8 NFL Teams currently play in either domes or retractable domed stadiums. A 9th - Arizona, will move into a new retractable domed stadium for the 2006 season. 6 other teams - Miami, Carolina, Jacksonville, Tampa Bay, San Francisco and San Diego play in warm weather (relatively) cities... So, 14 of the 32 teams have moved in that direction. The others include KC which is looking for a new stadium with a retractable roof, Dallas which is hoping for the same thing.
Agree with you ten fold like I stated before. People just don't understand, not including stadium revenue but how many more jobs it would bring also how much money it would bring the local area. Economics 101 2 of the most popular football teams in the most populous area in the country what is so hard to say a roof is a great deal. I have no problem one bit keeping the staidum open when were playing. I am thinking of the big picture for you New Jersey people. I am a New Yorker and have given in for a Jets team in NY. The state was going to pay a shit load for the stadium in the west side and would have brought one of the most state of the art stadiums ever. Instead we share a freaken stadium that can only be used for football games and in the spring summer when the weather is good. Makes absolutely no sense to me..
Patriots, Steelers, Eagles, and Ravens all play with open air stadiums in cold weather cities, and that hasn't affected them.
This is nothing. Piece of cake. I was at the game at Shea Satadium in which OJ Simpson broke 2,000 yards. Don't remember the year. The wind was whipping across the water and the temp was around 32 degrees at the start of the game. It started sleeting, then turned to frozen rain... soaking wet. Then the sun went down and the temperature dropped and it changed over to wind-driven snow. The wind picked up to about 40 MPH and the temps dropped into the 20's. The water-logged wool hat I was wearing turned stiff as concrete. I wasn't dressed for it like I would be today... no long johns, wearing sneaks instead of boots... everything was wet and then froze. You walked to the f*cking train stiff, like the abominable snowman. My wife thought "Bigfoot" was walking in the door.
Well, the experts don't agree... http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/66-03132006-625900.html "Marc Ganis, a Chicago consultant who focuses on stadium and arena development, said the teams shouldn't pay because they wouldn't generate additional revenue from football games. "It makes sense for the public sector to build it, not the teams," said Ganis, who has consulted on 24 projects, representing teams and public entities, and is not involved with the Meadowlands. Ganis said the Super Bowl comes to northern cities rarely and the host team doesn't generate enough amount of money to justify it. "It's the community that gets a major economic benefit from having a Super Bowl in town," he said. "If it's something the governor feels is important for economic development purposes, then the logical conclusion is for the state to make the investment and also reap whatever benefits are associated with it." Andrew Zimbalist, a sports economics professor at Smith College, disagreed. "I don't think that the financial benefit to the state would justify the state paying for it," he said.
This actually makes sense, a lot of sense. The state owns the stadium. They ought to pay for it and then recoup the money easily. But I can think of a reason why that won't happen and why the state of NJ isn't going to pay for the roof. During the elections, Jon Corzine ran on "no new taxes." Now that he's Governor Corzine, he's come out and stated taht things are much worse fiscally than he had thought. So much so, that he's now actually toying with the idea of raising our state sales tax from the current 6% to 7%. The last time this happened, it was under Governor Florio, who actually succeeded in raising it to 7%. It took years to get it back down to 6%, where it is today. Now, can you imagine if Corzine raises the sales tax to 7% and in the same breath tells the voters he's going to have the state pay $500,000 for a retractable roof for a f*cking football stadium that gets used 20 times a year (3 hours per time, for a total of 60 hours per year). The press would have a field day and all anyone would know is, "Hey, my f*cking tax money is going to pay for a f*cking roof. Why don't they just watch the game on TV?" So there you have it, and that's why NJ will NEVER pay for a retractable roof, even though it'd probably be the best investment they could ever make.
So the state should insist that the teams pay for it, and give it back in tax incentives over time. Ya know, get a little creative. It's in everyones best interest. The state gains money in hotel rooms, etc, the NFL gains by having a SB in NY (or wherever ), the teams gain by having more fans on cold days meaning more concessions on cold days, and the fans like us gain by not having to freeze our a$$e$ off. PLus, SPringsteen fans could gain, college hoops fans could gain, hell, Sun Young Moon could gain..that freak! It's win win. The only ones that lose........are the Giants because they are so opposed. So of course, it didn't pass.
Sorry, I did mean $200-300 million, the numbers are coming back to me now. Please add an extra three zeroes to all my above numbers. Where did I get $200,000? It's $200 million! Christ, I should have been a politician. Nobody pays attention to the numbers anyway, except for this guy.
No roof=advantage jets. You think INDY could come in here and win mid-Jan?? Nope, we will become just like the rest of them. always losing outdoors.
Exactly. Screw the Super Bowl, I'd rather the Jets have a home field advantage. Indy stood no chance here in 2002 in the playoffs, that's the same advantage the Bills and Patriots have had for years when they were good. They always won at home in the playoffs because it was in January.
I will leave the cold game debate to others, since I'm not a season ticket holder, and have been to 3 or 4 pro football games in my life. The Super Bowl argument doesn't hold much water for me, since I can't imagine why I would care unless the Jets were in it. Super Bowls and Final Fours are good for cities, I guess, but that certainly doesn't argue for the Jets and Giants to pay for a roof. The real point of my post, however, is the bolded comment above, which is hysterically funny. Do you actually think the opinions of people on this message board has had the slightest effect on all of this? The WSS failed because the Jets wanted government-supported bonds and infrastructure, and didn't do their homework on how to get it done. Blame Sheldon Silver, blame the Dolans, blame Woody Johnson, OK. Blame "you anti WSS people"? :rofl:
Just to let everyone know the real deal, and I haven't read every post so it might have been said, but if you have a retractable roof there is no rule saying you must close it for inclement weather. In fact the Jets west side stadium was going to be open air for Jets games no matter the weather, if Kansas City gets their new stadium they have announced the same thing. So if the Jets or Giants decided to close it only they would be to blame. The Giants ownership said they didn't want to lose their cold weather advantage, well they wouldn't have, that was a ploy to get people against the idea.
Green Guy your post makes zero sense, 14 teams have not moved in that direction, 6 of those teams happen to play in warm sites, they didn't move in any direction. KC already announced if they get the roof they will not use it for home Chiefs games. I believe only 4 cold weather teams added a roof, Minnesota, Indy, Detroit, and St. Louis. It has been a horrible decision for those teams, look at the records. They have horrible records on the road in the playoffs, only St. Louis was able to breakthrough and they did that by winning a road game in a dome. Again the Jets and Giants would remain totally open air with a retractable roof, unless the owners all of a sudden became stupid. Both teams sell out anyway and there would be no way they would want to lose the Northeast advantage.
That was never a rule, ever. The league gives the home team up to 90 minutes before gametime to decide if they want to close the roof, weather does not matter. Just to make things clear I hate domes, it is not football to me but a video game. I don't even like watching dome games on TV, doesn't seem like real football, the elements are part of football to me and to most Americans. And I guess one could argue that even though Woody had stated the WSS roof would not be used for Jets games, the fact that it is there means it could be used by some future owner, that is fair. But the bottom line is if the Giants wanted to remain open air so badly all they had to do was announce they would remain so. They lied to help get people against the roof.
Well, since I am THIS GUY, please allow me to respond. In fact, EVERYONE pays attention to the numbers. If you say the roof costs $600 THOUSAND..and it actually costs $200-300 MILLION.. Then you really cannot be taken seriously in the financial debate regarding this issue. But please continue to contribute with your input regarding how many pairs of long john to wear to a cold game.
