Arena Glut
Verizon Center, Washington DC (cc photo by NCinDC)
Charles Bagli has an interesting piece in the New York Times about metropolitan areas suffering from a glut of arenas. He leads with the case of New York City, but the most clear-cut example is probably one he gets to later, Minneapolis. They have the Target Center in Minneapolis and a separate Excel Energy Arena in St. Paul for the NHL’s Wild. Meanwhile, “Both sites are losing money, and they must also compete with the University of Minnesota, which has two arenas.” On top of all that, Minneapolis just isn’t an especially large metropolitan area.
This is too bad. Unlike a football stadium, an indoor arena really can serve as an important element in neighborhood revitalization. That’s because an arena fits relatively comfortably into the urban landscape and also because, in principle, an arena can be used on a high proportion of days. But of course to get a high usage rate, you need to pack a bunch of different things—NBA, NHL, maybe a WNBA or Arena Football, concerts, etc.—all into one space. Splitting it up among two or three not only creates money-losing arenas, but deprives the arena neighborhood of the critical mass of foot traffic that can turn it into something worthwhile.
35 Responses to “Arena Glut”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
June 29th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
The good news is that a lot of arenas were built in really terrible ways back in the day (e.g., an arena sitting in the middle of a vast parking lot in the middle of a city, wasting valuable land, blocking natural traffic flows, and slicing up neighborhoods). So this glut in part can be an opportunity to tear down those ill-conceived arenas and redevelop the relevant land.
June 29th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
Good point — it seems poor design is one reason, though. E.g. the Phoenix Suns and Phoenix Coyotes have separate arenas for this reason alone. The Coyotes apparently needed a new costly facility in Glendale, AZ because the Suns’ arena was custom made for basketball only.
MARCU$
June 29th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
Thanks be to Norm Coleman for the Xcel Energy Center. As Matt says there’s an arena in Minneapolis. Norm and St. Paul’s inferiority complex led them to overcompensate for their city’s shortcomings by building Xcel in their failed downtown.
Those of us in Minneapolis will be blessed with a new college football stadium and, if the Vikings get their way, a new NFL stadium within two miles of each other. Jesus, what a waste.
June 29th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
It’s trickier for the Twin Cities, since you have, um, two cities, the smaller of which is the state capital, and which has an ongoing inferiority complex.
(Neither arena suffers excessively from the “island in a parking lot lake” feel: they’re both downtown, with parking somewhat dispersed around them.)
I can only think of Detroit as another example of separate hockey and basketball arenas for a metro area that has major league teams in both sports, but my guess is that the success of the two franchises — and the different demographics of the fan base — makes a difference here.
(Do the Red Wings get supporters coming in from Windsor?)
June 29th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
Probably the biggest problem with the Minneapolis-St. Paul area is that a number of the lower-grade events are held at the Metrodome. Were the Vikings to ante up and build themselves a new stadium without the state contributing an unholy sum of money, the Dome could be torn down and some of the monster truck events and so on might be held at either the Target Center or Xcel. Instead, starting next April, we’ll have two hockey arenas (Xcel and the U’s Mariucci), two basketball arenas (Target Center and the U’s Williams), two football stadiums (the Dome and the U’s TCF) and two baseball stadiums (the Dome and Target Field). The U’s facilities aren’t crying out for more use, but the Metrodome is very well used – I’ve heard stats that the Dome is used something like 300 days a year. Many of those events could and should be held elsewhere, and the land the Dome sits on could be very valuably used.
June 29th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
New York City was a rather poor example for the article to use. If we consider New Jersey and Nassau County to be separate market areas, the city has only one full-fledged indoor sports arena, the distinctly non-state-of-the-art Madison Square Garden. The Barclays Arena in Brooklyn isn’t going to be built for years, if ever.
June 29th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
The Xcel Energy Center is a terrific concert venue with acoustics that are immensely better than the Target Center’s. Having separate arenas for the professional basketball and hockey teams also makes scheduling games less problematic.
That said, it really was dim for the University of Minnesota to blow public dough for an “on-campus” football stadium, considering the campus is a few minutes walk from downtown Minneapolis where the current Metrodome is located.
