Quote:
Originally Posted by J.OT13
An Ottawa forumer found a great article about the trend of building major league stadiums and arenas in a central locations surrounded by mixed use developments. It also cautions about public funding for sports venues and the heartlessness of sports leagues and their billionaire owners (mostly NFL).
|
It is indeed a good article. It should be noted that a lot of the really great Downtown rejuvenation projects it discusses (Sacramento, Kansas City) were arenas and not stadiums, thereby avoiding the worst perpetrator of franchise-based hostage-taking: the NFL. Arenas play a better role in urban rejuvenation projects than stadiums do, evidently, although stadiums can be used wisely as well. I'm sure forumers in Edmonton can attest to this, as will forumers in Moncton and eventually Ottawa.
Quote:
Originally Posted by EpicPonyTime
Nevertheless, for a major event like the World Cup I don't think you can discount seating capacity, just like you can't discount the other elements that are behind the ultimate decision of where the games are played (such as the requirements for the social area next to the stadium, as well as the amenities available in the larger community).
|
Absolutely. Seating capacity plays a role just as much as everything else. If we had a 35,000 capacity stadium in Yellowknife I don't think we would be forcing teams and fans to travel there just because the stadium could hold a lot of them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by EpicPonyTime
In the end BMO is going to host games based upon its location, not because of the stadium itself. I think that's also the reason Edmonton will be the odd city out; the city just isn't at the same level as the Big Three and the bid committee will take notice of that assuming Olympic doesn't cave in between now and 2026.
|
Partly agreed with this. I strongly believe the CSA is pushing hard for BMO and BC Place as they are the two stadiums used for Canadian National team matches. Edmonton gets left out because it's a smaller city but probably gets ahead of Montreal on this CSA familiarity factor. Commonwealth has a history of hosting big matches for the National Teams. CSA hasn't had a rosy time of hosting matches in Montreal for a plethora of reasons which would could finger-point both ways. I'm not sold on Olympic being up-to-snuff and FIFA bids should be looking at cost-cutting to bring down the overall expenses of hosts in the future, thereby eliminating Olympic from contention (unless funding is provided for something other than directly supporting the WC bid). Olympic probably has the worst layout of the four stadiums.
However, in saying all that, Edmonton probably gets put behind Montreal because just imagine the outcry if Montreal didn't get a match but
Edmonton did.