RE: FC Cincinnati groundbreaking tomorrow
OKI, there may be some better folks to chime in with respect to specifics about FC Cincy, but I'll attempt the comparison to other franchises. This year, MLS averaged just about 22,000 fans per game. Most of the stadiums - particularly those built in the last 10 years (which is most) are in the 18,000 to 25,000 seat range, with a few outliers. Seattle, New England and Atlanta play in football stadiums. Seattle and Atlanta do so out of demand and because the stadiums work for soccer. New England does because their franchise sucks. NYCFC plays at Yankee Stadium until they settle on a new home. The 26,000 will be the 8th or 9th largest stadium (out of 24 clubs) right out of the gate, and planned stadiums in New York and Boston will likely be the same and smaller.
I'm a season ticket holder in Portland. We're expanding from 21,000 to about 25,500 this year. It'll still leave north of 10,000 people on the waitlist, but you can always find a ticket, with the exception of the Seattle game. They could have expanded by a bit more, but decided on relative intimacy and demand. For FC Cincy, I think 26,000 is the right size, especially once ticket prices rise, which they'll have to if the club is going to stay competitive. The lowest price for a season ticket for FC is $199. In Portland, it's $475. That'll weed out a number of folks (for better or for worse) when FC moves to OTR. Similar to Portland, Cincy will have a wait list and people will find tickets.
In terms of location, I love that it's urban, but I'm sure there'll be challenges. It works great here - the stadium is in the densest part of an already-dense city, but people figure it out. I do realize, though, that Portland and Cincinnati aren't remotely comparable when it comes to urban density and transportation. Finally, I believe that the stadium was designed to be expandable, although it's a tight space. The renderings that you reference were original rendering that were modified this fall. I don't think that translucent design is final - the community expressed that they'd like the stadium to fit better architecturally into OTR.
As a fan of soccer, and a fan of my hometown, I'm psyched for this. I can't wait to come to Nippert this year or next. It'll be incredibly strange, however, rooting against the home team at Nip for the first time ever.
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