboBuc said:
A new training facility in Foxboro doesn't mean that an urban stadium is off the table. In England, for example, just about every Premier League team plays their games in an urban stadium but trains at a posh, expansive center out in the 'burbs.
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Brian Bilello has said repeatedly that the Foxboro training facility has 0 impact on any urban stadium location. If a stadium is built in Boston, they will still train in Foxboro. This makes sense because there's no room for practice facilities near any of the potential stadium sites.
 
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Re: Site in Hub top choice for a soccer stadium

Would any site be good for Boston? i'm very skeptical. Every location i've heard about on this forum including Suffolk Downs, Wonderland, etc seems to present an extremely austere scenario, and bring a significant reduction of quality of life for 'X' surrounding neighborhood/s. Whatever site happens to be someone's favorite could probably in the end, hold 2~3,000 units of residences and contribute an "transformative upscaling..." When the nimby's come out in astounding numbers, those newly formed associations will probably come back haunt us when the City proposes the "transformative upscaling" anywhere in the neighborhood.

There is however, one location i happen to like; granted it wouldn't be easy either. i think the Harvard Stadium seems a plausible site for pro soccer, bringing with it the fewest negatives.... Of course it would mean widening and lengthening the field. How is that done? i assume you have to tear down a good portion of the seating and moving it back.

Every other site sucks for a lot of reasons.
 
Re: Site in Hub top choice for a soccer stadium

odurandina said:
Would any site be good for Boston? i'm very skeptical. Every location i've heard about on this forum including Suffolk Downs, Wonderland, etc seems to present an extremely austere scenario, and bring a significant reduction of quality of life for 'X' surrounding neighborhood/s. Whatever site happens to be someone's favorite could probably in the end, hold 2~3,000 units of residences and contribute an "transformative upscaling..." When the nimby's come out in astounding numbers, those newly formed associations will probably come back haunt us when the City proposes the "transformative upscaling" anywhere in the neighborhood.

There is however, one location i happen to like; granted it wouldn't be easy either. i think the Harvard Stadium seems a plausible site for pro soccer, bringing with it the fewest negatives.... Of course it would mean widening and lengthening the field. How is that done? i assume you have to tear down a good portion of the seating and moving it back.

Every other site sucks for a lot of reasons.
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Harvard Stadium is a National Historic Landmark,.

https://twitter.com/tpcrotty2/status/701961566938341376

You don't get to change much. It also has a field turf (not natural turf) field. Apparently, the grass field drained poorly and if a game was played in a rainstorm, the field was ruined for the rest of the season.
 
Re: Site in Hub top choice for a soccer stadium

Interesting, the Krafts are shelling out millions of dollars to give the Revs a state of the art training facility. Yet some of their fans continue to harp on the fact that they haven't built a soccer specific stadium as an indication they don't care about the team.
 
Re: Site in Hub top choice for a soccer stadium

mass88 said:
Interesting, the Krafts are shelling out millions of dollars to give the Revs a state of the art training facility. Yet some of their fans continue to harp on the fact that they haven't built a soccer specific stadium as an indication they don't care about the team.
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Attendance and interest would be significantly higher with a soccer specific stadium in the core of metro Boston. The new training facility is great, but it's ultimately a half measure compared to what is needed.
 
Re: Site in Hub top choice for a soccer stadium

stellarfun said:
Harvard Stadium is a National Historic Landmark,.

https://twitter.com/tpcrotty2/status/701961566938341376

You don't get to change much. It also has a field turf (not natural turf) field. Apparently, the grass field drained poorly and if a game was played in a rainstorm, the field was ruined for the rest of the season.
Click to expand...

And renting from Harvard or anyone else I think misses the point of the kind of multifaceted opportunity Kraft would seemingly prefer. Look at Gillette and the surrounding commercial development with restaurants and year round commercial and opportunities for other events like 9 or 10 concerts per year.

Average attendance in Foxborough is almost 20,000. Which ain't terrible and is expandable if demand warranted it.

The Umass location or a location between Bunker Hill CC and Sullivan Square would seem to work... or at this point working with Wynn/Encore to have a stadium across the street in Everett might be cool. Work with the power company and maybe it could replace the old polluting/polluted part of the generating station for a cool waterfront stadium.
 
Re: Site in Hub top choice for a soccer stadium

I must dispute you on the point that the Spuds are top London club. :p

JumboBuc said:
A new training facility in Foxboro doesn't mean that an urban stadium is off the table. In England, for example, just about every Premier League team plays their games in an urban stadium but trains at a posh, expansive center out in the 'burbs. Just for the top London clubs: Spurs train out here, Arsenal out here, and Chelsea out here. (Also, count the number of pitches at some of those sites! Blimey!)

I think that even in the NFL, the Pats are one of the few teams that train and play games at the same location.
Click to expand...
 
Re: Site in Hub top choice for a soccer stadium

Czervik.Construction said:
I must dispute you on the point that the Spuds are top London club. :p
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Current reigning top club in London. If I limited my list to London Champions League clubs, Spurs would be the only one there.

I hope you're enjoying your Thursday night matches in Azerbaijan. Or is it Belarus and Hungary for you?

COYS
 
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Re: Site in Hub top choice for a soccer stadium

odurandina said:
, and bring a significant reduction of quality of life for 'X' surrounding neighborhood/s.
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Aren't we talking about 15-20 days a year with the vast majority being weekend games that end by 9-9:30pm? This isn't an 81 game or even 41 game home schedule.
 