June 29th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
I’ve been telling my friends for a while… start getting this ready for 2012… LOS ANGELES VIKINGS.
June 29th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
But of course to get a high usage rate, you need to pack a bunch of different things—NBA, NHL, maybe a WNBA or Arena Football
Maybe not the last of those. Whether the Arena Football League ever returns after the current “suspended” season is an open question.
June 29th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
Clearly the solution is less gun control. Then you could have humongous gun shows everywhere, every weekend.
June 29th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
Having extra arenas is extremely important.
The sports team owners can extract huge concessions from the arena owners. Supply and demand basically forces an area with too many arenas to lose a ton of money.
I have no idea whether they should have built a football stadium in Manhattan but, if they did, it was critical that both the Jets and the Giants play in the same place.
I think it will be a huge waste in Minnesota if you have two new stadiums in the same area.
June 29th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
How about Phoenix, or rather Glendale, and poor-suffering Coyotes fans? Hockey in the desert, hah! There aren’t enough paying spectators to cover the electricity bill to light the damn arena, let alone pay the players.
June 29th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
In Saint Louis football is in the Edward Jones Dome. Baseball is at the new Bush Stadium, there are a couple minor league parks across the rivers. Hockey is in the downtown Scott Trade Arena, just to the west SLU built the medium size Chaifetz Arena. There is a similar medium size facility in the west suburb of St. Charles – the Family Arena. There are two significant soccer venues, one at SLU and the other A/B soccer park.
SLU is trying to drum up revenue at Chaifetz by hosting high scholl graduations. Can not see how many of these are money makers other than Busch, maybe Edward Jones and the multi use A/B soccer park.
June 29th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
On top of all that, Minneapolis just isn’t an especially large metropolitan area.
But the Twin Cities are larger than Denver-Aurora, Pittsburgh, Portland-Vancouver-Beaverton, Sacramento, San Diego, St. Louis, Tampa-St. Petersburg, Baltimore-Towson, and we got a larger population living outside the region w/o access to sports. (N and S Dakota, Iowa, etc)
That said, we got too many stadiums. And we’re building 2 (or three) more! An important point is how much intangible benefits these things have on downtowns: Do they attract growth that would not otherwise occur? Minneapolis has a LOT of people living in its downtown core. And it’s not like the U of MN doesn’t has a captive audience for their games.
Until the recent housing market crash, there was to be a pretty great area around the Twin Stadium built. Even with out that, the North Loop neighborhood nearby went from empty warehouses (the last in the downtown core) to a whole ton of condos, shops and whatnot. That’s a good thing. Also, it became a rallying point for a commuter rail to the Northern suburbs, rail to St. Paul, and other mass transit goodness.
The proposed Vikings stadium also incorporates all sorts of urbanist-fetishes … walkable areas, transit, etc.
@David L: The Twin Cities also might be a special case as far as filling arenas. It’s got a whole ton of venues for music. Most theater spaces per capita, supposedly. Those arenas don’t get filled with concerts because no one wants the reverb off a scoreboard.
June 29th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
Hockey in the desert, hah!
I half-agree. Though HD is doing magical things to the NHL’s viewer numbers. All the Ovechkins and Crosbys in the world aren’t going to sell your sport if nobody can follow the puck.
Anyways, DTM’s right. For a great Tale of Two Arenas look at the ancient monstrosity known as Mellon Arena and its successor. Mellon Arena is a giant building in a concrete parking sea built long ago between Pittsburgh’s downtown and historic Hill District. It essentially cut the Hill off from downtown.
The new arena being built right next door is doing just the opposite. Its built street side in a walkable neighborhood. CBA agreement between the Penguins and various Hill District groups are pumping dollars and opportunities into the neighborhood. Once the old arena is town down, the plan is to develop the site with an eye to reconnecting downtown with its nearest residential neighborhood.
If done right (and its often hard to do so politically), stadium and arena projects can be effective modern urban renewal projects.
June 29th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
Minnesota’s a fucking basket case on this topic. In addition to the arenas mentioned, the Vikings and Republicans are working to get them a new stadium. And I just learned over the weekend that Bill Murray has been in town trying to get some government money for a new Saints stadium. After that, I think I’m next in line for a new stadium. If you move to Minnesota, you should think about getting a stadium too.
