Jets and Giants close to breaking ground Friday, March 23, 2007 By JOHN BRENNAN STAFF WRITER NEW YORK -- The New York Jets and Giants expect to break ground on their Meadowlands football stadium in just six weeks, Jets President Jay Cross said Thursday at a sports business conference in Manhattan. The May 1 groundbreaking is about a month sooner than club executives previously estimated, and Cross said during a panel discussion at the World Congress of Sports that the teams still expect to begin play at the replacement for Giants Stadium in the fall of 2010. The two National Football League teams are footing the lion's share of the $1.4 billion construction costs, with the NFL chipping in $300 million. But the teams may recoup a huge chunk of that investment from both a naming-rights deal and an innovative plan to have four "cornerstone partners" in addition to the overall naming rights winner, Cross told the audience. Four 5,000-square-foot scoreboards, in the corners of the stadium, would promote a different cornerstone partner, with the each partner also likely to receive 60 to 100 season tickets in its corner as part of the deal. Cross didn't discuss naming-rights prices, but he said the opportunities for corporations go well beyond the chance to put naming rights on the new stadium and on the Meadowlands Sports Complex. "We're the NFL, so that's a premium, and we're in New York, so there's a premium for New York, and you're getting two teams instead of one -- and well, you may not have to pay twice, but you pay more than once," Cross said. Cross wasn't the only one making geographically challenged comments. The panel discussion in which he participated was titled, "New York, New York," even though the other panelists all were executives of New Jersey-based teams: Jeff Vanderbeek of the Devils, Brett Yormark of the Nets and Nick Sakiewicz of the Red Bulls. The Giants and Jets have yet to make architectural renderings of the new stadium public. "We've been focused on trying to get the design complete enough to allow us to produce renderings that are worth showing," Cross said. "It's just a constant work in progress. There will be 82,000 or 83,000 seats, and we will mimic the seating bowl from Giants Stadium. But other than that, there won't be many similarities to the new place." Sakiewicz said that Red Bull Park is scheduled to open in Harrison in July 2008, adding that preparation work for driving piles to build the 25,000-seat soccer stadium will begin in about two weeks. He said the stadium will be expandable to 40,000 or 50,000 seats, a concept he said is likely to become more prevalent in stadium designs. E-mail: brennan@northjersey.com * * * What's next The Jets and Giants have a few logistical hurdles left before they begin work on their new football stadium. Their goals: Next week -- Obtain approval from National Football League rivals during league meetings in Phoenix on their plan to borrow more than $1 billion to build the stadium. Mid-April -- Get final environmental approvals from the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission and other state agencies. April 25 -- Receive final master-plan approval for the stadium design from the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority's board. May 1 -- Break ground. 2 days and I didn't see it here so here it is.
I'm excited about it. No need to bring up the old NY/NJ debate, but I'm still happy they are buildling a new state of the art facility.
I don't care if they share at this point, I really wanted WSS...But from what I've read, it'll be 50/50 on everything... Now, no blue seats and no "Giants Stadium" and i'm down...I'm sure it won't happen, hah.
The Mets chose a suitor for a naming rights deal very shortly after ground-breaking; any rumors on who might be interested for our new stadium in the Meadowlands? I'm sorry, but I'd just be pissed if I spent my fall Sundays at General Electric Stadium.
The blue seats never bothered me... The red ones were the killer haha. Green and blue seats would do fine.
is the name going to be meadownlands stadium? because im sick of it being "giants stadium" its our fucking stadium too
how long ago was it when they had that commercial of the jets players sneaking into the locker rooms and flipping a switch and the outside of the stadium turned to "Jets Stadium." i thought that was really funny
It wasn't my original idea. I've seen it floating around before. But I can't think of a better name for the stadium than that.
I have a feeling is that it is alot further away then from what everyone is saying. I have never once seen a design of what the new stadium would look like, and after reading an article last week it would take a vote at the annual owners meeting coming up. We saw all those designs of what the WSS wouldve looked like and the Jets even had a link to it on their website. That is why I am still skeptical about the whole thing.
I'm shocked. A whole thread on the new stadium and not a single mention of Queens? Can it be that the LI Jet fans are past denial and anger and bargaining and are now in depression which will soon move to acceptance when ground is broken and the final plans come out????
