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What about expanding the main field at the Matthews Sportsplex? The Memorial Stadium parcel just looks too skinny for a regulation soccer pitch + 20M-40M seats. Plus, the game-day traffic at that site would be epic. The biggest drawback of Matthews is the lack of public transportation, but it is certainly more driveable.

 

 

I'm not a big fan of suburban stadiums.  Obviously it's an option, but blah.  Game day traffic really shouldn't be an issue.  Memorial holds close to 20,000 people for big high school football games and that works fine.  Plus 40k seats is way too many.  18 - 22k would be perfect.  

 

The fact that the area would be transit accessible - streetcar and walk able - makes it a pretty desirable site.  Plus I imagine an MLS team would draw pretty significant support from the young people living in Plaza-Midwood, NoDa, Elizabeth and South End.  MLS is a hipster sport.  Throw a stage on one end of it like the stadium in Columbus and make it even more "multi-purpose".

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If transit ever makes it's way toward Union County, it would run right by the Sportsplex and a big mixed-use development that is planned adjacent to it. Suburban stadiums are now being designed along with new development similar to what the Braves are doing so it could work in theory. The County already owns the land. Right now, they're only building a 1,500 or so seat stadium there. 

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If transit ever makes it's way toward Union County, it would run right by the Sportsplex and a big mixed-use development that is planned adjacent to it. Suburban stadiums are now being designed along with new development similar to what the Braves are doing so it could work in theory. The County already owns the land. Right now, they're only building a 1,500 or so seat stadium there. 

 

 

I just can't get behind it.  Suburban stadiums are soulless monsters.  I know that's totally my opinion.  But the whole vibe of an urban core stadium is so much better.  It gives the team a more community feel.

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http://www.mlssoccer.com/mlscup/2013/news/article/2013/12/03/commissioner-don-garber-miami-and-atlanta-race-become-22nd-23rd-teams-mls

 

"But for any of those cities to have a realistic shot, they'll need a plan for a downtown stadium.

"The downtown formula has been working for us and it’s hard to imagine that we would go into a market where we don’t have that scenario," Garber said. "It’s not an absolute, but whether it’s Minneapolis, or St. Louis, or Austin or San Antonio.

"All the potential stadium sites – and I say potential because we haven’t even begun to look deeply in any of those markets – all of them would be within the urban core.""

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I'm not a big fan of suburban stadiums.  Obviously it's an option, but blah.  Game day traffic really shouldn't be an issue.  Memorial holds close to 20,000 people for big high school football games and that works fine.  Plus 40k seats is way too many.  18 - 22k would be perfect.  

 

The fact that the area would be transit accessible - streetcar and walk able - makes it a pretty desirable site.  Plus I imagine an MLS team would draw pretty significant support from the young people living in Plaza-Midwood, NoDa, Elizabeth and South End.  MLS is a hipster sport.  Throw a stage on one end of it like the stadium in Columbus and make it even more "multi-purpose".

 

I would think that putting a future soccer-specific stadium close to some of Charlotte's wealthiest neighborhoods would be pretty attractive to potential ownership groups. Memorial Stadium's location largely offers that.  US soccer fans, and I know I'm being very general here, trend towards white & affluent. Plaza Midwood, Elizabeth, Myers Park, Dilworth, and Uptown are all a stone's throw from the stadium.

Edited by birky
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Maybe an alternate use for the Eastland mall site if the movie studio project falls through? An MLS-sized stadium with some mixed-use stuff around it... With the current demographics of that neighborhood they'd draw a ton, and it's close enough to the city for a short drive, plus they could run transit out there...

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Looks like there is a proposal to redevelop part of the Bojangles Coliseum site into an amateur sports complex. This would be a new building, and would have a field house, an 150-room hotel, and 50k square feet of retail:

 

http://www.lakewyliepilot.com/2013/12/09/2204850/fla-developer-seeks-18m-for-bojangles.html

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I'd rather the money go towards a MLS stadium than a strip center, Laquinta Inn, and field house at Bojangles. The city has enough low end big box retailers why would they include this in the proposal. Im assuming this is the case because of the poor demographics surrounding Bojangles. Can we say boondoggle.

