Why? Building a stadium creates jobs and increases tourism and spending. The state of Minnesota paid for US Bank Stadium and it being there generates 26 million dollars per year in tax revenue and 145 million in direct spending which not only helps small business, but the state gets a cut of it as well
Any stadium that is built with mostly tax paper money should require the team to sign at least a 40 year lease, pay for any improvements, and pay a huge fee if they want to break their lease.
I say any stadium or stadium improvements built with any taxpayer money stipulate that the money has to be paid back and that the primary sports tenant is on the hook for it even if they decide to move.
No public funding of a Professional sports business's performance venue is a good deal for taxpayers or the community. Professional sports venues simply do not return to the community or the taxpayers enough, even considering the 'improvement of the area' and business generation, over the longer term, to realize a general 'profit'. It most certainly is a great investment for specific stakeholders in the real estate, infrastructure and bond marketing. (The Ballpark at Arlington is probably as close to a 'text book case' as any. I like to refer to it as the stadium built so Gee Wubya could get rich, but although it was his entre' into leverage of public funds for private profit, he wasn't the biggest winner.) It can be a great deal for a Professional sports business too, but it's not always. At best, the best such project may break even, based on historic economic data across a very large number of cases. Turner Field is an excellent example. First the insider investors and stakeholders realized returns from investment for the Olympics. Then they realized some returns from the favored occupant status of the Atlanta Braves. Turner certainly wasn't a disaster or a total loss. The taxpayers and community didn't, at least, take a bath. At the aggregate level, though I don't have the numbers, I suspect the gross overall was a minor net-negative to both, but not so substantial as to be especially notable in a public spending environment where numerous other counter-productive or questionable expenditures occur. Truist probably represents a similar case for Cobb County overall, but for the customers of the Atlanta Braves, participants in the 'park' concept's ventures, and certainly for the Atlanta Braves business, it definitely looks like a winner.
I don’t disagree but Turner field was built more by corporate sponsorship and the city/county collected the revenue from parking and concessions. So the braves leaving is more due to failure in the local Governments cause they were trying to stay, but the city wouldn’t do necessary improvements for parking or concessions which was 90% of the upgrade package they requested for that go turned down.
Atlanta’s Olympic organizers built the Olympic stadium with $200 million of private money from ticket sales and sponsorships. Right after the Games, the 80,000-seat venue was converted into a 50,000-seat baseball stadium. It was the Olympics’ gift to Atlanta. Still in use by local college. Hard to call it a waste of money.
Thank God my Braves got out the hell of there. A dangerous neighborhood for sure. I always felt like I took my life in my hands going to that stadium or old Atlanta Fulton County stadium. Don’t get me wrong, plenty of good memories, Aaron, Niekro etc., pretty much any national league team that came through there. But dangerous as hell
The Braves did not have to pay for Turner Field, to my recollection. The City of Atlanta owned the stadium. They paid for it. They also owned the parking lots. This is what led to the Braves leaving, as the Braves wanted to build some type of entertainment/dining district beside the park and the city told them no. The Braves were also not getting income from concessions, as far as I can tell, or parking. So when the lease was up, they left. Now they have their entertainment district (the battery), they own the stadium and receive concession revenue, and they own some of the parking, namely the parking decks, receiving revenue from such. They are in a better financial situation than they were at Turner Field.
@@kevingriener7441 Turner Field was less than a mile away from a majority white neighborhood, Grant Park. It was actually in the Summer Hill neighborhood which is racially mixed. However, panhandlers would often ask you for money. If you parked in the opposite side of I-75 from the stadium, it was in a pretty dangerous area. That is either the neighborhood of Mechanicsville or Peoplestown.
I went to an Expos game at Olympic Stadium in 1982. I have never forgotten how absolutely massive it was, and it was nearly filled to capacity. Quite an experience.
The place is a dump. I have seen concerts and ball games there, and it does not suit either. The Expos would be there if they had built a new ball park down town instead of moving there after the Olympics.
As shady as the dealings were that led to the Braves leaving Turner Field the move has turned out to be good for all parties involved- the Braves have obviously profited tremendously from Truist Park and The Battery and Georgia State taking over what is now Center Parc Stadium and the area around has allowed the school to make the kind of development the area drastically needed. Turner Field during the Braves era may have been a waste but the situation is nothing of the sort now, its a big win.
@@robinhoodhustsle1356 As a Cobb native, that was a small part of it. The bigger thing is getting to downtown and parking then connector traffic to leave was a pain.
I also heard during a career day that when Turner was being converted to being a baseball stadium they over built the seating capacity by 10,000 seats. So I'm guessing that a combination of problems that the Braves front office had with Turner and a really sweet deal out in Cobb where they could make it a go to place. Nice to hear that Georgia State is improving the situation around Turner though.
Wasn’t that shady. Cobb county said they would build a new park, let them control and profit from parking instead of the city, and let them control the food instead of the county. The Stadium improvements requested by the team for turner field was 90% things the local governments profited from in the first place.
I think you're being a bit hard on Turner Field. Unlike Olympic Stadium in Montreal, it was designed from the start to be converted into a baseball stadium, and thus the Braves actually got it at a bargain price as most of the cost went into the original building. The reason the Braves moved out is because the city of Atlanta refused to develop the area around the stadium; most fans came, saw the game, and then went home. Cobb County was willing to build a ballpark as part of a mixed-use development, so the team took them up on it. The Battery, as the development is called, has hotels, apartments, restaurants, shops and a theater; all that ever existed near Turner Field was one small hotel and a minor sports bar.
Another reason for the Braves' leaving is that their ballpark was getting just old enough to need some renovations ... just as the city of Atlanta had inked a deal to build the Falcons a brand-new football stadium! The money committed to that deal meant that the Braves would just have to lump it for the foreseeable future in they stayed in Turner Field. Atlanta being Atlanta, of course some on-the-make suburb decided to take advantage.
@@scotthersey4380without public transit going to Turner field then it's not a huge problem going to Cobb. Its a 10-20 minute drive from downtown (I'm on 14th street) with windy hills exit missing most 285 and 75 north traffic. Uber 2 hours before game time in traffic was still only $21. It's not bad at all
@@scotthersey4380 Not to mention that the city of Atlanta gave the Hawks $140 million plus to overhaul State Farm (nee Philips) Arena shortly after Tony Ressler's group bought the club.
I dont blame the Braves for leaving Turner Field. From what ive read, the Braves were tenants in that stadium, so they had no say in what the stadium could do. Also Ive read that Turner Field was not located in the best/safest area, so going to see a Braves game in night games was not the safest decision out there, which also explains why attendance was always low, especially in postseason games.
If you know where to go, it was not bad. But you had to plan ahead. If you planned ahead it was great. If you didnt good luck. If i remember correctly transit was not the best there. It didnt have a sub station. Bus was okay
I'm from Pittsburgh but I visited Turner Field and took a tour and watched the Braves play a game against the Giants. I really enjoyed my experience there. Glad it's still being used in some capacity.
I think Pittsburgh got the best of the modern era stadiums. From the television, it looks like a modern day recreation of Wrigley field. In my mind, MLB should take the measure of Wrigley and make that the official stadium. If you've ever seen a game their it is great. I hope to see a game at Pittsburgh sometime soon.
@@kaneinkansas Pittsburgh did a great job with both of their stadiums. Three Rivers Stadium was built when the Pirates were the main draw in town. The Steelers needed a football stadium, and got a good one in Heinz Field. The Pirates got a gem in PNC Park after realizing that baseball was no longer the big draw in town, and so an appropriately sized park was built for them. Both are in the black 20 years and running.
Back in the day most team owners were not multi billionaires...today THEY ARE. These owners can build their own stadiums...or We the citizens can finance it...BUT we get a percentage of total team profits...period !
Sometimes being late the stadium game for teams is the best option. Seeing how these fail is a solid lesson for a team or community to avoid pitfalls. Don't build to draw a team, don't give in immediately to a demanding owner wanting something new to be better than someone else and plan a structure to make it pay for itself in a specific 10 to 15 year time frame. And if possible work with the right infrastructure to make the building feasible in more ways you can think.
The Montreal Olympic stadium was still being finalized right up the the games’ start date. So the rush to finish it meant the Expos would face nagging defects popping up over the next 28 years. When I visited that wonderful city in 1989, residents would grumble, “We’re still paying for them,” when I would mention the ‘76 Olympics. Other cities have had the same experience of their hosting the Olympics turning out not to be worth the burdens.
I used to live in Montreal (and 10 minutes from the Stadium) and it is massive. I agree with what you say. Elsewhere in the world, Olympic stadiums aren't better than the one in Montréal.
The Olympic Stadium in Montreal was also built at the height of insane municipal corruption in the city. Contracts were awarded with no bidding, crews went on strike for months, delaying the project, etc, etc. The reason it cost so much was due to a lot of bad actors taking advantage of the situation. The stadium was paid off in 2006, a full 30 years after the city hosted the games. Apparently, it can’t be demolished because it was built using concrete and stressed rebar. The whole thing is like a spring waiting to rebound to its natural shape
@radiopat Not just any bad actors, but organized crime; specifically the Italian mafia and biker gangs who pretty much owned construction and labour at the time. It's probably still the case today.
Hard to argue with any of your choices. And interesting that the five stadiums had basically five different reasons for making your list. Great channel. Always enjoy ballpark/stadium/arena/venue videos.
Another problem with the Alamdome is that they only built around 80 VIP booths, as to where Houston has around 250 VIP booths in their stadium. Teams make a lot of money from those VIP booths and that's another reason an NFL team wanted to move here. I've been to some wicked concerts inside the dome but at the end of the day it does feel like a big waste of space in this city.
The Braves wanted a stadium that would allow for development around the park, i.e. hotels, shopping, and restaurants. Cobb County and Suntrust put together a package that couldn't be matched by the city of Atlanta because the city doesn't own the surrounding properties. Turner Field was definitely an upgrade from the cookie cutter Atlanta Fulton County Stadium but Truist Park as it is known now is an amazing facility.
That gaudy monstrosity was rammed down the throats of taxpayers and wound up costing several people (and at least two politicians) their jobs over it. I’ve no intention of ever going to that ugly stadium.
Let's be brutally honest...Cobb Country is, by far, the whitest county in the metro area and it's 20 miles from downtown with public transportation very difficult to do
I’ll add to the previous comment. This stadium was cheek to jowl with the ‘hood. Lots of cars parked in overflow lots were getting vandalized, and there were no restaurants or bars in the area. Plus the City was trying to screw them out of the parking revenue.
A point not remaked: ALL of those were stadiums, none were arenas (usually used for hockey and basketball). Arenas generate revenue year round. Even if all pro teams abandons a city, the arena still has value, can be used for other purposes. A 50,000 seat stadium can hold only a few concerts, but an 18,000 seat arena can host concerts of 4,000 to 8,000 to 16,000, all by changing where they set up the stage.
That's actually a very good point. I'll also add that single purpose stadiums are extra vulnerable to obsolescence as they can really only host that one type of event, and aren't suitable for much else. EG, a dedicated baseball stadium may be superior for baseball games, but if the local team moves away and no new team can be found, the stadium's completely useless, as it can really only host the occasional music concert. If it's also an outdoor stadium, it's also only usable during the good weather season. An indoor or well designed domed stadium can be used year round, in any weather.
@@Seriously_Unserious Arenas can be used for circuses, trade shows, car shows, skating events, other sports with smaller playing areas. Even (ugh) religious revivals.
I hope that changes when Jerry Jones dies, but at the same time I doubt it if Jerry dies. I could see San Antonio getting an MLB team (needs a proper ballpark to be made, Alamodome can be temporary) or even an NHL team (Retrofit or modify the AT&T Center to properly support hockey) before the NFL
I've been to Olympic Stadium for an exhibition game against the Red Sox and Blue Jays. The scale of the stadium blew my mind. I really hope they can keep it as something of a time capsule and play occasional baseball games there. It's such a weird experience, really transporting you back to the 1970s era when stadiums were cavernous concrete donuts. Not saying it's better than the modern era, and I'm not saying nostalgia for it is good, but it's definitely an experience.