June 29th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
Los Angeles is exactly the opposite:
The Lakers, Clippers, and Kings play at the Staples Center, which with concerts and other activites is probably active 300+ nights a year.
However, we can’t get a football stadium built to save our lives. UCLA and USC both play in stadiums that are more than 75 years old and we can’t get a new NFL stadium built at all…
June 29th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
Do the Red Wings get supporters coming in from Windsor?)
Oh, yes.
June 29th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
exhuming mccarthy says that we in Los Angeles can’t get a new NFL stadium built. Not exactly accurate.
If “we in Los Angeles” means the people who live here, then “we” would be fine with a bright, shiny new NFL stadium. Just don’t ask “us” to be as stupid as the rest of the United States; “we” are not going to use our tax money to build a stadium for a billionaire to use for little or no rent.
June 29th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
SCREW ALL SPORTS TEAMS….they are the biggest welfare queens around and they give NOTHING back to the community. Why should my tax $s go to fund a stadium for a billionaires team…he wants a new stadium he can build it himself or go to a town that wants a team. Did anybody else ever notice that the salary cap on teams is equal to what each team gets in tax breaks..
June 29th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
[...] Matt Yglesias responds to a piece I read in the Times this morning about a nationwide glut of stadium space: Charles Bagli has an interesting piece in the New York Times about metropolitan areas suffering from a glut of arenas. He leads with the case of New York City, but the most clear-cut example is probably one he gets to later, Minneapolis. They have the Target Center in Minneapolis and a separate Excel Energy Arena in St. Paul for the NHL’s Wild. Meanwhile, “Both sites are losing money, and they must also compete with the University of Minnesota, which has two arenas.” On top of all that, Minneapolis just isn’t an especially large metropolitan area. [...]
June 29th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
I can only think of Detroit as another example of separate hockey and basketball arenas for a metro area that has major league teams in both sports, but my guess is that the success of the two franchises — and the different demographics of the fan base — makes a difference here.
The irony of this is that the basketball team plays out in the suburbs while the hockey team is downtown, so it’s not about demographics as much as the Iliches, who own the Red Wings and Tigers, are a force in rebuilding the downtown where they also built the new baseball park.
June 29th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
Phoenix has got to be one of the worst. Not only do the Suns, Coyotes, Cardinals, Dbacks, ASU football, ASU basketball each have their own area, but each stupid suburb is now engaged in an arms race to build bigger and better baseball stadiums ($100+ million a pop) to lure a baseball team for a month in the spring, destined to sit empty the rest of the year.
June 29th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
The Coyotes needed their own venue because 1) sight lines kinda sucked in the Suns arena but more importantly 2) the Coyotes got zero dollars of the arena advertising.
I couldn’t care less about any of them. The day that Mark McGuire cried in front of that congressional committee was the day I decided I’d had enough of pro sports. I’ve not been back to ANY pro event since then.
Symeon, did you see that the new baseball stadium on W. Camelback will be hosting a concert? Bob Dylan, John Mellencamp and Willie Nelson. I thought “Wow, I’ll be there!” until I heard that it was outside at a baseball stadium in August, and all seating was general admission (read: stand in line for hours in the sun to get a decent seat). Jumping jesus on a pogo stick, what sick promoter thought this was a good idea? No thanks.
June 29th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
Cincinnati, which is a metro area of only 2.1 million, has five arenas located on its university campuses including the University of Cincinnati’s Fifth-Third Center (13,176 seats), the University of Cincinnati Armory Fieldhouse (8,000 seats), Xavier University’s Cintas Center (10,250 seats), Northern Kentucky University’s Bank of Kentucky Center (10,000 seats) and Miami University’s Millett Hall (9,200 seats). In addition, the city features the U.S. Bank Arena (17,000 seats) and Cincinnati Gardens (11,000 seats).
Add to that Paul Brown Stadium, home of the Bengals, (65,790 seats), the Great American Ballpark, home of the Reds (42,059 seats), Nippert Stadium, home of the U.C. Bearcats (35,098 seats) and the Kentucky Speedway (66,000 seats).
