Working on a post related to this. Vogt!
POLL: What do you think is the effective life span of a sports arena/stadium?
— newballpark (@newballpark) June 30, 2016
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I asked the sports economist Rod Fort this same question 15 years ago. His answer then: “I don’t see anything wrong, from an owner’s perspective, with the idea of a new stadium every year.”
http://www.orlandoweekly.com/orlando/cough-it-up-rich/Content?oid=2262037
Turner Field: Opened in 1996 (Olympics), being replaced next year.
The Ballpark at Arlington: Opened in 1994, being replaced probably within five years.
Oakland Coliseum: Opened in 1966, no replacement in sight.
If it’s done extremely well, it should only need to be done once.
The Giants stadium should be there when we all die. It’s in the perfect location, it’s iconic, it has good sight lines.
When a park checks off all those three boxes, it should never be replaced. It should just have improvements and repairs when necessary.
“If it’s done extremely well, it should only need to be done once.”
Agreed.
“The Giants stadium should be there when we all die.”
Agreed.
“It’s in the perfect location,”
Agreed.
“it’s iconic,”
Let’s not get carried away here. Unoriginal Camden Yards knock off; very average building compared to its peer venues. “Iconic” is a bit strong. But still more than adequate for many years to come.
“it has good sight lines.”
Decent sight lines, but many of it’s peer venues are better. PNC Park immediately comes to mind.
“When a park checks off all those three boxes, it should never be replaced. It should just have improvements and repairs when necessary.”
Agreed.
I defer to you, you’ve seen more parks than me Bartleby. But the concept of a splash hit, into the bay…Bonds hitting bombs into there will always be an iconic image for me. And I’m a die hard A’s fan.
I should amend my sight lines comment. Not all the seats have good sight lines…but even the upper deck seats have a beautiful view of the horizon. One could subjectively argue there aren’t bad seats in that park.
The last section in left field that wraps around is amazingly terrible in the upper 2 decks. Basically no visibility of left field from the dirt to the wall.
@Jacob Jackson: Here, however, is the likely outcome of the A’s stadium mess – the Giants have been saving San Jose for themselves all along as plan B. Once the Raiders move out (it doesn’t appear that Davis is on the same page as Oakland officials – Vegas is probably their destination) The A’s will build at the Coliseum site, where else could they go? Oakland is a more lucrative MLB market than Portland, San Antonio, Sac, etc. The A’s will begin dominating the Giants at attendance again – and this time the Giants will successfully flee to San Jose, instead of Tampa Bay, which they attempted to do before – when the A’s nearly drove them out of town.
i don’t see why 95% of these new venues especially the mlb parks built post camden yards can’t last a good 40-50 years.
one reason i could see atl wanting a new stadium was it was never specifically built to be a baseball park. it was the 96 olympic stadium that was designed to be renovated to a baseball park after the event was over but the braves probably were never truly 100% behind the plan/venue even though it moved them away from that cookie cutter venue they were in before that looked similar to the other baseball parks built in the late 60s-early 70s in places like philly, cin, pit.
sure it was an improvement from what they had but it wasn’t a baseball only park from the very start and it shows with it being a very “boring” design as visually there isn’t much special about it. course as an a’s fan i’d take it but that’s not saying much considering we’ve been stuck as fans with the coliseum which was outdated for baseball by the time the renovation began in the mid 90s and after that the baseball experience just worst after that both on and off the field of play.
but these other teams like the rangers and d-backs wanting a new stadium? don’t agree.
Regardless of whether it was originally designed as a baseball park, Turner Field is a very nice baseball park. Just in terms of the building (i.e. not location), it is equivalent to Busch Stadium, Coors Field, AT&T Park, and other generic Camden Yards knock offs.
The main thing that differentiates AT&T Park from other venues is it’s location. If you moved Turner Field to the AT&T Park site, it would get the same raves AT&T Park does. As a building, AT&T Park is very average compared to its peer venues.
The main reason the Braves are moving is they don’t like Turner Field’s location. It’s a bit removed from the core downtown area, so doesn’t get the full benefit of downtown synergies other ballparks do. Also, they want to be closer to their core fan base up north.
(Don’t get me wrong, I think these are terrible reasons to move. I think Cobb County taxpayers are getting ripped off and will pay a big price in terms of horrible traffic for many years to come).
The Rangers and Diamondbacks both have better reasons for wanting a new building than the Braves do. For the Rangers, the Texas heat is a mother so it’s rational to want a dome or retractable roof. The D’back’s venue was unfortunately designed way too big and with way too much of the seating in the upper deck.
But this goes back to the basic point: If you design the thing right in the first place (e.g. right size, location, seat placement, premium areas, fan zone) you should be able to keep a building going for a hundred years or more with only the occasional update or refresh.
FWIW: I received a very nice flyer in the mail from the 49ers, pitching season tickets and single-game luxury suite sales. I’m not even sure how they got my name and address. Wasn’t the place supposed to be sold out?
Interesting poll and comment about Turner field. IF THE A’s WERE SERIOUS ABOUT DOWNTOWN OAKLAND THEY WOULD BE LOOKING AT Downtown Merchants Parking Lot and it’s surroundings. The only decent location left in Downtown Oakland IMHO.
http://www.sfgate.com/giants/article/Rob-Manfred-on-A-s-I-certainly-have-not-8354856.php Manfred says MLB hasn’t given up on Oakland, A’s can’t wait on Raiders and baseball is “best economic investment for the city.” In other words, he wants city $$ for a new ballpark, which MLB won’t get