I got to see a game there in the mid 1990s. I thought it was interesting. But stuff from the 1960s and early 1970s was terrible. They were too enamored with concrete.
A lot of corruption, graft, strikes, delays, and overruns took place. The true cost of the stadium may never really be known. It was supposed to be about $ 150 million CAD. It ended up costing over $ 1.5 Billion CAD. including all the later repairs. It was built to show off Montreal to the world. Due to its shape it was called The Big "O", but due to its costs it is The Big "Owe". it was also plagued by structural problems. It is now used for concert and trade shows. It has to be number one on any worst stadiums list.
Visiting players (and Expos players) absolutely HATED the Olympic stadium. Montreal's Warren Cromartie called it a "toilet bowl". There is absolutely no game day atmosphere as there are no restaurants/bars anywhere near it. MLB has said that under no circumstances would Montreal get another team unless they build a new stadium. And they won't even allow a new franchise to use it as a temporary home until a new stadium is built.
Historically accurate descriptions and context, very informative and nostalgic for those of us who lived through the lifetimes of these still-existing stadiums.
Definitely up there... built in 1991, it was essentially shuttered for after the Grizzlies moved to FedEx Forum, which opened in 2004, due to contract language giving the Grizzlies the right to forbid anything happening there.
The Ballpark in Arlington makes me think of what's going to happen with Nissan Stadium. The former got replaced as a new stadium was cheaper than renovating and that's exactly what's set to occur with the latter.
A little unfair to not mention WHY the Expos only played there until 2004, no? I mean, they didn't just abandon the stadium, they abandoned the city altogether.
Part of it has to do with the players strike in 1994 (including the post-strike poor attendance), the MLB trying to contract the league in 2001 (thwarted by a Federal judge that required the Minnesota Twins to honor their lease of the old Metrodome), the poor Canadian Dollar (a factor that caused the Quebec Nordiques and the original Winnipeg Jets to relocate to North Carolina and Arizona respectively), and the Province of Quebec refusing to fund for a new stadium (something that was not a issue for the Toronto Blue Jays, who moved into the publicly-built, yet later privatized Rogers Centre in 1989).
It breaks my heart to see Rangers Ballpark on here. That is such a beautiful ballpark. I loved going to games there, and would rather attend games there in 107-degree heat than in the air-conditioned environment in what I call the Texas Toolshed.
The Ballpark was one of the best stadiums there was. But it had a huge problem, the heat. Especially on getaway games like Sunday afternoon games. And they were always having problems signing free agent players that did not want to play in that heat. Especially good pitchers that didn't want to get lit up in that heat and humidity where the flew of of the yard. The new ballpark will show the rangers to be better over the long haul. It's a shame cause the old park was absolutely beautiful!
If you did another one of these you could probably add the Kingdome to the list. It did bring the Mariners and the Seahawks to Seattle but it was a pretty terrible place to watch much of anything besides a monster truck rally, lasted only 24 years before being demolished, was already falling apart well before that, and King County spent another 15 years paying off the construction bonds after it had been knocked down. If it wasn't for the Mariners unlikely playoff run in 1995 that rallied the community around them there's a very good chance Seattle could have ended up losing every single one of its major sports teams in the late 90s and early 2000s, and the Kingdome would have been a major contributing factor. It's probably not too much of an exaggeration to say that the second biggest event it ever hosted was its demolition.
You kinda explained it yourself. If the Mariners didn't have the success the baseball team had in 1995, the Mariners would've relocated out of the Pacific Northwest. The former Supersonics (now the Oklahoma City Thunder) had a selfish owner who moved the team out of Seattle the first opportunity he had. And Seattle residents have not forgiven that fact. Thankfully they finally have a hockey 🏒 team (the Kraken) that made the playoffs for the first time this past spring and a successful Major League Soccer team (Sounders) that fits that league geographically with Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, British Columbia (Canada) in the great Pacific Northwest.
@@martincruz8319 Actually, the Mariners 1995 run saved baseball AND football in Seattle. Were it not for that run, the current stadiums never would have been approved and the Seahawks likely move to Los Angeles (at a time where the networks were clamoring for an NFL team in LA to replace the Rams and Raiders who both moved after the 1994 season) for the 1996 season. As for the NBA, returning to Seattle and Kansas City should be a priority in expansion.
The Kingdome was bad for baseball and bad for football, but it was laughably worse for basketball. The Sonics left an aging arena for the most butt-ugly dome in the US and that was just one of many bad decisions that the ownership was making in those days. In the early days of the Sonics, they were so community minded they played regular season games in the University of Puget Sound Fieldhouse in Tacoma (pre-Tacoma Dome and max capacity less than 4000) in order to build local support for the team. As the Coliseum was rebuilt (the first time) for them, they played an entire season in the Tacoma Dome, which once again built regional support. The saga of the Sonics is a microcosm of the long-term corruption of major league sports.
Agree with almost all here, but strongly disagree with Turner Field. The Braves knew what they were getting after the Olympics, and given that is was specially built for both the Olympics and then converted into a decent baseball stadium, I'd say that they ended up ahead in the deal, especially compared to playing in the Three Rivers/Riverfront/Busch/Veterans/Candlestick/RFK clone Fulton County Stadium. I've been to Turner Field a couple of times and found it to be a perfectly acceptable stadium, and I wasn't rooting for the Braves! All the Braves had to do was help with the conversion and basic upkeep. Yes, they did get shafted in the fine print with what they were entitled to once they took over the stadium, and I don't blame them for leaving. That and it was just far enough out of downtown Atlanta to become a major pain to get in and out of. I think the same argument can be made with their new (insert corporate name of the week) Field location as well. If you want to to talk about wastes of money, I now point to the stadiums that cities are planning to replace or overhaul their 20 or so year old football (NFL) stadiums. These cities usually had their taxpayers shell out hundreds of millions of dollars, and in places like Cincinnati, that meant cutting vital city services like public health care, so they can have a new toy on the river that hosts, if they're lucky, 10-12 games a year. Otherwise it sits and collects dust. Maybe they will host a concert or a college or high school game, but that's it. These aren't domed stadiums like the billion dollar palaces in Dallas, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas. These are the stadiums in the north - without a dome, they won't host a Super Bowl, Wrestlemania won't be held there, no Final Fours, nothing. And teams hold cities hostage for these upgrades. Having lived in Cincinnati, I'm familiar with how the Brown family has held Hamilton County hostage over mandatory upgrades as the county shakes their pockets dry to fund their playground, and it is safe to say that I can't imagine the voters of Hamilton County allowing this insanity to continue for much longer, even though the Bengals have improved a lot. So I'll toss in stadiums like Paycor and FirstEnergy in Cleveland as a waste of money because what have their communities gotten in return?
The Ballpark in Arlington was(is?) a beautiful park just built in the wrong place. As a White Sox fan I would have loved having it here compared to the generic park we got. It's better now but a far cry from parks going up in that era.
The video nailed it perfectly with why it became outdated so quickly. If it was built even a few years later then they would have put a retractable roof on the thing and it would still be in use. Loved that park.
@@robertwiles8106 A stunning park at the time along with Camden Yards and here in Chicago we got nothing but concrete and seats. Zero charm and a disgrace to the legacy of the original Comiskey.
I used to live in Atlanta, right near where Truist Park is located. The reason why they built Truist Park is because Turner Field was in a bad location for Braves fans. Most Braves fans/baseball fans are located north of the perimeter and the traffic to get to Turner Field, particularly on a weekday was just horrific. It was a 12 mile drive from my place to Turner Field and for a 7pm game it would usually take me about 1 hour to get there on a weeknight. I had it take 2.5 hours once time. Then when the game is over the traffic stinks again. So if you got done with work at 5:30 and wanted to rush home to change clothes and then get to the park, you're likely missing the first part of the game. It was also in an unsafe neighborhood although I never knew anybody that went to the game and got caught up in violence for it. I'm not a Braves fan, but Turner Field was very nice and a very playable ballpark. It's just that their fanbase had changed and the city had changed. Traffic became some of the worst in the country and more fans were migrating north of the city and they needed to find a stadium where the fans are.
I've seen turner field (completely biased opinion of the stadium as a Mets fan) it was in the ghetto/hood and Cookie Cutter ranked it 25th or 26th in MLB new location for Truist Park it's not in Atlanta it's North of Atlanta and it's on the way to the outer banks NC and Truist Park is also boring and ranked 27th or 28th in MLB...I was more in Awe of Chase Field T mobile Fenway a bunch of other stadiums...only stadiums that can possibly rank lower than Truist are Nationals stadium the stadium where the As play Busch stadium the Trop
I’ll give a pass to the Alamo Dome because it hosted a lot of cool and unique stuff. Such as Final Fours, Big 12 Championships, Alamo Bowls, and large WWF events
Yeah, absolutely. And it is almost constantly being used for convention space. It has more than paid for itself, making San Antonio a destination for big events, even if the NFL dream never happened.
As a Montrealer, came here expecting to see the Big O on the list and was not disappointed. These days it primarily gets used as a venue for Monster Truck shows, though it recently hosted Metallica for two nights. The tower is also the tallest inclines tower in the world
The Big 0 Is really a huge albatross, shackling the city for outdoor sports. It was once the host of both the Montreal Allouettes, and the Expos, then the Allouettes folded (I feel your Nelson Scalbania pain, he nearly cost me my BC Lions too), then the Expost were gone, then it got a 2nd chance when the Baltimore Stallions moved to Montreal and brought you your Allouettes back, but that didn't last long as they soon moved right back out again in favour of McGill Stadium, and drew better attendance in the much smaller stadium. I'm guessing the people of Montreal really don't like going to The Big O?
As a native Atlantan who watched the braves at Atlanta Fulton County stadium when they first came to Atlanta in the 60's, Turner field was built and paid for by the Olympics, designed in a way it could easily be converted to baseball. Was seated between the temporary stands and permanent stand at the Olympics closing ceremony and the temporary side had cheaper seats and you could see where the concrete pillars connected like a giant erector set. That is why it took them no time to convert the stadium to baseball for the braves first season at Turner Field, which was built adjacent to Atlanta Fulton County stadium.
The dome is part of the convention center so it has actually been used quite often for many things other than football. It was a really bad deal with the NFL tho
The Alamodome was definitely a waste of money, but it operates at a profit now. UTSA home games and XFL games bring in consistent revenue. It's also turned San Antonio into one od the premier cities for hosting the NCAA basketball tournament, both men's and women's. The location of the Alamodome is right across the highway from downtown San Antonio, with a pedestrian bridge connecting Alamodome to downtown San Antonio and the convention center, where the Riverwalk runs through. Despite a rough start, the Alamodome has remade itself into a useful facility for the city.
Don't forget that the Alamodome was home to several NCAA Final Four games, the Valero Alamo Bowl, and it hosts concerts or other sporting events like WWE
@@nochey78 Did you not read where I said it had a rough start? It was a waste of money because it was built to lure an NFL team and became outdated in less than 10 years. The fact that it generated a profit is a testament to longevity and the city chasing every event to have there.
@@dvs620 so what it didn’t get an NFL team…. The place still turns a profit for the city of San Antonio.. they’ve clearly gotten their money’s worth out of it. And you stated that. Which means you kinda contradicted your own point.. Therefore… it hasnt really been a “waste of money” for that city.. It helps to look at the big picture sometimes..
@@nochey78 They paid it off. That doesn't mean it's made its money back considering construction costs and upgrade improvements. It just means that, every year, the city takes in more revenue than it does to operate it. HOWEVER, it's days of hosting Final Fours are over after 2025 for the men's tournament and 2027 (I believe) for the women's tournament. And with UTSA talking about a campus stadium, it's usefulness is about to go out the window. And all that revenue right with it, therefore, probably costing the city more to keep the lights on than it generates. Again.
Olympic Stadium and Turner Field were originally built for the express purpose of hosting the Olympics in 1976 and 1996 (as their primary venue). The Expos and Braves simply repurposed them for baseball. At least Turner Field was a nice baseball park.