Edited by Missmylab4
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As long as this place continues to border Grier Heights, it will not be a desirable area.  And obviously they are not going to move it.  I don't understand the mindset of this at all.  If I'm taking my kid to play in a basketball tournament, I'm not looking to stay and shop in and around that neighborhood and a freeway.  There are much more significant issues that need to be addressed in and around that area.  Dressing up a basketball arena and getting an extra Family Dollar will not do that.

 

That may sound callous, but it's true.

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Not having seen the plans, but if they are considering something along the lines of the Charlotte Sports Center, it might work. That place is packed out 4 nights a week + weekends with soccer and flag football. I'm not sure what basketball is like these days, but those leagues used to fill out as well. Hopefully they go with some turf options and don't do 100% hardwood.

 

http://goodsportsenterprises.com/village/fieldhouse/

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  • 3 weeks later...

Stumbled upon this yesterday and even though I don't know the first thing about hockey I found this very interesting to watch. A ref officiating a Checkers game wore a helmet cam. I've always enjoyed watching the candid footage involving the players during games.

Thanks for that!

 

Merry Christmas Planeteers!

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I was at the Belk Bowl tonight. Nice game for Tar Heel fans, but somewhat embarrassing for Charlotte. Actual attendance was (best case) 35,000, but it looked much worse in person. This was sad for a 'local team' that hasn't played here since 2009.

 

I have high hopes that an SEC-ACC matchup will be more exciting, but its clear that the local college football culture will need to change if we are going to hold onto the bowl game.

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I was at the Belk Bowl tonight. Nice game for Tar Heel fans, but somewhat embarrassing for Charlotte. Actual attendance was (best case) 35,000, but it looked much worse in person. This was sad for a 'local team' that hasn't played here since 2009.

 

I have high hopes that an SEC-ACC matchup will be more exciting, but its clear that the local college football culture will need to change if we are going to hold onto the bowl game.

Get a team that isn't tainted by cheating to play against a team with more fans/history than Cinci and you have the makings of a good game.

 

ACC vs. SEC will draw better, but lets be honest about bowl games...if it isn't the NC or the Rose Bowl, nobody cares. Only 2 teams in the BCS bowls sold out their full allotment with some returning more than 10,000 unsold tickets. Bowl games are a joke and most people simply don't want to pay 1000+ dollars to buy tickets, travel, and pay for lodging to see two unranked teams play each other.

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I was at the Belk Bowl tonight. Nice game for Tar Heel fans, but somewhat embarrassing for Charlotte. Actual attendance was (best case) 35,000, but it looked much worse in person. This was sad for a 'local team' that hasn't played here since 2009.

 

I have high hopes that an SEC-ACC matchup will be more exciting, but its clear that the local college football culture will need to change if we are going to hold onto the bowl game.

 

As rworkman09 mentioned, a majority of the bowl games not named Rose or BCS Championship don't draw all that well every year (depending on the matchup). Most of them are well below listed capacity. Watching the Buffalo Wild Wing Bowl in Tempe, AZ with Michigan and K-State playing, most of the upper deck is empty. And this is a bowl game with one of the more storied programs in college football. Also, keep in mind there are ~35 bowl games. That's a lot of bowl games with a lot of teams that are only winning 6 or 7 games in the regular season. Heck, if you watched any of the Tarheels games this year it was pretty sad how bad they drew at home. Hopefully the SEC vs. ACC matchups in future years will draw better but don't expect 73,000 seats to be filled either. 

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Having WV play in Charlotte was the best thing for the Belk Bowl. With so many WVU fans living in the city and so many WVU fans having family in the city, it is a great road trip for their fan base. I doubt we'll see crowds like that again unless USC is the SEC representative and they're playing Clemson, NC State, or UNC.

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  • 1 month later...

Wait, so not Liverpool/Manchester City? And the WCNC article says United instead of City anyway... That's a fairly major change.

WCNC article................. and all the news sites jumped the gun after the Disturber initially reported it was Man U when the official announcement hadn't been released yet.

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http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2014/02/24/4720661/acc-football-championship-game.html#.Uwt1L_ldUuf

 

ACC Football Championship will be in Charlotte through 2019!  Along with the Belk Bowl now featuring an SEC-ACC battle each year, we should get some good powerhouse matchups in the future.  Now if only we can build a top-tier program at UNCC... :/

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