Vegas A's Stadium

[rudel.dietrich]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

Yeah and Fenway only seats around 33k itself. It's not really all that small.

The thing that I don't get is that it appears to be an open-air stadium that's going to be sitting in Las Vegas and playing ballgames in the middle of the summer. That's a terrible combination, even if they start games at like midnight and they won't be starting games at midnight. Chase Field in Phoenix might look ugly compared to this but that retractable roof is used a lot... according to this page:

https://www.nowhitting.com/index.php...-facts-figures

...the criteria they use is "temperature below 100 at game time with the sun setting" for keeping the roof open. That essentially means the roof stays closed for all of July and August. There are stretches during that time where the temperature never drops below 100 even in the middle of the night.

Vegas is cooler than Phoenix but only slightly. I think I've heard people insist that the large open looking expanse is actually a giant window, which... ask people who went to see games in the Astrodome in the first year it was there to watch games how glass roofs worked out. The glare refracted through a window is actually worse than direct sunlight and I suspect it would still do crazy things to the AC in a place like that. Also that would be an awful lot of glass, like I'm no engineer but would that be structurally sound?

From what I am reading, and from that second picture.
It looks fully enclosed by some material.

I have seen allusions that the 'glass' may even be LED so they can change it to various colors or pictures.

They could also change it to all white during the day to cut down on the heat factor a bit.
I have also read that the glass is panels and in between is structural steel.

And the glass itself may not even be traditional glass, but more of a stronger glass akin to what you see on modern phones and tablets, and have an OLED display behind it, and then another layer of glass behind that.

Again, we will have to wait for more details. And I am sure the design will change several more times.

[rudel.dietrich]

Originally Posted by mytreds

Looks horrendous. Once again my American brothers have no taste in architecture.

I think this may be one reason I like it, it reminds me of some of the more modern European soccer arenas that we have seen in the last 15-20 years.

[Amazin69]

Fenway seats 37,305 in the day, and 37,755 at night. So this thing isn't even 90% of Fenway's size.

Also, I believe it is supposed to be able to seal itself for AC. Note the rectangles in the second drawing reaching from roof to ground. I don't believe you can make that big a "window" pivot the 90ª to close off the air (you can see the "glass" up against the ceiling in the first image), I don't see any mechanism to move it into place, and I'm fairly certain that simply slamming the "window" into the ground (instead of some sort of receiving groove) would be a complete failure…but that's why artists aren't engineers, I suppose.

So apparently Las Vegas is being served Sizzle sans Steak; the only question is whether Fisher is in on the con, or if the design firm chose to take the money and laugh?

[Bluenoser]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

Yeah and Fenway only seats around 33k itself. It's not really all that small.

The thing that I don't get is that it appears to be an open-air stadium that's going to be sitting in Las Vegas and playing ballgames in the middle of the summer. That's a terrible combination, even if they start games at like midnight and they won't be starting games at midnight. Chase Field in Phoenix might look ugly compared to this but that retractable roof is used a lot... according to this page:

https://www.nowhitting.com/index.php...-facts-figures

...the criteria they use is "temperature below 100 at game time with the sun setting" for keeping the roof open. That essentially means the roof stays closed for all of July and August. There are stretches during that time where the temperature never drops below 100 even in the middle of the night.

Vegas is cooler than Phoenix but only slightly. I think I've heard people insist that the large open looking expanse is actually a giant window, which... ask people who went to see games in the Astrodome in the first year it was there to watch games how glass roofs worked out. The glare refracted through a window is actually worse than direct sunlight and I suspect it would still do crazy things to the AC in a place like that. Also that would be an awful lot of glass, like I'm no engineer but would that be structurally sound?

According to the article, it's a domed stadium.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by rudel.dietrich

38,000 falls in line on the lower end of modern stadiums built after 2000.

In the 70s, there was a move towards massive 70,000 seat concrete monoliths with zero creature comforts.

Then the trend became smaller stadiums with better sight lines, a more premium experience and great views of the surrounding area.

And to create artificial scarcity, thus allowing higher ticket prices to be charged.