I've lived in Atlanta for 30 years and have been to all 3 stadiums that were here for baseball. If you look at the architecture of the Atlanta Olympic stadium, you can clearly see that it was built for baseball, but had the added seating to round out the bowl for track and field. There were no restaurants in the area, but you could tailgate at Turner Field, something you really can't do at Truist. There was an effort to build something near Turner Field that was designed to keep fans in the area. It was called FanPlex which was a colossal flop. FanPlex had video games and miniature golf. I don't know about you, but after watching a baseball game, there's nothing like playing miniature golf! Getting to Turner Field (and Atlanta Fulton County Stadium for that matter) was horrible because there was not a MARTA station in the stadium area. Obviously, Truist is a huge upgrade from Turner field, although it is not perfect either.
My husband and I were at the Olympics in Atlanta in 1996. The night we had tickets for track and field, Carl Lewis won the gold medal for the long jump and 2 of our runners won their races. It was so amazing to stand 3 times that night, waving our American flags and singing the National Anthem. 👍👍😁😁👏🏻👏🏻
Nice video. I had guessed you were going to include LoanDepot Park in Miami. Of all of the current MLB ball parks I’ve visited this was by far the most disappointing and attendance numbers seem to support my view there.
Whenever I visit friends and family in Houston, I never miss an opportunity to see an Astros game. Minute Maid Park is a work of art. I just love that park. And the food is fantastic.
I'm originally from Chicago, but moved to Georgia last year with my then-fiancee/now-wife and soon began learning the city of Atlanta from the perspective of Atlanta sports fans. I drive home from work every day down I-75, which Center Parc Stadium (formerly Turner Field) looms over. To avoid traffic, I've occasionally taken the residential roads surrounding the stadium back home, as well. I can say from an outsider's perspective, there is absolutely no way I would feel safe taking my family to a ball game on late nights ... and I'm saying that as a native Chicagoan. The area is sketchy at best during the day, as well, and the surrounding area has nothing there to draw even single game attendees. There was one bar (now closed) and parking, from what I heard, was an absolute nightmare getting in and out while fighting the world-renowned horrible Atlanta traffic. Truist Park and The Battery are a perfect solution to every problem fans told me they had at Turner as well as every problem the Braves had as an organization.
I grew up going to that park and Atlanta Fulton County Stadium. Never felt unsafe there. That being said I enjoy Truist park due to more hotels within walking distance and a lot more resteraunts and activities around there.
Turner Field was a very nice park - other than being in the worst imaginable place. It was nearly impossible to get to. The best thing the Braves ever did was to move to Cobb County in a place far more accessible despite being in one of the worst traffic areas in the country. And Turner Field lives on as the home stadium for Ga. State Panthers football.
You're being too hard, but it's not a great stadium. I liked Giants Stadium a lot except the seats were too narrow, as if they were trying to squeeze in extra paying customers. I've been to Met Live once, sat in the end zone, and got my view of the back of the end zone cut off. Minor thing but it could lead you to missing a play there. Overall I think they could have done better.
I think an underrated reason for the Braves moving out of Turner Field is the timing that the contract ending lined up with the Falcons wanting their massive new stadium built. The Braves were denied the assistance they wanted, and the city never helped with development plans to make the area surrounding the park more engaging for fans. Cobb County happened to swing in with their offer, and safe to say the move worked for them.
Honestly, suburban stadiums are the worst. Surrounded by nothing but boredom. But, in the case of cities like Atlanta and other American cities, it makes some sense. After all, most of the people that will be coming to their games, live in the suburbs, anyway.
Atlanta is also fairly unique in that the suburbs are in general more robust then the city proper. Locating on the north side of the suburbs (where most of the money and people are) makes a lot of sense business wise. Although, I think Cobb is a sub-optimal location still. As a resident of the north eastern metro, getting to the north western metro in Cobb is too difficult to realistically attend a lot of games because the sprawl makes Atlanta traffic (especially on I-285) disproportionately horrible. As for the boredom thing, honestly the area in downtown around Turner Field doesn't have much in terms of development. I know that area well. The battery development around the new stadium is actually a lot more interesting. Braves made the right call moving. Just wished the picked somewhere closer in the middle between Cobb and Gwinnett. The old GM plant off I-285 probably would've been a good spot. Cobb made them an offer they couldn't refuse though, so it is what it is.
The new stadium doesn't have 3 hours of parking lot traffic which is nice. A sell out at turner field where we all stayed till the end could easily be a 2 hour affair or more getting out of the 2 green lot exits 😅. I remember being old enough to enjoy the parking lot romp post game. Oh the history in the green lot
I'm old enough to remember going to see the Braves in the old Stadium and the crowd chanting along with "Chief Nokahoma" as the team lost yet another game 🙂
@@indy_go_blue6048 Your post makes zero sense. And what, did you think a stadium is paid off in 5 years when a house takes 30. Also it’s a hotel and restaurant tax so you don’t have to pay sh*t if you don’t want to.
Good video, I enjoy your work. I agree that the minimum lifespan of a pro stadium should be at least 30 years. This is considered the standard in the sports biz--especially now that more and more teams are owning at least a significant stake in their building. But I might disagree with you about Olympic and Turner. These buildings also served as main Olympic venues which almost always get built at a huge cost from scratch then rapidly fall into disuse because they're just too big and get abandoned. The amazing Bird's Nest in Beijing is a decrepit shell now. The fact that these planners had a second use in mind is great. And 20 and 25 seasons for the Braves and Expos respectively may not be GREAT but it's at least DECENT. Especially in the case of Montreal, it was a poor baseball park in a terrible location but the two-for-one aspect of these is a huge mitigating factor.
The Vikings got 31 years out of the HHH Metrodome in Minneapolis before being torn down and replaced with US Bank Stadium. And the Twins got Target Field a few years earlier, so 28 years for them
Turner Field's downfall had to do with a fight between Atlanta and the Braves about surrounding development. Atlanta wouldn't let them build a Battery like development at the Ted. That's why they left
I'm sure if the Braves was a basketball or football team hypothetically speaking, Atlanta would've allowed the development. Dumbest move not investing in the area which was shady at best; went to a couple of games there and you didn't hang around after the game.
Nice video. I've been to 3 of those buildings: Turner, Alamodome, and Olympic. The people behind the Alamodome thought that if they built it, a team would come. Problem is, it's a TERRIBLE building. Built for football with almost zero amenities. It was barely viable when it was built, and completely unsuitable for NFL football now. And ugly ugly ugly. Just a depressing place.
Turner Field wasn’t a waste of money. I’m from the Atlanta area. Turner Field wasn’t built for baseball. It was built for the 1996 Olympics. It just so happened that the Braves’ lease on their previous stadium expired at the end of the 1996 season, so Atlanta told them they could have the stadium if they signed a 20 year lease. The Braves moved here from Milwaukee in 1966 because the city of Atlanta promised them they would build restaurants around the stadium to attract more people to the park, so the Braves agreed and signed a 30 year lease. None of those restaurants ever got built in those 30 years. Then when their lease was almost up, Atlanta told them they could have the Olympic Stadium for free if they signed a 20 year lease. The Braves asked about their restaurants and were reluctant. The city of Atlanta promised they would get it done this time. The Braves signed a 20 year lease for Turner Field and over the next 20 years (half a century total) none of those restaurants got built. And it was in a higher crime area and it wasn’t uncommon to see drug dealers get arrested right outside the stadium. The city of Atlanta asked the Braves to renew their lease and made the same empty promise about restaurants. The Braves called them out for being liars and refused. The Braves did some research and discovered the fans that attend their games and own season tickets are disproportionately from the northern Atlanta suburbs. Turner Field, which was in downtown Atlanta, was a major pain to get to. If there was an accident or a lane closed, it could take 3 hours to get there from the northern suburbs. I know because I’m one of those fans. So the Braves moved to the northern suburbs outside of Atlanta in Cobb County (as opposed to Fulton County, which is where they were) and the restaurants got built right away and opened in their first season there. The woman that was in charge of getting the restaurants built around Turner Field refused to let the Braves take the Hank Aaron statue with them out if spite. She went on to get elected mayor, but didn’t run for reelection because she was incompetent in that job too and no one liked her (Keisha Lance Bottoms).
Business is business. One has to cater to the tastes and preferences of one's target audience. The City should have taken advantage of the opportunity instead of being an obstacle. Their investment was 'sunk' and 'playing ball' might have been done beneficially to all parties, but they simply could not entertain accepting the tastes and preferences of that target audience, much less embracing them as an opportunity. It conflicted too inherently with the political narrative that kept them in office. It was a real opportunity, across a wide spectrum of stakeholders. But like so many politicians they couldn't step outside their short-term thinking, and outside their ideological 'box', to recognize them.
I will say in the defense of Turner Field is that it was actually a good way to reuse an Olympic venue that had little to no value if it was not planned to be converted to an MLB stadium. We see too many Olympic venues built at a cost of millions if not billions of dollars - then used for 2 weeks - then left to rot. This was good planning by the Atlanta olympic committee and the Braves. They managed to get 20 years out of it for the Braves, and now a few football seasons. Much better than it being a rotting track stadium. As for the Montreal Olympic stadium, the Expos played there for what, about 30 years? Not bad.
Not a stadium, but I have an example of a sports related facility that has been a bona fide happy accident for the city that built it, and perhaps a case big time sports team owners don't want the public finding out about. It's the T-Mobile (formerly Sprint) Center in Kansas City. It was built with the prospects of luring a NBA or NHL team but in the fifteen years since It's opening has not gotten a major sports tenant. Due to not having to deal with the hassle of scheduling other events around a home team's schedule, the arena can get prime dates for concert tours, host the Big XII basketball tournament, and the NCAA tournament and as a result actually makes the city money. If an NBA or NHL team were to take the bait and move to KC, I can't imagine that success would continue.
The Islanders almost moved to Kansas City before they wound up moving to the Barclays Center in Brooklyn for a time, then back for a time to a renovated Nassau Coliseum before moving to their current building (UBS Arena at Belmont Park) in November 2021.
From what I’ve heard, it would cost at least $500 million to raze Olympic Stadium. Moreover, it also cannot be imploded due to not only its prestressed concrete construction, but also due to the fact that the venue sits on top of an active metro (subway) line as well.
I couldn't disagree anymore on the Alamodome. It has hosted several Final Four college basketball events, and it's still a great venue. It was the home of the Saints during Hurricane Katrina, while the Louisiana Superdome was being renovated. I would argue that the Seattle Kingdome, Pontiac Silverdome in Suburban Detroit (Pontiac,) the Hoosier Dome in Indy or Carrier Dome in Syracuse, the latter which still stands and operates of the three, are a WAY huger waste of money than the Alamodome. Independence Stadium in Shreveport and Legion Field in Birmingham should have made the list. The former still hosts the now pretty much irrelevant Independence Bowl in December but practically sits idle the remainder of the year, and it's almost 100 years old but its seating structure has become worn out and decrepit. The Independence Bowl needs to move to the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis, Lucas Oil Stadium in Indy or Lincoln Financial Field in Philly.
In order for Independence Stadium to regain some relevancy & fill those seats, the Saints & Cowboys need to play some pre-season games there (1 home game for each team). Independence Bowl needs to get power 5 schools back in there (SEC vs Big 12). Other than the Saints vs Cowboys pre-season game from 2006, the only other time that venue was pack was when LSU played Michigan State in the Indy Bowl.
I don't think the TWA/Edward Jones Dome was all that much of a waste of money. It was built at a relative bargain (280 mil, which even for the time was a pretty low price for a decent size dome stadium), it was more about the very lopsided terms that the Rams pushed on St. Louis and the new owner being a greedy prick that doomed the stadium. I honestly think it has paid for itself by this point with how little it cost to build and as long as St. Louis can put it to some use now, it's still generating value for the city. Turner Field also was not a waste of money by any means.
I think the Dome was a fine addition to St. Louis' entertainment infrastructure - I like how it was connected to the Convention center. That allows it to have extended use. I attended a few games and did some tail gating there and it was great because the tail gating went all night because the parking lots had private ownership. It is also conveniently serviced by St. Louis' lone subway/light rail - if that ever springs into a fuller life, it can't hurt.
