Cure for stadium madness is a simple one: renovation
The Oakland Raiders’ move to Las Vegas dominated sports coverage last week. It was the usual mishmash of heartbroken fans and heartless executives, served with a side of financial analysis.
What did Oakland’s mayor do wrong? Should taxpayers provide $750 million? How can NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell look at himself in the mirror? Does team owner Mark Davis even own a mirror?
These were the questions fueling the blather on talk radio and TV.
But all that micro-babble misses the macro question: When did stadiums become disposable?
Think about it. The whole Raiders mess is based on a simple premise. They could not possibly continue to do business in the horrible, disgusting, dysfunctional facility known as the Oakland Coliseum. That was the baseline argument. The world bought it, without questioning, and off we went on a
years-long journey to find the proper sucker to foot the bill.
I don’t buy it. And I didn’t buy it for Candlestick Park. Or Oracle Arena. Or any other abandoned structure we’ve left behind. These are massive arenas that should stand the test of time. In a country dominated by strip malls and gas stations, couldn’t we allow some history into the frame?
But the owners cry foul. They simply cannot function without new luxury suites. And more room for concessions.
It’s a familiar tune sung by most every team in the league over the past two decades. The NFL is in the midst of a regular building boom, erecting 12 stadiums in the past 15 years. Atlanta’s new palace will make it a lucky 13 this fall for the great builders of the National Football League. And let’s not forget one more on the way near L.A., to be followed by the Raiders’ desert home.
Every one of those projects was sold on the same premise: A modern NFL franchise absolutely has to have a state-of-theart, brand-new, billiondollar stadium to survive. Bull-pucky. In 2003, the city of Chicago renovated Soldier Field, home of the Bears, for $690 million. The resulting mix of modern architecture with a classic facade drew both praise and scorn, but it achieved numerous benefits. A historic structure was preserved. Hundreds of million of dollars were saved. Needless waste was avoided.
That last part is my primary gripe. What makes our society think it’s OK to throw away massive structures made of concrete and steel? One report by CNN Money estimated the average life span of an NFL stadium at 31 years. I have knee injuries older than that.
“They don’t even last that long any more,” said Stanford economist Roger Noll, a leading expert on stadium finance.
At a time when American infrastructure desperately needs updating — as evidenced by the failed dams and bridges plaguing California this rainy winter — the only major projects I’m hearing about revolve around billionaires’ desire for more luxury boxes and concessions.
Then you think about the public finance involved. Taxpayers will contribute $750 million toward the construction of the Raiders’ new stadium, with an additional $200 million in infrastructure upgrades possible.
For what? A better place to watch football? Not better schools. Not better hospitals. Not better anything. It’s all sacrificed at the greedy altar of professional sports.
Even if we accept this reality — sports as the ultimate capitalist religion — then why are we toppling our cathedrals? Miami recently renovated the unfortunately named Hard Rock Stadium for about $500 million ...
using private funds. Not surprisingly, Dolphins owner Stephen Ross was the only dissenting vote against Davis’ proposed move to Las Vegas, saying, “(We), as owners and as a league, owe it to the fans to do everything we can to stay in the communities that have supported us, until all options have been exhausted.”
There’s a novel idea. How about staying with the fans who love you? How about renovating the Oakland Coliseum for $500 million and preserving the field where Kenny Stabler and Fred Biletnikoff and John Madden made their mark? I don’t really care that it was built in 1968. Soldier Field was built in 1924. Fenway Park was built in 1912. Wrigley Field in 1914.
In college football, Notre Dame Stadium dates to 1930. Alabama’s Bryant-Denny stadium came online in 1929. Look no further than Berkeley, where Memorial Stadium (b. 1923) was recently spruced up with all the necessary luxuries. This isn’t that hard.
Granted, the Coliseum is a special kind of dump. It’s been affectionately known as the Mausoleum since the 1970s. The construction of Mount Davis made things worse. And the recent sewage problems added a comic layer to the pile, so to speak. It could’ve been saved for the Raiders, though, and improved. At a cheaper cost than new construction. Without tearing apart a community.
“If all you’re interested in is fixing your stadium up so that it’s nice, you can do it at a tiny fraction of the cost,” said Stanford’s Noll. “You could fix up a stadium for a couple hundred million. The hook is, fixing it to make it a place you want to go, it wouldn’t add the concession space, the hotels, the additional retail space.
“They want to make a property with a much bigger footprint. As long as you’re using someone else’s money, you can add bells and whistles and build a monument to the owner’s ego . ... If teams had to pay for their own stadiums, the stadiums would be much less elaborate. They would be less of an architectural marvel.”
Even if the Oakland Coliseum is a lost cause, and you take it out of the equation, let’s look at the global picture here. Renovating our existing sports structures makes more sense than throwing them away. Think about the treasures lost in recent decades. Yankee Stadium. Tiger Stadium. Comiskey. Even more modern structures like the Georgia Dome, the Astrodome and the Silverdome have been abandoned. It’s ridiculous.
Over in Europe, where actual cathedrals stand for hundreds of years, revered stadiums like England’s Wembley and Old Trafford, Spain’s Camp Nou and Germany’s Westfalenstadion, have been updated and expanded over the years. And not torn down.
“The difference between Europe and the U.S. is there are almost no concessions at soccer stadiums. There are also almost no publicly subsidized stadiums, other than Olympic venues,” said Noll, referring to the big soccer stadiums on the continent. “For the most part, these teams have more spartan stadiums that last much longer and get rebuilt, rather than torn down, because the teams are responsible for them. Those teams generate just as many fans, and just as much money.
“These teams are worth every bit as much and play in stadiums NFL owners would not accept.”
So what kind of society builds massive monuments to that which they hold dear, only to tear them down in search of short-term profit?
A wasteful, shortsighted, greedy culture like the NFL, as in Not For Long.