Using your capacities, instead of fans competing to buy from among 70,000 seats, now the same number of fans are competing to buy from among 38,000 seats. The seat market size has been reduced by 46% while the number of customers is unchanged.

Higher prices inevitably follow.

[Boomcoach]

Artificial scarcity only applies when you have enough buyers for the larger amount. Building a 33,000 seat stadium that doesn't sell out is not going to escalate ticket prices. It may lower them, if the price on the secondary market ends up being less than face.

A properly sized stadium will give a better atmosphere. A sold out 30,000 seat stadium is going to feel more energized than a 50,000 seat stadium with 20,000 empty seats.

Having said that, I am not convinced that Vegas will manage 30,000 tickets sold anyway.

[Syd Thrift]

Honestly I think it makes the case for selling, say, 20,000 season tickets better: with the lower capacity, if you don't buy the season tickets, even if there are seats at the game they'll not be great ones. I just also think that baseball is acknowledging that it's not a sport that regularly seats 70k people and doesn't want to be that either. Having lived in a city that for years had a park like that (granted, the Kingdome was widely regarded as the worst of the worst), I can definitely confirm that too-large, multi-use parks are bad for watching baseball, and conversely my experience in Fenway and relatively small Wrigley Field (capacity 41k and unlike Fenway the concessions are actually inside of the stadium) tell me that smaller parks are fantastic for the game.

Most of my issues with Vegas are a. that I don't think taxpayers should be supporting teams building what are more or less private parks, especially when those teams are moving from city to city to do so, and b. the particular issues of a desert ballclub which don't look to me like that they will be fixed with this particular stadium model. Otherwise, though, we went away from the cookie cutter park more than 30 years ago now.

[rudel.dietrich]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

And to create artificial scarcity, thus allowing higher ticket prices to be charged.

Using your capacities, instead of fans competing to buy from among 70,000 seats, now the same number of fans are competing to buy from among 38,000 seats. The seat market size has been reduced by 46% while the number of customers is unchanged.

Higher prices inevitably follow.

This is part of it.

But those 70,000 seat stadiums were awful.
When I lived in America, I went to games at RFK stadium pretty often. Because I was young and it was cheap to go. (and I worked for the Nationals for a few years as well)

It was a pretty awful fan experience. But that was the design of the time in the 60s and 70's

Then they began to design smaller stadiums with a more 'premium' experience.
Ticket prices did rise. But they also took into account things like parking, metro access, sight lines and actually being able to see the entire field no matter where you sat.
Being able to go get food and get back to your seat in a reasonable amount of time.
Fan safety

Modern stadiums are just better as we have gotten more experience in building places where any where between 15,000 to 80,000 people gather for several hours and then leave at once.

But as others have said, not even these smaller stadiums are selling out.
It is very possible to attend a weekday game and find tickets on the secondary market for considerable savings vs face value.

[KelJDel]

If you listen to the Mayor of Vegas, she is not for the As coming here

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by KelJDel

If you listen to the Mayor of Vegas, she is not for the As coming here

At the very least she's not for the city subsidizing the building of that or any other stadium for them. Maybe the state will jump in where the city isn't. I think the tide, generally, is starting to turn on these sorts of things anyway.

[dsvitak]

Originally Posted by Amazin69

Any stadium plan depending on tourists is pretty much DOA. Especially tourists from Billings, ffs.

(Billings isn't exactly over-populated, you might notice. There's a reason they only have a Pioneer League club.

I grant you that you can currently fly round-trip from Billings to LV for $200 round-trip. [2.5 hour change in Salt Lake City, however.] But still. The few hardy souls who make the trip are probably more interested in gambling and fancy buffets, and shows, and…er…professional ladies than they are about going to wherever to watch that crappy Oakland team still losing games.)

A team needs fans. People who are emotionally invested in it, who come out rain or shine, who still use "1641" as their passcode, even though Doc's been off the Mets for 30 years. Once-off curiosity visits from people flying in from scattered minor-league cities ain't gonna cut it.

(It's not even working out for the Traitors, and they only have 8 home games per season, not 81.)