FedEx Field in DC was a waste of $. They've had to spend millions to remove seats and reduce the capacity, as the Redskins/WFT/Commanders fanbase has shriveled up. Now they want a new stadium.
I'd like to know who let it get in the shape it's in, or if it was built with corners cut. Between the issues with the sewage getting into the stands, the railing of the stand collapsing in the tunnel, and who knows what else I haven't even heard of, it sounds like it was a mess from day 1.
@@rwboa22 Yes, that guy has a big role in FedEx being a disaster. But Jack Kent Cooke, who owned the Skins and built the place has a role, too. He built the place misty on his own dime, which meant he had to skimp on a lot of stuff. I've been to FedEx, only driven past M&T in B'more, but I understand M&T is a much better place. The reason...Art Modell got them to pony it public funds, and governments get much better interest rates from banks than even billionaires can. So a publicly funded stadium should have better facilities than a privately financed one.
The Olympic stadium(which later became Turner Field) was built to host track and field events as well as the olympics opening and closing ceremonies. Atlanta Fulton County stadium, next door, hosted baseball games. The braves moving to Cobb County became a win-win for all involved. A land locked 50k university converted the Atlanta Fulton county stadium and surrounding parking lots to much needed student housing, and coverted Turner Field into a football stadium. The braves found a big plot of land adjacent to two interstates, near a shopping mall and major suburban office complexes that had unused parking decks at night. They did not have to build massive surface parking lots you see at most stadiums. You walk out onto the plaza at Truist Park and you are steps away from bars, restaurants, shopping, hotels, apartments, offices, and a entertainment venue. The shops, restaurants, and bars still draw customers evem when the braves are not playing from the Galleria and Interstate North office complexes as well as from residents in and surrounding the Battery. The nearby area is middle to upper middle income, to rich in nearby Vinings and Riverside Drive.
I don't think it's really fair to say the Dome at America's Center was a waste of money. The stadium hosted 21 NFL seasons and has held and continues to hold events nearly year round since it's part of a convention center. You did mention the lawsuit settlement which was effectively a refund of all the money it cost the city to build the dome in modern day money. It's not a very good stadium, especially nowadays, but St. Louis definitely got their money's worth out of it.
Do a video on Anaheim Stadium. They had the stand collapse in an earthquake. They then rebuilt them. A couple of years later, they tore them out when the Rams left.
I’ll never forget waking through the center field entrance at the BPiA for the first time in ‘94. Compared to Arlington Stadium it was like walking into heaven… or Iowa…
Toronto’s Skydome cost Ontario taxpayers $570 million in 1989 and then was purchased by Rogers Telecommunications in 2004 for $25 million…roughly 4% of the original rip-off. Great deal for Rogers….shitty for everyone else. 👎🏾
Turner was great, had more of a classic baseball feel to it. Great tailgaiting scene in the blue lot where Fulton County stadium was and you could take Marta to the game and see the City Skyline in the background. Truist is a nice setup and different, but I miss Turner.
I agree, watching games at Turner field was great, it was just the displeasure of many fans being accosted by bums while trying to leave after the game...
I visited Atlanta, coming from the PNW, around 2010 and went to a game at Turner Field. I thought it had a lot of charm, it was intimate, and loved that it was in a residential neighborhood. Had the famous boiled peanuts and had a wonderful night soaking up the atmosphere (and heat!). Maybe the stadium is a financial bonanza for the team, but looks as charmless and slick as a skyscraper.
@@chrisjudd6 Also hosted Monster Jam, Super Cross, lots of concerts, the Hawks for two seasons, the Ringling Brothers Circus until they went out of business, SEC Championship, was the home of the Georgia State University football team before they purchased and converted Turner Field, evangelism conferences, and other events. It got a lot of use.
@@jasonrandom372 It wasn't, but the NFL wasn't willing to give Atlanta any more super bowls without a "better" stadium, so they essentially replaced it.
The real reason to build domes isn’t sports. It’s concerts. When the sonics occupied key arena, it didn’t make a profit despite being in use 32 weeks a year. When they left, the following year the building made a huge profit from concerts despite having the WNBA reserving the best concert dates for games. A dome is useful year round and doesn’t require a major team to make money. It actually helps if there’s no major team. This results in the building being available for rent year round and concerts make more money than sporting events.
@@williamlloyd3769 The last stadium featured was Olympic Stadium in Montreal. It is where the Montreal Expos played up till 2004. Yes, Turner Field was originally Centennial Olympic Stadium, but it was converted after the 1996 summer Olympics. Montreal hosted the Olympics in 1976. I think you may have not watched the end of the video.
Back in the 1990's there were people in Los Angeles who complained that Los Angeles wouldn't use tax payer money to build the Rams a new stadium, but for once the local politicians were looking out for community by not giving in. The new SoFi stadium where the Rams play today was privately funded.
Depressed Ginger needs to focus on quality of videos over quantity. I want to like him, but too many times he's missing facts or getting facts wrong, which is a sign of bad research. I like his impassioned delivery, because you can tell he is interested in the topic of stadiums, but his research isn't there. And that clicking thing he does on the mic, he needs to work on that.
One suggestion for a future video. Saint Petersburg, Florida. The original name was The Thunder Dome. Less than 48 hours later, I heard people calling it The Blunder Dome. SunTrust merged with BB&T and is now Truist. The voice has to be from the US. The City is MontReal, but he said Mont Treal
I think the Georgia Dome was also a waste of money, as the Falcons only played there for 25 years, then moved into their current retractable dome stadium.
The problem with Turner Field is that the City of Atlanta never delivered on the infrastructure and transportation to the area that they promised. There was no public transportation to it and parking was a nightmare. The park itself was quite decent - basically a baseball only stadium converted to a multipurpose stadium before it was even laid down and then reverted back to baseball only after the '96 Olympics. The Ballpark in Arlington was beautiful but unfortunately planned and built before a retractable roof stadium was truly viable. Building something like the Rogers Center would have had an insane price tag that the Rangers simply couldn't afford at the time. Arlington Stadium (although well maintained) was well past its useful life by the early 90s so the need to build something was fairly urgent.
Surprised Marlins Park didn't make your list. They publicly financed it to keep the Marlins in Miami when they began threatening relocation. It's been a massive flop considering how poor fan turnout has been. Even the company that ran the concessions there filed for bankruptcy.
The St Louis Dome is actually more successful now than it was as the Rams stadium. It can host a lot more conventions and other events since it doesn't have to host an NFL team in the fall and winter months. Not having any natural lighting is what really killed the stadium I think. If they made it more like Ford Field there's a chance an NFL team would still be playing there. Or hell they didn't really need a roof in the first place, It's not like St Louis is super far north and cold weather would be a problem.
@@matthewkester3677 not gonna argue with you there. I'm a St Louis native and I think the Rams should have stayed in LA. STL should have gotten an expansion team instead.
In MN there was a law that said before a certain amount of tax money could be used to fund a stadium it had to be voted on by the citizens. The government knew that it would be voted down so they said the US Bank stadium would be funded by pull tabs and lottery. After a very short time the government realize there wasn't enough money coming from pull tabs etc. so they past a bond issue to get around it. These politicians should be in jail for financing US Bank stadium.
There have been countless studies on the economic 'benefits' of building new stadiums. The benefit is tiny relative to the cost of building and maintenance. People have X amount of money to spend on entertainment. If they go to a ball game then they're not going to the movies, or to a restaurant, etc. Those entertainment dollars merely move from one form of entertainment to another. Building free stadiums for MLB or the NFL is total BS. Taxpayers, including non-fans, are forced to pay for them. So we're building free work-places for a monopoly industry. Let the fans pay for it. The last baseball park built without taxpayer funding was Dodger Stadium 61 years ago.
We have a 10,000 seat soccer stadium sitting vacant in the hood downtown , the team left the stadium around 2016 and tried to play at the community college and then quit altogether
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We need to stop building stadiums on the public dime.
Still a better investment than those school bonds that are on ballots every single year.
Yes that's pure bs & the people who pay for it should at least get tickets discounted
The thing is, it's not just the stadiums anymore, it's all the bells and whistles that surround them.
Greetings from Las Vegas, home of the #49 ranked school system, that just gave the billionaire boys club not one but TWO free stadiums.
Why? Building a stadium creates jobs and increases tourism and spending. The state of Minnesota paid for US Bank Stadium and it being there generates 26 million dollars per year in tax revenue and 145 million in direct spending which not only helps small business, but the state gets a cut of it as well
Any stadium that is built with mostly tax paper money should require the team to sign at least a 40 year lease, pay for any improvements, and pay a huge fee if they want to break their lease.
Yes. it could/ should go as far to offer tax payers a small percentage of the team and profit dividends.
I say any stadium or stadium improvements built with any taxpayer money stipulate that the money has to be paid back and that the primary sports tenant is on the hook for it even if they decide to move.
No public funding of a Professional sports business's performance venue is a good deal for taxpayers or the community. Professional sports venues simply do not return to the community or the taxpayers enough, even considering the 'improvement of the area' and business generation, over the longer term, to realize a general 'profit'. It most certainly is a great investment for specific stakeholders in the real estate, infrastructure and bond marketing. (The Ballpark at Arlington is probably as close to a 'text book case' as any. I like to refer to it as the stadium built so Gee Wubya could get rich, but although it was his entre' into leverage of public funds for private profit, he wasn't the biggest winner.) It can be a great deal for a Professional sports business too, but it's not always. At best, the best such project may break even, based on historic economic data across a very large number of cases. Turner Field is an excellent example. First the insider investors and stakeholders realized returns from investment for the Olympics. Then they realized some returns from the favored occupant status of the Atlanta Braves. Turner certainly wasn't a disaster or a total loss. The taxpayers and community didn't, at least, take a bath. At the aggregate level, though I don't have the numbers, I suspect the gross overall was a minor net-negative to both, but not so substantial as to be especially notable in a public spending environment where numerous other counter-productive or questionable expenditures occur. Truist probably represents a similar case for Cobb County overall, but for the customers of the Atlanta Braves, participants in the 'park' concept's ventures, and certainly for the Atlanta Braves business, it definitely looks like a winner.
I don’t disagree but Turner field was built more by corporate sponsorship and the city/county collected the revenue from parking and concessions. So the braves leaving is more due to failure in the local Governments cause they were trying to stay, but the city wouldn’t do necessary improvements for parking or concessions which was 90% of the upgrade package they requested for that go turned down.
50
Any taxpayer subsidized stadium is a waste of money.
Atlanta’s Olympic organizers built the Olympic stadium with $200 million of private money from ticket sales and sponsorships. Right after the Games, the 80,000-seat venue was converted into a 50,000-seat baseball stadium. It was the Olympics’ gift to Atlanta. Still in use by local college. Hard to call it a waste of money.
Yup. Have good memories of whatever-it's called now. I participated in the 1996 Opening Ceremony!!
Thank God my Braves got out the hell of there. A dangerous neighborhood for sure. I always felt like I took my life in my hands going to that stadium or old Atlanta Fulton County stadium. Don’t get me wrong, plenty of good memories, Aaron, Niekro etc., pretty much any national league team that came through there. But dangerous as hell
The Braves did not have to pay for Turner Field, to my recollection. The City of Atlanta owned the stadium. They paid for it. They also owned the parking lots. This is what led to the Braves leaving, as the Braves wanted to build some type of entertainment/dining district beside the park and the city told them no. The Braves were also not getting income from concessions, as far as I can tell, or parking. So when the lease was up, they left. Now they have their entertainment district (the battery), they own the stadium and receive concession revenue, and they own some of the parking, namely the parking decks, receiving revenue from such. They are in a better financial situation than they were at Turner Field.
Surprised they held out for 20 years
And Turner Field was not located in a good neighborhood. Get in, get out, don't get robbed. Nice inside the stadium.
@@champaignken you mean white neighborhood. How many times did you get robbed after a Braves game?
I do miss Turner Field's backdrop, but the area around Truist Park is so much better.
@@kevingriener7441 Turner Field was less than a mile away from a majority white neighborhood, Grant Park. It was actually in the Summer Hill neighborhood which is racially mixed. However, panhandlers would often ask you for money. If you parked in the opposite side of I-75 from the stadium, it was in a pretty dangerous area. That is either the neighborhood of Mechanicsville or Peoplestown.