Re: Site in Hub top choice for a soccer stadium

stellarfun said:
Harvard Stadium is a National Historic Landmark,.

https://twitter.com/tpcrotty2/status/701961566938341376

You don't get to change much. It also has a field turf (not natural turf) field. Apparently, the grass field drained poorly and if a game was played in a rainstorm, the field was ruined for the rest of the season.
Click to expand...

Also, as was revealed when the Pats were trying to find a permanent home post-Fenway, pre-Sullivan Stadium and there was talk of strong-arming Harvard into coming to an arrangement that would allow the Patriots to play at Harvard Stadium, Harvard University (based on the original Commonwealth charter or whatever it is from waaaaay back when) is in the unique position of being one of the only (perhaps only?) entity in Masssachusetts that cannot be affected by eminent domain.
 
Re: Site in Hub top choice for a soccer stadium

Coyote137 said:
Attendance and interest would be significantly higher with a soccer specific stadium in the core of metro Boston. The new training facility is great, but it's ultimately a half measure compared to what is needed.
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I don't buy it. Maybe it might go up, but not significantly. If anything, Gillette offers tremendous value for fans and sits almost in the middle of the two largest urban areas in New England. Sure it would be nice to a have a soccer specific stadium, but it's not some sort of magic bullet that will dramatically increase their popularity. Winning will do that more than anything. Bringing in an aging well known European player like almost every other MLS team has done will draw more attention and fans.
 
Re: Site in Hub top choice for a soccer stadium

^ Sample size of one, but:

I'm not a fan. I'd never trek out to the suburbs to watch a match. However, I would definitely go to at least a couple of matches at an urban stadium because it seems like it could be a good time. I could also imagine becoming a fan because that experience can be infectious. I doubt I'm unique.
 
Re: Site in Hub top choice for a soccer stadium

BosDevelop said:
Aren't we talking about 15-20 days a year with the vast majority being weekend games that end by 9-9:30pm? This isn't an 81 game or even 41 game home schedule.
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Wouldn't they need to also host other events then to make a stadium economically feasible?
 
Re: Site in Hub top choice for a soccer stadium

mass88 said:
I don't buy it. Maybe it might go up, but not significantly. If anything, Gillette offers tremendous value for fans and sits almost in the middle of the two largest urban areas in New England. Sure it would be nice to a have a soccer specific stadium, but it's not some sort of magic bullet that will dramatically increase their popularity. Winning will do that more than anything. Bringing in an aging well known European player like almost every other MLS team has done will draw more attention and fans.
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The average attendance might only go up a small bit, perhaps 5k or so but the popularity of the team would grow immensely. Tickets would be difficult to come by for big games, the games would become a real attraction. As it stands the attendance in Foxboro is partly made up of groupon deals and comp tickets for kids. The experience is among the worst I've been to for professional soccer. The Krafts do enough to get by when it comes to MLS. Garber gets on their back, open a training center, that'll keep the wolf from the door, oh and it must be time to spread another rumor about a new stadium. There's not enough financial incentive for them to leave foxboro. Nothing promotion/relegation wouldn't sort out tho!
That's way off topic tho.
I'd love to see a stadium somewhere around Bunker Hill CC.
 
Re: Site in Hub top choice for a soccer stadium

In a fantasy world, stick the Encore in Foxboro, and place the stadium where the casino is.
 
Re: Site in Hub top choice for a soccer stadium

DZH22 said:
Wouldn't they need to also host other events then to make a stadium economically feasible?
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I am sure there would be a handful of non-soccer events that draw capacity crowds. But there are also many ways for stadiums like this to make some money on non-game days that don't involve drawing thousands of people. Gillette does very well with event planning for events as small as a few dozen people all the way to 700+ people events on the field surface.
 
Re: Site in Hub top choice for a soccer stadium

Ruairi said:
The average attendance might only go up a small bit, perhaps 5k or so but the popularity of the team would grow immensely.
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I think the tough sell is that this is essentially a minor league team in a city with very popular teams across the 4 major team sports in this country. Most people recognize that MLS is not the best league in soccer (football). I have no idea where it DOES stack up, but this website for example ranks it 5th. https://howtheyplay.com/team-sports/Best-Soccer-Leagues

Back in 2014, Bleacher report ranked it 10th. https://bleacherreport.com/articles...ing-the-worlds-top-10-football-leagues#slide2

Regardless, it's a tough sell against teams that are inarguably in the best leagues worldwide for their respective sports. It's also why MLS will never, ever join the other 4 regarding overall prestige in the US. The best players in their primes tend to play somewhere else.
 
Re: Site in Hub top choice for a soccer stadium

I've been a Revs season ticket holder since year 2 of their existence (1997). In that time, I've commuted to Foxboro (both the old Foxboro and Gillette) from Peabody, Lowell and North Andover. The commute sucks and it's been a noted problem for people coming from the north of Boston for years upon years. And I have the advantage of having a car at my disposal.

For a huge swath of existing and potential Revs fans without vehicle access, Gillette Stadium is even worse - there is zero public transportation available on a normal gameday. Sure, you could take the commuter rail down there, but you'd still need a cab/uber/lyft to get from the station to the stadium.

And Gillette Stadium is terrible for the Revs. With almost 2/3 of the available seating unused (including the entire 300 section and usually the 200s as well), it is devoid of atmosphere despite the supporter's sections best efforts.

A stadium downtown checks all the boxes: Accessible by public transport, closer to potential huge and ethnically diverse fanbase, proper sizing and intimacy and a chance to capitalize on being close to a city's core, like the vast majority of expansion teams that have been able to stake their claim to being part of their respective cities' cultural and sporting fabric.
 
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