Worst. Stadium name. Ever?
European sports leagues are usually outside this site’s purview, but sometimes we just have to take notice: For example, when the Newcastle United football team (that’s soccer to you North American...
View ArticlePortugal told to consider razing new soccer stadiums
Further evidence that stadiums built for mega-events like the Olympics and the World Cup are white elephants as soon as they’re built: Elected officials in Aveiro and Leiria, Portugal are saying those...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Liverpool row over Anfield gets heated
Staffing constraints usually keep me from covering European stadium campaigns, but it’s tough to ignore the news out of Liverpool, where the owners of Liverpool FC are likely abandoning plans to expand...
View ArticleLiverpool owner Henry: New stadiums only work if they let you jack up ticket...
For anyone still in need of being disabused of the notion that new stadiums are money machines, Boston Red Sox owner John Henry explains it all for you, in the course of telling why a new building...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Tottenham said to be considering NFL-ready stadium, according to legendarily...
This was reported in the Daily Mail, the British tabloid that once won an award for “worst misrepresentation of a scientific article in a national newspaper,” so major grains of salt, but: The owners...
View ArticleBarça fans to vote on team funding own remodeling of Camp Nou, because Europe
European soccer remains generally outside the scope of this site, but I think I can make an exception for freakin’ F.C. Barcelona, which has announced it will conduct a major remodeling of its historic...
View ArticleLiverpool gets approval to expand stadium after wrecking neighborhood, crying...
Speaking of Vice Sports, Aaron Gordon has a good piece up on Liverpool F.C. getting approval last week to expand its stadium’s capacity by 14,000 seats, and how it did so by secretly buying up houses...
View ArticleTottenham Hotspur proposes retractable field for NFL, London still isn’t...
Tottenham Hotspur‘s owners have another idea for luring an NFL team to London, which involves a retractable fake-turf field and is only probably going to lead to London even further becoming L.A.’s...
View ArticleNFL to play two games a year on Tottenham Hotspur’s crazy hidden turf field
Looks like that Tottenham Hotspur retractable field — which would apparently actually be a retractable grass pitch over permanent fake turf, something that’s hard to picture, especially since there’s...
View ArticleClik here to view.
F.C. Barcelona is spending $711m on stadium upgrades, and it’s probably...
I don’t usually try to cover all of European soccer stadium news, both because there’s so much of it and because the stadium swindles that typify North American sports are largely unheard of there, for...
View ArticleClik here to view.
D.C. zoning commission likes United stadium, just wishes it looked less like...
The D.C. Zoning Commission held its first hearing on D.C. United‘s new stadium being built with the help of $183 million in city money, and the commissioners didn’t sound too thrilled with the team’s...
View ArticleWest Ham’s Olympic stadium lease sticks London with cost of everything from...
I don’t follow English Premier League finances as closely as those on this side of the pond, so I honestly couldn’t tell you whether the £2.5 million a year in rent that West Ham will pay for use of...
View ArticleWest Ham owner: Be glad we’re paying anything to rent London’s “ridiculous”...
Here in the U.S., we’re used to sports team owners justifying public stadium subsidies as a boon to taxpayers because they will create umpteen billion dollars in economic activity or whatnot, usually...
View ArticlePeople love living near stadiums, says paper devoted to saying people love...
The New York Times real estate section chimes in on stadiums today, which is great news, because it means we can explore the bastion of weirdness that is the New York Times real estate section. First...
View ArticleSoccer exec: West Ham’s four-year-old stadium sucks, tear it down and build a...
And finally this morning, former English soccer star and stadium consultant Paul Fletcher had this to say about West Ham‘s new home in London’s Olympic Stadium: “Either we go on as we are for the next...
View ArticleFriday roundup: Beckham sued over MLS land purchase, Browns’ flammable...
It’s Friday roundup time! Let’s get started: A local Miami landowner is suing Miami-Dade County over its plan to sell land to David Beckham’s would-be MLS ownership group for a new stadium, arguing...
View ArticleLondon takes over Olympic Stadium and its nightmare lease with nightmare West...
Stadium public funding scandals are rarer in Europe than in North America, but there are a handful, and the tale of London’s Olympic Stadium is an especially scandalous one. The story so far: The...
View ArticleFriday roundup: A’s won’t give up on Laney, Isles could play “some” games at...
Tons of stray news items this week, so let’s get right to them: The Rhode Island state senate’s finance committee approved $44 million in spending by the state and city of Pawtucket for a new Pawtucket...
View ArticleFriday roundup: Naming-rights woes, Austin update, and the World’s Largest...
It’s Friday already? Seems like we were just doing this, but the pile of stories in my Instapaper queue says otherwise, so away we go: The Florida state house has again passed a bill that would ban...
View ArticleClik here to view.
West Ham fans run onto field to protest team’s disastrous move to Olympic...
You’ll recall that West Ham United F.C. moved out of its 112-year-old Boleyn Ground in 2016 and into London’s Olympic Stadium, after the city spent something like a billion pounds building it and then...
View Article