I went to an Expos game at Olympic Stadium in 1982. I have never forgotten how absolutely massive it was, and it was nearly filled to capacity. Quite an experience.
When the stadium was filled, the ambience was fantastic. Problem is it would take 50000+ to do that...
@@olivierguinard3350 I wouldn't be surprised if Darryl Strawberry's home run is still stuck in the roof. By the way,is Olympic Stadium still in use?
The place is a dump. I have seen concerts and ball games there, and it does not suit either. The Expos would be there if they had built a new ball park down town instead of moving there after the Olympics.
@@garykass114not sure
As shady as the dealings were that led to the Braves leaving Turner Field the move has turned out to be good for all parties involved- the Braves have obviously profited tremendously from Truist Park and The Battery and Georgia State taking over what is now Center Parc Stadium and the area around has allowed the school to make the kind of development the area drastically needed. Turner Field during the Braves era may have been a waste but the situation is nothing of the sort now, its a big win.
People were afraid of getting mugged while walking to turner field
@@robinhoodhustsle1356 As a Cobb native, that was a small part of it. The bigger thing is getting to downtown and parking then connector traffic to leave was a pain.
I also heard during a career day that when Turner was being converted to being a baseball stadium they over built the seating capacity by 10,000 seats. So I'm guessing that a combination of problems that the Braves front office had with Turner and a really sweet deal out in Cobb where they could make it a go to place. Nice to hear that Georgia State is improving the situation around Turner though.
@willpsone Please educate me. What kind of shady dealings were there?
Wasn’t that shady. Cobb county said they would build a new park, let them control and profit from parking instead of the city, and let them control the food instead of the county. The Stadium improvements requested by the team for turner field was 90% things the local governments profited from in the first place.
I think you're being a bit hard on Turner Field. Unlike Olympic Stadium in Montreal, it was designed from the start to be converted into a baseball stadium, and thus the Braves actually got it at a bargain price as most of the cost went into the original building. The reason the Braves moved out is because the city of Atlanta refused to develop the area around the stadium; most fans came, saw the game, and then went home. Cobb County was willing to build a ballpark as part of a mixed-use development, so the team took them up on it. The Battery, as the development is called, has hotels, apartments, restaurants, shops and a theater; all that ever existed near Turner Field was one small hotel and a minor sports bar.
Facts
Another reason for the Braves' leaving is that their ballpark was getting just old enough to need some renovations ... just as the city of Atlanta had inked a deal to build the Falcons a brand-new football stadium! The money committed to that deal meant that the Braves would just have to lump it for the foreseeable future in they stayed in Turner Field. Atlanta being Atlanta, of course some on-the-make suburb decided to take advantage.
@@scotthersey4380and the fact that Ted Turner no longer owned the team by that point means the move to Cobb County was inevitable
@@scotthersey4380without public transit going to Turner field then it's not a huge problem going to Cobb. Its a 10-20 minute drive from downtown (I'm on 14th street) with windy hills exit missing most 285 and 75 north traffic. Uber 2 hours before game time in traffic was still only $21. It's not bad at all
@@scotthersey4380 Not to mention that the city of Atlanta gave the Hawks $140 million plus to overhaul State Farm (nee Philips) Arena shortly after Tony Ressler's group bought the club.
I dont blame the Braves for leaving Turner Field. From what ive read, the Braves were tenants in that stadium, so they had no say in what the stadium could do.
Also Ive read that Turner Field was not located in the best/safest area, so going to see a Braves game in night games was not the safest decision out there, which also explains why attendance was always low, especially in postseason games.
Yep. Cross 75 to the West or the parking to the east and things got shady real fast
If you know where to go, it was not bad. But you had to plan ahead. If you planned ahead it was great. If you didnt good luck. If i remember correctly transit was not the best there. It didnt have a sub station. Bus was okay
I'm from Pittsburgh but I visited Turner Field and took a tour and watched the Braves play a game against the Giants. I really enjoyed my experience there. Glad it's still being used in some capacity.
I think Pittsburgh got the best of the modern era stadiums. From the television, it looks like a modern day recreation of Wrigley field. In my mind, MLB should take the measure of Wrigley and make that the official stadium. If you've ever seen a game their it is great. I hope to see a game at Pittsburgh sometime soon.
@@kaneinkansas Pittsburgh did a great job with both of their stadiums. Three Rivers Stadium was built when the Pirates were the main draw in town. The Steelers needed a football stadium, and got a good one in Heinz Field. The Pirates got a gem in PNC Park after realizing that baseball was no longer the big draw in town, and so an appropriately sized park was built for them. Both are in the black 20 years and running.
What about the King Dome in Seattle? They were still paying off the bonds on that concrete tomb long after it was demolished.
Back in the day most team owners were not multi billionaires...today THEY ARE. These owners can build their own stadiums...or We the citizens can finance it...BUT we get a percentage of total team profits...period !
Sometimes being late the stadium game for teams is the best option. Seeing how these fail is a solid lesson for a team or community to avoid pitfalls. Don't build to draw a team, don't give in immediately to a demanding owner wanting something new to be better than someone else and plan a structure to make it pay for itself in a specific 10 to 15 year time frame. And if possible work with the right infrastructure to make the building feasible in more ways you can think.
The Montreal Olympic stadium was still being finalized right up the the games’ start date. So the rush to finish it meant the Expos would face nagging defects popping up over the next 28 years. When I visited that wonderful city in 1989, residents would grumble, “We’re still paying for them,” when I would mention the ‘76 Olympics. Other cities have had the same experience of their hosting the Olympics turning out not to be worth the burdens.
I used to live in Montreal (and 10 minutes from the Stadium) and it is massive. I agree with what you say. Elsewhere in the world, Olympic stadiums aren't better than the one in Montréal.
The Olympic Stadium in Montreal was also built at the height of insane municipal corruption in the city. Contracts were awarded with no bidding, crews went on strike for months, delaying the project, etc, etc. The reason it cost so much was due to a lot of bad actors taking advantage of the situation. The stadium was paid off in 2006, a full 30 years after the city hosted the games. Apparently, it can’t be demolished because it was built using concrete and stressed rebar. The whole thing is like a spring waiting to rebound to its natural shape
@radiopat Not just any bad actors, but organized crime; specifically the Italian mafia and biker gangs who pretty much owned construction and labour at the time. It's probably still the case today.
Hard to argue with any of your choices. And interesting that the five stadiums had basically five different reasons for making your list. Great channel. Always enjoy ballpark/stadium/arena/venue videos.
Another problem with the Alamdome is that they only built around 80 VIP booths, as to where Houston has around 250 VIP booths in their stadium. Teams make a lot of money from those VIP booths and that's another reason an NFL team wanted to move here. I've been to some wicked concerts inside the dome but at the end of the day it does feel like a big waste of space in this city.
As built there were no escalators.
The Braves wanted a stadium that would allow for development around the park, i.e. hotels, shopping, and restaurants. Cobb County and Suntrust put together a package that couldn't be matched by the city of Atlanta because the city doesn't own the surrounding properties. Turner Field was definitely an upgrade from the cookie cutter Atlanta Fulton County Stadium but Truist Park as it is known now is an amazing facility.
That gaudy monstrosity was rammed down the throats of taxpayers and wound up costing several people (and at least two politicians) their jobs over it. I’ve no intention of ever going to that ugly stadium.
Let's be brutally honest...Cobb Country is, by far, the whitest county in the metro area and it's 20 miles from downtown with public transportation very difficult to do
I’ll add to the previous comment. This stadium was cheek to jowl with the ‘hood. Lots of cars parked in overflow lots were getting vandalized, and there were no restaurants or bars in the area. Plus the City was trying to screw them out of the parking revenue.
Turner field was a generic 90's ballpark and Truist Park is a generic 2010's ballpark.
@@larryhatcher8927maybe 25 years ago but not now.
A point not remaked: ALL of those were stadiums, none were arenas (usually used for hockey and basketball). Arenas generate revenue year round. Even if all pro teams abandons a city, the arena still has value, can be used for other purposes. A 50,000 seat stadium can hold only a few concerts, but an 18,000 seat arena can host concerts of 4,000 to 8,000 to 16,000, all by changing where they set up the stage.
That's actually a very good point. I'll also add that single purpose stadiums are extra vulnerable to obsolescence as they can really only host that one type of event, and aren't suitable for much else. EG, a dedicated baseball stadium may be superior for baseball games, but if the local team moves away and no new team can be found, the stadium's completely useless, as it can really only host the occasional music concert. If it's also an outdoor stadium, it's also only usable during the good weather season.
An indoor or well designed domed stadium can be used year round, in any weather.
@@Seriously_Unserious Arenas can be used for circuses, trade shows, car shows, skating events, other sports with smaller playing areas. Even (ugh) religious revivals.
San Antonio will never have an nfl team as long as the Jones Family owns the Cowboys.
I think San Antonio would be a great market for an NFL team.
When I lived in San Antonio, after the Alamodome was built and no NFL team came, it was referred to as the Con-dome. Thank you Henry Cisneros.
Two teams is enough.
I don’t recall any public comments at the time, but privately, Jerry was probably pissed off that Houston got another franchise.
I hope that changes when Jerry Jones dies, but at the same time I doubt it if Jerry dies. I could see San Antonio getting an MLB team (needs a proper ballpark to be made, Alamodome can be temporary) or even an NHL team (Retrofit or modify the AT&T Center to properly support hockey) before the NFL
I've been to Olympic Stadium for an exhibition game against the Red Sox and Blue Jays. The scale of the stadium blew my mind. I really hope they can keep it as something of a time capsule and play occasional baseball games there. It's such a weird experience, really transporting you back to the 1970s era when stadiums were cavernous concrete donuts. Not saying it's better than the modern era, and I'm not saying nostalgia for it is good, but it's definitely an experience.
I got to see a game there in the mid 1990s. I thought it was interesting. But stuff from the 1960s and early 1970s was terrible. They were too enamored with concrete.
A lot of corruption, graft, strikes, delays, and overruns took place. The true cost of the stadium may never really be known. It was supposed to be about $ 150 million CAD. It ended up costing over $ 1.5 Billion CAD. including all the later repairs. It was built to show off Montreal to the world. Due to its shape it was called The Big "O", but due to its costs it is The Big "Owe". it was also plagued by structural problems. It is now used for concert and trade shows. It has to be number one on any worst stadiums list.
I saw an Expos game at Olympic Stadium and remember seeing Orioles games at Memorial Stadium, another ugly concrete donut.
Visiting players (and Expos players) absolutely HATED the Olympic stadium. Montreal's Warren Cromartie called it a "toilet bowl". There is absolutely no game day atmosphere as there are no restaurants/bars anywhere near it. MLB has said that under no circumstances would Montreal get another team unless they build a new stadium. And they won't even allow a new franchise to use it as a temporary home until a new stadium is built.
The problem is that "playing an occasional baseball game there" doesn't make money. Stadiums cost a lot to maintain.
Owners should be responsible for the entire costs of building stadiums. Blackmailing cities and taxpayers should be a crime.
Historically accurate descriptions and context, very informative and nostalgic for those of us who lived through the lifetimes of these still-existing stadiums.
Not a stadium but how about the Memphis Pyramid? NBA arena transformed into a Bass Pro Shop.
Definitely up there... built in 1991, it was essentially shuttered for after the Grizzlies moved to FedEx Forum, which opened in 2004, due to contract language giving the Grizzlies the right to forbid anything happening there.
The Ballpark in Arlington makes me think of what's going to happen with Nissan Stadium. The former got replaced as a new stadium was cheaper than renovating and that's exactly what's set to occur with the latter.
Unlike the park in Arlington, though, Nissan Stadium is legit trash
A little unfair to not mention WHY the Expos only played there until 2004, no? I mean, they didn't just abandon the stadium, they abandoned the city altogether.
