The Soccer Thread (IV)

1994's attendance at the Rose Bowl was excellent. The weather . . . was not. Could fry a damn egg on your head at some of those games.

As for the cities:

Indianapolis is only there to make the midwest feel good. Isn't it an indoor stadium?
Kansas City . . . is probably the region's best hope. But I think the hopes of creole and other locals will be extinguished.
The MLS honchos will do their damnedest to make Philly part of the bid, as a thank you.

And NOLU: the Gold Cup isn't close to the World Cup, but you know that already. They know that FIFA will salivate at the thought of a World Cup that can average 75,000 fans a game.

As I have posted before here, travel is a major issue in the U.S. for fans and media during the World Cup. Makes the pods idea sound sensible. But more likely, the list will be:

Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, Dallas, Seattle, Phoenix, Miami, Boston, Denver, Kansas City, D.C., Houston.

I don't like putting in Houston or KC because I don't think either city/stadium is good enough as a combination . . . but the middle of the country needs to be represented. All of these either have an MLS franchise or a stadium built since 1994. In some cases, they have both.

For quality of play and weather, New York should host the final. But the Rose Bowl holds 100,000 people, so Sepp and friends might get greedy and seek the attendance record instead of the luxury-box bonanza.

 

Lot of artificial surfaces on that list. I thought that was a major issue with the 1994 World Cup, that the opposing players weren't appreciative of the artificial grass?

 

I'm not sure any game were played on artificial turf. They even put a grass field in the Pontiac Silverdome to make sure it didn't happen, in the same way they do at the Phoenix stadium now. I'm also pretty sure at that point Giants Stadium and Foxborough were still natural turf fields.

 

Attendance record? Unless they add about 80,000 seats to the Rose Bowl, they're not setting an attendance record. Uruguay-Brazil in 1950 attracted 173,830 paid and is believed to have been actually attended by about 210,000.

 

Rose Bowl could be hurt by its lack of modern amenities. I think L.A. might need to build a new stadium to get a World Cup site, which may happen by then anyway if the city is to ever get an NFL team again.

 

How much does ethnic makeup of the cities have to do with site selection? Because the U.S. team generally plays their friendlies in cities where the opposing team has a lot of immigrants (Seattle for Pacific Rim countries, Texas and SoCal for Mexico and Central America, Miami for Caribbean countries, and so forth). It's the World Cup, so it's going to draw even if you had all the games in the Dakotas, but is that a consideration?

 

I wouldn't have thought so, because you can't engineer it so that specific countries play in specific cities.

For one thing, we don't have any idea who'll actually be taking part in the World Cups in those years; for another, the draw is totally randomised, with the different groups pre-set to be played at particular venues, so you can't control who plays where.

 

I think that the United States is the only country where that kind of consideration could come into play, and as a result I don't think it would.

If you look at any of the other bids, England, Australia or Qatar for example, I don't think anyone's going to say, 'Well, Manchester's got a big asian community, so we need to have Old Trafford as a stadium.' I think they're going to pick the facilities that are going to allow for the event to run as smoothly as possible, since all of them except possibly Los Angeles, which has got some very nice blueprints for a new NFL stadium, are already built.

 

They absolutely were not played on artificial turf, which was and still is against FIFA's rules. (Though they've made an exception for the stadium in Moscow, I believe.)

ETA: The stadium in Moscow does have FieldTurf, which is FIFA-approved, but not for major events. When they played the Champions League final there, they put a grass field in place.

They did lay a grass field in the Silverdome; took some creativity to keep it alive.

Any artificial-turf surface on the final list would have to have a grass field put in place.

 

That's a good point about not knowing who'll be in it eight years down the road, which I didn't really consider. You could make some reasonable assumptions (Brazil) and still aim for regions (obviously there's going to be Mexico and/or Central American countries), but not enough to make concrete plans. It does make me wonder why Chicago got the stiff-arm.

Another question: what's the minimum capacity for a Cup stadium? I know England is putting forth some smaller places like the MK Dons' stadium and Home Park at Plymouth, which seats 19,500 (though it's supposed to be renovated again). I guess in that case I was wondering whether a soccer-specific stadium like Columbus would be considered. Probably not if you have the ability to play somewhere much bigger.

 

I believe 40,000 is the minimum capacity for a World Cup Stadium. And if either the MK Dons or Home Park is one of the facilities for the World Cup should England be awarded one of the two, I will eat my hat.

 

12 years, MMII. 12 years. </englishfanboi>

And 40,000. Though that's 40,000 fans. Once you accommodate the media, TV, etc., you typically need a stadium that ordinarily seats about 45,000.

The MK Dons' stadium can be easily expanded to 45,000, and the stadium in Plymouth is apparently due for some major renovation work. But Plymouth really doesn't need a 45,000-seat stadium; neither does Bristol, which is apparently going to get one anyway.

The Crew stadium would not make the cut; evidently it can only be expanded to 30,000.