It should be noted that Cincinnati does not have either an NBA team nor an NHL team, nor does the Kentucky Speedway host any top NASCAR events. There’s a lot of capacity for college and minor league sports, including a minor league baseball stadium located in the Northern Kentucky suburban community of Florence.
June 29th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Seattle is “blessed” with two giant stadiums, both built in the last ten years at public expense. Just to make it obvious that we have awesome priorities, we put them right next to each other, so they’re both easy to admire while you’re dodging potholes on the highway, or waiting for the bus that comes every half hour if you’re lucky.
June 29th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
But the Twin Cities are larger than Denver-Aurora
That’s because the defined Denver-Aurora metro area doesn’t make sense, as it (indefensibly) excludes both Boulder and its burbs, as well as (more defensibly) Colorado Springs and its burbs. Given that residents of Boulder and its environs typically commute to Denver for jobs, the first part of that is just silly. The commuting traffic between Colorado Springs and Denver is much more limited — the cities are about an hour apart, but there are a number of two-income families who live between the two and commute in separate directions. In any event, for the purpose of supporting a professional sports team, there’s little reason to exclude Colorado Springs from the Denver metro area. My guess is that on any given gameday, a healthy proportion of the fans at the game are from there or close to it. And if you count that, the Denver metro area is around 4.3 million. (It’s at 2.9 million or so if you just count Boulder.)
June 29th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
James E Powell,
Actually, there have been numerous proposals for privately finaced stadiums, but they have fallen apart for two main reasons:
1) NIMBYism that doesn’t want the additional traffic
and
2) The LA Coliseum commission’s insistance that the Coliseum be redone rather than building a new stadium. As the Coliseum is ran by the city and the state, the can put the kabosh on most plans.
June 29th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
I’m perfectly happy to fund pro sports stadiums publically, just so long as we get just compensation in return. Public ownership of the team Green Bay Packers-style, would do just fine.
June 29th, 2009 at 6:08 pm
Ron Tunning:
I wouldn’t really consider Miami University part of the Cincinnati Metro area, unless you want to include Dayton as well (maybe you do, but most people in Dayton don’t think that way). That said, you’re right that the region is over-stadiumed. I lived there when the new football statium was first proposed, the marketing campaign was basically blackmail and fear-mongering. I think LA has the right approach – a football team is nice to have, but not worth a giant taxpayer subsidy.
June 29th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
The irony of this is that the basketball team plays out in the suburbs while the hockey team is downtown
Yeah, that’s why I was wondering about people coming across from Windsor and SW Ontario. Apparently, there’s discussions about whether to renovate the Joe or move to Foxtown (near Comerica and Ford Field) or near the Masonic Temple. Still downtown, though, and a stone’s throw from the border.
June 29th, 2009 at 10:51 pm
Ron Tunning:
yeah, universities are contributing to the arena glut. I’m a Xavier alum, and we didn’t really have a choice. Either we built a multi-million dollar facility or lose recruits. And of course, universities can’t really share a facility when they are competing against each other for local recruits.
June 30th, 2009 at 5:25 am
Just a sad example of the wastefulness of American sports. I am a big sports fan, but I am also a rabid opponent of spending any public money on stadiums because this is what it leads to.
June 30th, 2009 at 9:32 am
“I’m perfectly happy to fund pro sports stadiums publically, just so long as we get just compensation in return. Public ownership of the team Green Bay Packers-style, would do just fine.”
Well, this is the crux of the biscuit, isn’t it? I’ve never seen a single independent study showing that sports stadiums generate any kind of real economic benefit for a city. The most comprehensive study, out of Indiana University, concluded that the vast majority of money spent on sports is not “new” revenue but rather local money that would have been spent on some other form of entertainment.
That said, I’m curious about the Packers’ model. Exactly what “return” do the public owners of the Packers get from their ownership? Does the team issue shares and pay dividends?
June 30th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
For a great Tale of Two Arenas look at the ancient monstrosity known as Mellon Arena and its successor.
You could also look at L.A., where the Forum was in a sea of parking, within a different city’s limits, and where it did basically nothing for the area except bring in tax dollars. Staples Center is now the centerpiece of the revitalized L.A. Live area, and the Forum is now a mega-church. I really have no idea what the long-term plans are for the L.A. Sports Arena, the former home of the Clippers.