Part of it has to do with the players strike in 1994 (including the post-strike poor attendance), the MLB trying to contract the league in 2001 (thwarted by a Federal judge that required the Minnesota Twins to honor their lease of the old Metrodome), the poor Canadian Dollar (a factor that caused the Quebec Nordiques and the original Winnipeg Jets to relocate to North Carolina and Arizona respectively), and the Province of Quebec refusing to fund for a new stadium (something that was not a issue for the Toronto Blue Jays, who moved into the publicly-built, yet later privatized Rogers Centre in 1989).
@@rwboa22 Just one correction. The Nordiques moved to Colorado. It was the Whalers that moved to North Carolina.
I’d also argue for the Atlanta and Montreal Olympic stadiums. They certainly performed better than most Olympics stadiums have around the world lol.
Much better. Most 'Olympic Centers' are pretty much abandoned, or terribly under-utilized and maintained in most nations that build them.
It breaks my heart to see Rangers Ballpark on here. That is such a beautiful ballpark. I loved going to games there, and would rather attend games there in 107-degree heat than in the air-conditioned environment in what I call the Texas Toolshed.
That stadium is amazing looking. They did make it look beautiful which is a shame they let it go. The new stadium does look like a bbq
well the players disagree...maybe we can get good players now
@@k_e3735its cool and has AC...I could never sit in my seat for day games at the old place
The Ballpark was one of the best stadiums there was. But it had a huge problem, the heat. Especially on getaway games like Sunday afternoon games. And they were always having problems signing free agent players that did not want to play in that heat. Especially good pitchers that didn't want to get lit up in that heat and humidity where the flew of of the yard. The new ballpark will show the rangers to be better over the long haul. It's a shame cause the old park was absolutely beautiful!
The architect said 1 it could have had a roof added but GW BUSH And Arlington city council said NO. and 2 it was built to last 100 years
If you did another one of these you could probably add the Kingdome to the list. It did bring the Mariners and the Seahawks to Seattle but it was a pretty terrible place to watch much of anything besides a monster truck rally, lasted only 24 years before being demolished, was already falling apart well before that, and King County spent another 15 years paying off the construction bonds after it had been knocked down. If it wasn't for the Mariners unlikely playoff run in 1995 that rallied the community around them there's a very good chance Seattle could have ended up losing every single one of its major sports teams in the late 90s and early 2000s, and the Kingdome would have been a major contributing factor. It's probably not too much of an exaggeration to say that the second biggest event it ever hosted was its demolition.
You kinda explained it yourself. If the Mariners didn't have the success the baseball team had in 1995, the Mariners would've relocated out of the Pacific Northwest. The former Supersonics (now the Oklahoma City Thunder) had a selfish owner who moved the team out of Seattle the first opportunity he had. And Seattle residents have not forgiven that fact. Thankfully they finally have a hockey 🏒 team (the Kraken) that made the playoffs for the first time this past spring and a successful Major League Soccer team (Sounders) that fits that league geographically with Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, British Columbia (Canada) in the great Pacific Northwest.
@@martincruz8319 Actually, the Mariners 1995 run saved baseball AND football in Seattle. Were it not for that run, the current stadiums never would have been approved and the Seahawks likely move to Los Angeles (at a time where the networks were clamoring for an NFL team in LA to replace the Rams and Raiders who both moved after the 1994 season) for the 1996 season.
As for the NBA, returning to Seattle and Kansas City should be a priority in expansion.
It was a horrible place.
The Kingdome demolition was covered in detail during the NFL broadcasts here in the Mexican network.
The Kingdome was bad for baseball and bad for football, but it was laughably worse for basketball. The Sonics left an aging arena for the most butt-ugly dome in the US and that was just one of many bad decisions that the ownership was making in those days. In the early days of the Sonics, they were so community minded they played regular season games in the University of Puget Sound Fieldhouse in Tacoma (pre-Tacoma Dome and max capacity less than 4000) in order to build local support for the team. As the Coliseum was rebuilt (the first time) for them, they played an entire season in the Tacoma Dome, which once again built regional support. The saga of the Sonics is a microcosm of the long-term corruption of major league sports.
The Alamo Dome is a work of art and is underappreciated.
It’s also underutilized
Ah yes. the "dead armadillo".
Great and informative video and I really enjoyed this video and all your other videos. Keep up the great work 👍
Agree with almost all here, but strongly disagree with Turner Field. The Braves knew what they were getting after the Olympics, and given that is was specially built for both the Olympics and then converted into a decent baseball stadium, I'd say that they ended up ahead in the deal, especially compared to playing in the Three Rivers/Riverfront/Busch/Veterans/Candlestick/RFK clone Fulton County Stadium. I've been to Turner Field a couple of times and found it to be a perfectly acceptable stadium, and I wasn't rooting for the Braves! All the Braves had to do was help with the conversion and basic upkeep. Yes, they did get shafted in the fine print with what they were entitled to once they took over the stadium, and I don't blame them for leaving. That and it was just far enough out of downtown Atlanta to become a major pain to get in and out of. I think the same argument can be made with their new (insert corporate name of the week) Field location as well.
If you want to to talk about wastes of money, I now point to the stadiums that cities are planning to replace or overhaul their 20 or so year old football (NFL) stadiums. These cities usually had their taxpayers shell out hundreds of millions of dollars, and in places like Cincinnati, that meant cutting vital city services like public health care, so they can have a new toy on the river that hosts, if they're lucky, 10-12 games a year. Otherwise it sits and collects dust. Maybe they will host a concert or a college or high school game, but that's it. These aren't domed stadiums like the billion dollar palaces in Dallas, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas. These are the stadiums in the north - without a dome, they won't host a Super Bowl, Wrestlemania won't be held there, no Final Fours, nothing. And teams hold cities hostage for these upgrades. Having lived in Cincinnati, I'm familiar with how the Brown family has held Hamilton County hostage over mandatory upgrades as the county shakes their pockets dry to fund their playground, and it is safe to say that I can't imagine the voters of Hamilton County allowing this insanity to continue for much longer, even though the Bengals have improved a lot. So I'll toss in stadiums like Paycor and FirstEnergy in Cleveland as a waste of money because what have their communities gotten in return?
Cleveland’s is getting rebuilt
The Ballpark in Arlington was(is?) a beautiful park just built in the wrong place. As a White Sox fan I would have loved having it here compared to the generic park we got. It's better now but a far cry from parks going up in that era.
Agreed, the Ballpark is something of an architectural masterpiece.
It's too bad they can't just up and move it, because it should be in use as a baseball stadium somewhere.
The video nailed it perfectly with why it became outdated so quickly. If it was built even a few years later then they would have put a retractable roof on the thing and it would still be in use.
Loved that park.
@@dmc0015 Yeah, I thought about that but what makes it so awesome is the old school aesthetics. It looks like a ballpark, if that makes sense.
@@robertwiles8106 A stunning park at the time along with Camden Yards and here in Chicago we got nothing but concrete and seats. Zero charm and a disgrace to the legacy of the original Comiskey.
I used to live in Atlanta, right near where Truist Park is located. The reason why they built Truist Park is because Turner Field was in a bad location for Braves fans. Most Braves fans/baseball fans are located north of the perimeter and the traffic to get to Turner Field, particularly on a weekday was just horrific. It was a 12 mile drive from my place to Turner Field and for a 7pm game it would usually take me about 1 hour to get there on a weeknight. I had it take 2.5 hours once time. Then when the game is over the traffic stinks again. So if you got done with work at 5:30 and wanted to rush home to change clothes and then get to the park, you're likely missing the first part of the game.
It was also in an unsafe neighborhood although I never knew anybody that went to the game and got caught up in violence for it.
I'm not a Braves fan, but Turner Field was very nice and a very playable ballpark. It's just that their fanbase had changed and the city had changed. Traffic became some of the worst in the country and more fans were migrating north of the city and they needed to find a stadium where the fans are.
I've seen turner field (completely biased opinion of the stadium as a Mets fan) it was in the ghetto/hood and Cookie Cutter ranked it 25th or 26th in MLB new location for Truist Park it's not in Atlanta it's North of Atlanta and it's on the way to the outer banks NC and Truist Park is also boring and ranked 27th or 28th in MLB...I was more in Awe of Chase Field T mobile Fenway a bunch of other stadiums...only stadiums that can possibly rank lower than Truist are Nationals stadium the stadium where the As play Busch stadium the Trop
I’ll give a pass to the Alamo Dome because it hosted a lot of cool and unique stuff. Such as Final Fours, Big 12 Championships, Alamo Bowls, and large WWF events
Yeah, absolutely. And it is almost constantly being used for convention space. It has more than paid for itself, making San Antonio a destination for big events, even if the NFL dream never happened.
Also had a CFL team there for a season
@@peacepunksean1942 I think the New Orleans Saints played there in 2005 due to Hurricane Katrina
Potentially @@transitfan954
As a Montrealer, came here expecting to see the Big O on the list and was not disappointed. These days it primarily gets used as a venue for Monster Truck shows, though it recently hosted Metallica for two nights. The tower is also the tallest inclines tower in the world
The Big 0 Is really a huge albatross, shackling the city for outdoor sports. It was once the host of both the Montreal Allouettes, and the Expos, then the Allouettes folded (I feel your Nelson Scalbania pain, he nearly cost me my BC Lions too), then the Expost were gone, then it got a 2nd chance when the Baltimore Stallions moved to Montreal and brought you your Allouettes back, but that didn't last long as they soon moved right back out again in favour of McGill Stadium, and drew better attendance in the much smaller stadium. I'm guessing the people of Montreal really don't like going to The Big O?
As a native Atlantan who watched the braves at Atlanta Fulton County stadium when they first came to Atlanta in the 60's, Turner field was built and paid for by the Olympics, designed in a way it could easily be converted to baseball. Was seated between the temporary stands and permanent stand at the Olympics closing ceremony and the temporary side had cheaper seats and you could see where the concrete pillars connected like a giant erector set. That is why it took them no time to convert the stadium to baseball for the braves first season at Turner Field, which was built adjacent to Atlanta Fulton County stadium.
Great video, you went thru a good number of stadiums in 5 mins. Good job
The dome is part of the convention center so it has actually been used quite often for many things other than football. It was a really bad deal with the NFL tho
The Alamodome was definitely a waste of money, but it operates at a profit now. UTSA home games and XFL games bring in consistent revenue.
It's also turned San Antonio into one od the premier cities for hosting the NCAA basketball tournament, both men's and women's. The location of the Alamodome is right across the highway from downtown San Antonio, with a pedestrian bridge connecting Alamodome to downtown San Antonio and the convention center, where the Riverwalk runs through.
Despite a rough start, the Alamodome has remade itself into a useful facility for the city.
Don't forget that the Alamodome was home to several NCAA Final Four games, the Valero Alamo Bowl, and it hosts concerts or other sporting events like WWE
If the Alamodome brings in consistent revenue, and it’s a useful facility…. How exactly was it a “waste of money”???
@@nochey78 Did you not read where I said it had a rough start? It was a waste of money because it was built to lure an NFL team and became outdated in less than 10 years.
The fact that it generated a profit is a testament to longevity and the city chasing every event to have there.
@@dvs620 so what it didn’t get an NFL team…. The place still turns a profit for the city of San Antonio.. they’ve clearly gotten their money’s worth out of it. And you stated that. Which means you kinda contradicted your own point..
Therefore… it hasnt really been a “waste of money” for that city..
It helps to look at the big picture sometimes..
@@nochey78 They paid it off. That doesn't mean it's made its money back considering construction costs and upgrade improvements. It just means that, every year, the city takes in more revenue than it does to operate it.
HOWEVER, it's days of hosting Final Fours are over after 2025 for the men's tournament and 2027 (I believe) for the women's tournament.
And with UTSA talking about a campus stadium, it's usefulness is about to go out the window. And all that revenue right with it, therefore, probably costing the city more to keep the lights on than it generates. Again.
Olympic Stadium and Turner Field were originally built for the express purpose of hosting the Olympics in 1976 and 1996 (as their primary venue). The Expos and Braves simply repurposed them for baseball. At least Turner Field was a nice baseball park.
And Georgia State U got their own football field now.