My point was that there are tourists from all over the US that will come to Vegas. You can't gamble 24/7. IF there is a baseball game, dad and his son may well go to it, while mom and the girls go to the show.

Vegas is also a pretty large city/metro area. I can see them developing a fan base a lot easier than Oakland or Tampa Bay.

[monkeyman576]

Nah, I'm making my wife and daughter go with me to the game.

[dsvitak]

Originally Posted by monkeyman576

Nah, I'm making my wife and daughter go with me to the game.

My daughter is a big baseball fan. One year, perhaps 25 years ago, we went to a Cardinals game. Tied 1-1, bottom of the 10th, and Willie McGee was sent up to PH. This was very late in his career.

The place went nuts. If there is a more beloved person in Cardinals history, I wouldn't know who. Musial...MAYBE.

Anyhoo, McGee bombed one over the centerfield fence to win the game, and the place went NUTS. To this day, it is my daughter's favorite baseball memory..and she has told this story often.

Found it. Pretty easy, actually:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/b...99707020.shtml

[Amazin69]

Originally Posted by dsvitak

My point was that there are tourists from all over the US that will come to Vegas. You can't gamble 24/7. IF there is a baseball game, dad and his son may well go to it, while mom and the girls go to the show.

Vegas is also a pretty large city/metro area. I can see them developing a fan base a lot easier than Oakland or Tampa Bay.

Oh, I know you meant Billings and places like it, not merely Billings itself. My point is that there really aren't so many places like that, isolated away from an easier baseball destination that they'd have to fly to Vegas (where there are MANY more interesting things to do than a random ballgame between teams you don't care about, one of which is going to be a joke of a team for as long as Fisher owns it) and that teams survive by having a permament, passionate fan base, that does repeat business (and thus is a market for things like season tickets and merchandise).

ETA: the last time I checked, Las Vegas was the #42 Metro area. Not an immediate disqualifier, but hardly cause to jump to the head of the line.

Do you think your daughter would have become a Cardinals fan if her sole connection to the team was that you saw them in Las Vegas, once, ten years ago? Fans are not tourists, and tourists are not fans. It's a flawed model.

JMO.

[Syd Thrift]

I think Vegas could potentially bring in lots of Big Sky people but then again that’s the argument for the Mariners too and really outside of when the Blue Jays are in town, the M’s are still very much a Seattle/Western Washington franchise. It’s definitely not like, say, Riverside, CA, where you could conceivably draw the entire Inland Empire metro.

[AirmenSmith]

Sad. I just got married last year at the Tropicana and now it will be torn down

[monkeyman576]

Originally Posted by AirmenSmith

Sad. I just got married last year at the Tropicana and now it will be torn down

Sad that you got married or sad it is being torn down?

[Amazin69]

At least your marriage isn't being torn down. (Assuming you didn't put "so long as this stadium is standing" in the vows.)

A check shows that Viva Las Vegas is up to #29 in Metro Areas. Still nowhere near the top of the "needs a team" list.

1A. Third team for NYC. (NYC is greater than #2 LA-Anaheim and #6 DC/North VA combined)

12. Riverside/San Berdoux
22. Orlando, etc.
23. Charlotte
24. San Antonio
25. Portland OR
27. Austin, etc.
28. Sacramento

After LVNV, the next unserved is Columbus OH at 32, then (after Cleveland at 33), Indianapolis, Nashville, San Jose, Tidewater, Jacksonville and so on.

[monkeyman576]

Colorado Springs is one of the largest growing populations in the US. It had 50K in 1980 and has 600000K today.

[dsvitak]

Originally Posted by Boomcoach

Artificial scarcity only applies when you have enough buyers for the larger amount. Building a 33,000 seat stadium that doesn't sell out is not going to escalate ticket prices. It may lower them, if the price on the secondary market ends up being less than face.

A properly sized stadium will give a better atmosphere. A sold out 30,000 seat stadium is going to feel more energized than a 50,000 seat stadium with 20,000 empty seats.

Having said that, I am not convinced that Vegas will manage 30,000 tickets sold anyway.

There are Premier League teams with stadiums that hold 12-15K. Why can't an MLB team have one in the 30's?