I've lived in Atlanta for 30 years and have been to all 3 stadiums that were here for baseball. If you look at the architecture of the Atlanta Olympic stadium, you can clearly see that it was built for baseball, but had the added seating to round out the bowl for track and field. There were no restaurants in the area, but you could tailgate at Turner Field, something you really can't do at Truist. There was an effort to build something near Turner Field that was designed to keep fans in the area. It was called FanPlex which was a colossal flop. FanPlex had video games and miniature golf. I don't know about you, but after watching a baseball game, there's nothing like playing miniature golf! Getting to Turner Field (and Atlanta Fulton County Stadium for that matter) was horrible because there was not a MARTA station in the stadium area. Obviously, Truist is a huge upgrade from Turner field, although it is not perfect either.
Was Turner Field in a bad area?
It doesn't really matter. What matters is the perception by a good part of one's target audience that it is. @@vagrante13
My husband and I were at the Olympics in Atlanta in 1996. The night we had tickets for track and field, Carl Lewis won the gold medal for the long jump and 2 of our runners won their races.
It was so amazing to stand 3 times that night, waving our American flags and singing the National Anthem. 👍👍😁😁👏🏻👏🏻
Nice video. I had guessed you were going to include LoanDepot Park in Miami. Of all of the current MLB ball parks I’ve visited this was by far the most disappointing and attendance numbers seem to support my view there.
It will be a future Final Four college basketball venue with a smaller 35K capacity. Mark my word.
Whenever I visit friends and family in Houston, I never miss an opportunity to see an Astros game. Minute Maid Park is a work of art. I just love that park. And the food is fantastic.
Hundreds of millions was spent on Soldier Field so the Bears could just get owned by Aaron Rodgers.
This would have been a good addition to the list. The Soldier Field rebuild has not worked out well.
I'm originally from Chicago, but moved to Georgia last year with my then-fiancee/now-wife and soon began learning the city of Atlanta from the perspective of Atlanta sports fans.
I drive home from work every day down I-75, which Center Parc Stadium (formerly Turner Field) looms over. To avoid traffic, I've occasionally taken the residential roads surrounding the stadium back home, as well.
I can say from an outsider's perspective, there is absolutely no way I would feel safe taking my family to a ball game on late nights ... and I'm saying that as a native Chicagoan.
The area is sketchy at best during the day, as well, and the surrounding area has nothing there to draw even single game attendees.
There was one bar (now closed) and parking, from what I heard, was an absolute nightmare getting in and out while fighting the world-renowned horrible Atlanta traffic.
Truist Park and The Battery are a perfect solution to every problem fans told me they had at Turner as well as every problem the Braves had as an organization.
The traffic in Cumberland is congested, but that's the issue everyone knew that they would have.
I grew up going to that park and Atlanta Fulton County Stadium. Never felt unsafe there. That being said I enjoy Truist park due to more hotels within walking distance and a lot more resteraunts and activities around there.
The ball park in Arlingtin was a beautiful stadium. It was hot though.
Turner Field was a very nice park - other than being in the worst imaginable place. It was nearly impossible to get to. The best thing the Braves ever did was to move to Cobb County in a place far more accessible despite being in one of the worst traffic areas in the country. And Turner Field lives on as the home stadium for Ga. State Panthers football.
Your episodes are very good at perplexing viewers that I often forget to thumb it up. You need to remind viewers to thumb up.
Glad the Alamo dome is on here they raised the city sales tax to pay for it and then never took it back off after it was paid for
MetLife is an overpriced, boring bathtub of a stadium.
With 2 NFL teams you'd think they would have sprung for a dome.
@@kevinbergin9971 No. They're playing football there.
@@howie9751 They could have gotten more use including Final 4 basketball and potentially a NYC base Olympics down the road.
Bathtubs are insulted by the comparison as bathtubs have more personality than MetLife Stadium.
You're being too hard, but it's not a great stadium. I liked Giants Stadium a lot except the seats were too narrow, as if they were trying to squeeze in extra paying customers. I've been to Met Live once, sat in the end zone, and got my view of the back of the end zone cut off. Minor thing but it could lead you to missing a play there. Overall I think they could have done better.
I think an underrated reason for the Braves moving out of Turner Field is the timing that the contract ending lined up with the Falcons wanting their massive new stadium built. The Braves were denied the assistance they wanted, and the city never helped with development plans to make the area surrounding the park more engaging for fans. Cobb County happened to swing in with their offer, and safe to say the move worked for them.
Honestly, suburban stadiums are the worst. Surrounded by nothing but boredom. But, in the case of cities like Atlanta and other American cities, it makes some sense. After all, most of the people that will be coming to their games, live in the suburbs, anyway.
Atlanta is also fairly unique in that the suburbs are in general more robust then the city proper. Locating on the north side of the suburbs (where most of the money and people are) makes a lot of sense business wise. Although, I think Cobb is a sub-optimal location still. As a resident of the north eastern metro, getting to the north western metro in Cobb is too difficult to realistically attend a lot of games because the sprawl makes Atlanta traffic (especially on I-285) disproportionately horrible.
As for the boredom thing, honestly the area in downtown around Turner Field doesn't have much in terms of development. I know that area well. The battery development around the new stadium is actually a lot more interesting. Braves made the right call moving. Just wished the picked somewhere closer in the middle between Cobb and Gwinnett. The old GM plant off I-285 probably would've been a good spot. Cobb made them an offer they couldn't refuse though, so it is what it is.
Turner Field was a lot of fun, but it was huge. It solved the dodgy parking issue by using the location of the old stadium for parking next to it.
The new stadium doesn't have 3 hours of parking lot traffic which is nice. A sell out at turner field where we all stayed till the end could easily be a 2 hour affair or more getting out of the 2 green lot exits 😅. I remember being old enough to enjoy the parking lot romp post game. Oh the history in the green lot
I'm old enough to remember going to see the Braves in the old Stadium and the crowd chanting along with "Chief Nokahoma" as the team lost yet another game 🙂
How about a video on the five stadiums that turned out to be the best deals for the teams and cities that built them?
San Francisco. Phoenix, Arizona. Those are two I'd cite as, within the framework of this presentation, as being 'winners'.
In Indy,we were still paying for the Hoosier Dome (RCA Dome) when it was bulldozed around 2007. I believe it was built in 1983.
Lucas Oil Stadium is already going down to keep POS Irsay happy. It's only 16 years old and we're still paying for that.
@@indy_go_blue6048 Your post makes zero sense. And what, did you think a stadium is paid off in 5 years when a house takes 30. Also it’s a hotel and restaurant tax so you don’t have to pay sh*t if you don’t want to.
Good video, I enjoy your work. I agree that the minimum lifespan of a pro stadium should be at least 30 years. This is considered the standard in the sports biz--especially now that more and more teams are owning at least a significant stake in their building. But I might disagree with you about Olympic and Turner. These buildings also served as main Olympic venues which almost always get built at a huge cost from scratch then rapidly fall into disuse because they're just too big and get abandoned. The amazing Bird's Nest in Beijing is a decrepit shell now. The fact that these planners had a second use in mind is great. And 20 and 25 seasons for the Braves and Expos respectively may not be GREAT but it's at least DECENT. Especially in the case of Montreal, it was a poor baseball park in a terrible location but the two-for-one aspect of these is a huge mitigating factor.
The Vikings got 31 years out of the HHH Metrodome in Minneapolis before being torn down and replaced with US Bank Stadium. And the Twins got Target Field a few years earlier, so 28 years for them
Public funds should never be used for professional sports !
Wrigley Field, Fenway Park and Dodger Stadium are great values in today’s dollars!
Watching the Cubs is never a good thing.
As a kid we went to the one in Montreal and saw an Expos game. They lost by 13 runs lol.
Turner Field's downfall had to do with a fight between Atlanta and the Braves about surrounding development. Atlanta wouldn't let them build a Battery like development at the Ted. That's why they left
Not to mention the journey through Crack infested neighborhoods.
I'm sure if the Braves was a basketball or football team hypothetically speaking, Atlanta would've allowed the development. Dumbest move not investing in the area which was shady at best; went to a couple of games there and you didn't hang around after the game.
You forgot the Soldier Field reboot - Also known as the "Mistake By The Lake".
If taxpayers found the stadium, tickets should be free
Nice video. I've been to 3 of those buildings: Turner, Alamodome, and Olympic. The people behind the Alamodome thought that if they built it, a team would come. Problem is, it's a TERRIBLE building. Built for football with almost zero amenities. It was barely viable when it was built, and completely unsuitable for NFL football now. And ugly ugly ugly. Just a depressing place.
Turner Field wasn’t a waste of money. I’m from the Atlanta area. Turner Field wasn’t built for baseball. It was built for the 1996 Olympics. It just so happened that the Braves’ lease on their previous stadium expired at the end of the 1996 season, so Atlanta told them they could have the stadium if they signed a 20 year lease. The Braves moved here from Milwaukee in 1966 because the city of Atlanta promised them they would build restaurants around the stadium to attract more people to the park, so the Braves agreed and signed a 30 year lease. None of those restaurants ever got built in those 30 years. Then when their lease was almost up, Atlanta told them they could have the Olympic Stadium for free if they signed a 20 year lease. The Braves asked about their restaurants and were reluctant. The city of Atlanta promised they would get it done this time. The Braves signed a 20 year lease for Turner Field and over the next 20 years (half a century total) none of those restaurants got built. And it was in a higher crime area and it wasn’t uncommon to see drug dealers get arrested right outside the stadium. The city of Atlanta asked the Braves to renew their lease and made the same empty promise about restaurants. The Braves called them out for being liars and refused. The Braves did some research and discovered the fans that attend their games and own season tickets are disproportionately from the northern Atlanta suburbs. Turner Field, which was in downtown Atlanta, was a major pain to get to. If there was an accident or a lane closed, it could take 3 hours to get there from the northern suburbs. I know because I’m one of those fans. So the Braves moved to the northern suburbs outside of Atlanta in Cobb County (as opposed to Fulton County, which is where they were) and the restaurants got built right away and opened in their first season there. The woman that was in charge of getting the restaurants built around Turner Field refused to let the Braves take the Hank Aaron statue with them out if spite. She went on to get elected mayor, but didn’t run for reelection because she was incompetent in that job too and no one liked her (Keisha Lance Bottoms).
Exactly.
Business is business. One has to cater to the tastes and preferences of one's target audience. The City should have taken advantage of the opportunity instead of being an obstacle. Their investment was 'sunk' and 'playing ball' might have been done beneficially to all parties, but they simply could not entertain accepting the tastes and preferences of that target audience, much less embracing them as an opportunity. It conflicted too inherently with the political narrative that kept them in office. It was a real opportunity, across a wide spectrum of stakeholders. But like so many politicians they couldn't step outside their short-term thinking, and outside their ideological 'box', to recognize them.
I will say in the defense of Turner Field is that it was actually a good way to reuse an Olympic venue that had little to no value if it was not planned to be converted to an MLB stadium. We see too many Olympic venues built at a cost of millions if not billions of dollars - then used for 2 weeks - then left to rot. This was good planning by the Atlanta olympic committee and the Braves. They managed to get 20 years out of it for the Braves, and now a few football seasons. Much better than it being a rotting track stadium.
As for the Montreal Olympic stadium, the Expos played there for what, about 30 years? Not bad.
Not a stadium, but I have an example of a sports related facility that has been a bona fide happy accident for the city that built it, and perhaps a case big time sports team owners don't want the public finding out about.
It's the T-Mobile (formerly Sprint) Center in Kansas City. It was built with the prospects of luring a NBA or NHL team but in the fifteen years since It's opening has not gotten a major sports tenant. Due to not having to deal with the hassle of scheduling other events around a home team's schedule, the arena can get prime dates for concert tours, host the Big XII basketball tournament, and the NCAA tournament and as a result actually makes the city money. If an NBA or NHL team were to take the bait and move to KC, I can't imagine that success would continue.
The Islanders almost moved to Kansas City before they wound up moving to the Barclays Center in Brooklyn for a time, then back for a time to a renovated Nassau Coliseum before moving to their current building (UBS Arena at Belmont Park) in November 2021.
From what I’ve heard, it would cost at least $500 million to raze Olympic Stadium.
Moreover, it also cannot be imploded due to not only its prestressed concrete construction, but also due to the fact that the venue sits on top of an active metro (subway) line as well.
Do they still play Montreal Allouttes playoff games in it, or are those now at Percival Molson Field as well?
@@anthonybanchero3072 To my knowledge, even Montreal Alouettes playoff games are now played at Percival Molson Stadium.
I couldn't disagree anymore on the Alamodome. It has hosted several Final Four college basketball events, and it's still a great venue. It was the home of the Saints during Hurricane Katrina, while the Louisiana Superdome was being renovated. I would argue that the Seattle Kingdome, Pontiac Silverdome in Suburban Detroit (Pontiac,) the Hoosier Dome in Indy or Carrier Dome in Syracuse, the latter which still stands and operates of the three, are a WAY huger waste of money than the Alamodome. Independence Stadium in Shreveport and Legion Field in Birmingham should have made the list. The former still hosts the now pretty much irrelevant Independence Bowl in December but practically sits idle the remainder of the year, and it's almost 100 years old but its seating structure has become worn out and decrepit. The Independence Bowl needs to move to the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis, Lucas Oil Stadium in Indy or Lincoln Financial Field in Philly.
In order for Independence Stadium to regain some relevancy & fill those seats, the Saints & Cowboys need to play some pre-season games there (1 home game for each team). Independence Bowl needs to get power 5 schools back in there (SEC vs Big 12). Other than the Saints vs Cowboys pre-season game from 2006, the only other time that venue was pack was when LSU played Michigan State in the Indy Bowl.
New Comisky Park Park was waste of money. The concrete was cracked after one year.😅😅
I don't think the TWA/Edward Jones Dome was all that much of a waste of money. It was built at a relative bargain (280 mil, which even for the time was a pretty low price for a decent size dome stadium), it was more about the very lopsided terms that the Rams pushed on St. Louis and the new owner being a greedy prick that doomed the stadium. I honestly think it has paid for itself by this point with how little it cost to build and as long as St. Louis can put it to some use now, it's still generating value for the city. Turner Field also was not a waste of money by any means.
The dome definitely is
I think the Dome was a fine addition to St. Louis' entertainment infrastructure - I like how it was connected to the Convention center. That allows it to have extended use. I attended a few games and did some tail gating there and it was great because the tail gating went all night because the parking lots had private ownership. It is also conveniently serviced by St. Louis' lone subway/light rail - if that ever springs into a fuller life, it can't hurt.
@@kaneinkansas The only problem with the Dome is it’s in St Louis.
Turner field failed because of its location. Somehow in the center of Atlanta but not convenient to anything.
FedEx Field in DC was a waste of $. They've had to spend millions to remove seats and reduce the capacity, as the Redskins/WFT/Commanders fanbase has shriveled up. Now they want a new stadium.
I'd like to know who let it get in the shape it's in, or if it was built with corners cut. Between the issues with the sewage getting into the stands, the railing of the stand collapsing in the tunnel, and who knows what else I haven't even heard of, it sounds like it was a mess from day 1.
@@MikeyKaos716blame the current owner. Yeah, the one whose first name starts with a "D" as in "Dip", and his last name starts with "S" as in "💩".
@@rwboa22 Yes, that guy has a big role in FedEx being a disaster. But Jack Kent Cooke, who owned the Skins and built the place has a role, too. He built the place misty on his own dime, which meant he had to skimp on a lot of stuff. I've been to FedEx, only driven past M&T in B'more, but I understand M&T is a much better place. The reason...Art Modell got them to pony it public funds, and governments get much better interest rates from banks than even billionaires can. So a publicly funded stadium should have better facilities than a privately financed one.
The Olympic stadium(which later became Turner Field) was built to host track and field events as well as the olympics opening and closing ceremonies. Atlanta Fulton County stadium, next door, hosted baseball games. The braves moving to Cobb County became a win-win for all involved. A land locked 50k university converted the Atlanta Fulton county stadium and surrounding parking lots to much needed student housing, and coverted Turner Field into a football stadium. The braves found a big plot of land adjacent to two interstates, near a shopping mall and major suburban office complexes that had unused parking decks at night. They did not have to build massive surface parking lots you see at most stadiums. You walk out onto the plaza at Truist Park and you are steps away from bars, restaurants, shopping, hotels, apartments, offices, and a entertainment venue. The shops, restaurants, and bars still draw customers evem when the braves are not playing from the Galleria and Interstate North office complexes as well as from residents in and surrounding the Battery. The nearby area is middle to upper middle income, to rich in nearby Vinings and Riverside Drive.
I don't think it's really fair to say the Dome at America's Center was a waste of money. The stadium hosted 21 NFL seasons and has held and continues to hold events nearly year round since it's part of a convention center. You did mention the lawsuit settlement which was effectively a refund of all the money it cost the city to build the dome in modern day money. It's not a very good stadium, especially nowadays, but St. Louis definitely got their money's worth out of it.
I think it made the list only because it has no potential to attract another NFL team.
@@grbmajor6645 That's fair
Do a video on Anaheim Stadium. They had the stand collapse in an earthquake. They then rebuilt them. A couple of years later, they tore them out when the Rams left.
I remember going to the old Texas Rangers stadium when I was a kid.
I’ll never forget waking through the center field entrance at the BPiA for the first time in ‘94. Compared to Arlington Stadium it was like walking into heaven… or Iowa…
Toronto’s Skydome cost Ontario taxpayers $570 million in 1989 and then was purchased by Rogers Telecommunications in 2004 for $25 million…roughly 4% of the original rip-off. Great deal for Rogers….shitty for everyone else. 👎🏾
That was after it was sold from the public to Labatt company for 151 mil, rogers bought it from them for 24 mil
Turner was great, had more of a classic baseball feel to it. Great tailgaiting scene in the blue lot where Fulton County stadium was and you could take Marta to the game and see the City Skyline in the background. Truist is a nice setup and different, but I miss Turner.
I agree, watching games at Turner field was great, it was just the displeasure of many fans being accosted by bums while trying to leave after the game...
I visited Atlanta, coming from the PNW, around 2010 and went to a game at Turner Field. I thought it had a lot of charm, it was intimate, and loved that it was in a residential neighborhood. Had the famous boiled peanuts and had a wonderful night soaking up the atmosphere (and heat!). Maybe the stadium is a financial bonanza for the team, but looks as charmless and slick as a skyscraper.
You forgot the Georgia Dome!
More use was gotten out if it considering it hosted Super Bowls and Final Fours.
@@chrisjudd6 Also hosted Monster Jam, Super Cross, lots of concerts, the Hawks for two seasons, the Ringling Brothers Circus until they went out of business, SEC Championship, was the home of the Georgia State University football team before they purchased and converted Turner Field, evangelism conferences, and other events. It got a lot of use.
Yeah I know! But how the hell does a Stadium become outdated after only being around for 25 years?
@@jasonrandom372 It wasn't, but the NFL wasn't willing to give Atlanta any more super bowls without a "better" stadium, so they essentially replaced it.
The real reason to build domes isn’t sports. It’s concerts. When the sonics occupied key arena, it didn’t make a profit despite being in use 32 weeks a year. When they left, the following year the building made a huge profit from concerts despite having the WNBA reserving the best concert dates for games. A dome is useful year round and doesn’t require a major team to make money. It actually helps if there’s no major team. This results in the building being available for rent year round and concerts make more money than sporting events.
Olympic Stadium opened in 1976...seeing as how that's when the Olympics happened in Montreal.
Atlanta 1996 Summer Olympic
And Montreal paid off its Olympic debt in 2006.
@@williamlloyd3769 The last stadium featured was Olympic Stadium in Montreal. It is where the Montreal Expos played up till 2004. Yes, Turner Field was originally Centennial Olympic Stadium, but it was converted after the 1996 summer Olympics. Montreal hosted the Olympics in 1976. I think you may have not watched the end of the video.
Back in the 1990's there were people in Los Angeles who complained that Los Angeles wouldn't use tax payer money to build the Rams a new stadium, but for once the local politicians were looking out for community by not giving in. The new SoFi stadium where the Rams play today was privately funded.
You and Depressed Ginger fulfill my life 😂
Depressed Ginger needs to focus on quality of videos over quantity. I want to like him, but too many times he's missing facts or getting facts wrong, which is a sign of bad research. I like his impassioned delivery, because you can tell he is interested in the topic of stadiums, but his research isn't there. And that clicking thing he does on the mic, he needs to work on that.
@@MikeyKaos716 those are what we call 1st world problems. His video ideas are genius and he is one of a kind
One suggestion for a future video. Saint Petersburg, Florida. The original name was The Thunder Dome. Less than 48 hours later, I heard people calling it The Blunder Dome. SunTrust merged with BB&T and is now Truist. The voice has to be from the US. The City is MontReal, but he said Mont Treal
I think the Georgia Dome was also a waste of money, as the Falcons only played there for 25 years, then moved into their current retractable dome stadium.
The problem with Turner Field is that the City of Atlanta never delivered on the infrastructure and transportation to the area that they promised. There was no public transportation to it and parking was a nightmare. The park itself was quite decent - basically a baseball only stadium converted to a multipurpose stadium before it was even laid down and then reverted back to baseball only after the '96 Olympics. The Ballpark in Arlington was beautiful but unfortunately planned and built before a retractable roof stadium was truly viable. Building something like the Rogers Center would have had an insane price tag that the Rangers simply couldn't afford at the time. Arlington Stadium (although well maintained) was well past its useful life by the early 90s so the need to build something was fairly urgent.
I knew that pathetic dome in St. louis would be first! I worked there and that place was run down in 5 years! Tear it down!
The St. Louis Battlehawks play there, where they have the highest attendance in the league.
Very surprised Tropicana/Thunderdome/Florida Suncoast Dome did not make the list.
FedUp Field.
Surprised Marlins Park didn't make your list. They publicly financed it to keep the Marlins in Miami when they began threatening relocation. It's been a massive flop considering how poor fan turnout has been. Even the company that ran the concessions there filed for bankruptcy.
The St Louis Dome is actually more successful now than it was as the Rams stadium. It can host a lot more conventions and other events since it doesn't have to host an NFL team in the fall and winter months. Not having any natural lighting is what really killed the stadium I think. If they made it more like Ford Field there's a chance an NFL team would still be playing there. Or hell they didn't really need a roof in the first place, It's not like St Louis is super far north and cold weather would be a problem.
Rams moved to St Louis cuz of Mrs Georgia, she croaked, Stan bought the team and moved them back where they belong
@@matthewkester3677 not gonna argue with you there. I'm a St Louis native and I think the Rams should have stayed in LA. STL should have gotten an expansion team instead.
The saddest here to me is Choctaw, because it has the look and feel of a historic, but modern enough, baseball park.
Well if the A’s get their way you can add Vegas to that list.
In MN there was a law that said before a certain amount of tax money could be used to fund a stadium it had to be voted on by the citizens. The government knew that it would be voted down so they said the US Bank stadium would be funded by pull tabs and lottery. After a very short time the government realize there wasn't enough money coming from pull tabs etc. so they past a bond issue to get around it. These politicians should be in jail for financing US Bank stadium.
Montreal is trying to land a MLB team
There have been countless studies on the economic 'benefits' of building new stadiums. The benefit is tiny relative to the cost of building and maintenance. People have X amount of money to spend on entertainment. If they go to a ball game then they're not going to the movies, or to a restaurant, etc. Those entertainment dollars merely move from one form of entertainment to another. Building free stadiums for MLB or the NFL is total BS. Taxpayers, including non-fans, are forced to pay for them. So we're building free work-places for a monopoly industry. Let the fans pay for it. The last baseball park built without taxpayer funding was Dodger Stadium 61 years ago.
Put the 2009 Yankee Stadium in there. What a dump 😂
Although the Yankees aren't going anywhere.
@@kevinbergin9971except down
Not a bad place. Much more room than the previous one. However it could have been better.
@@TommyTombs Is that what this was about? So it really is a pretty nice building after all.
We have a 10,000 seat soccer stadium sitting vacant in the hood downtown , the team left the stadium around 2016 and tried to play at the community college and then quit altogether