Loss of the National Football Stadium

[-Hammer-]

36 minutes ago, theaub said:

lmao @ some of these reactions

And fwiw, I heard from multiple people connected with the team that the general consensus from the players was that the pitch was hot garbage from September onwards, and the grounds crew was fully aware of it.  There was just nothing either side could do about it.  They put in a hell of an effort, especially after the Grey Cup.

 

Really? That seems pretty far fetch'd to me. The Argos season at BMO was done on Oct 15th. TFC then had three home games after that, the last being when TFC played NYCFC at BMO on October 30th. From that point onward, BMO saw zero events until the Grey Cup.

If the pitch was in such rough shape, they had nearly the entire month of November, till Nov 27th (the Grey Cup) to resod it and fix any issues. In the face of two, potentially three major sporting events, (two which would be two of the biggest moments yet in TFC history) they opted to not resod the "hot garbage" pitch. 

An entire month of time, with BMO's sub-floor heating system, modern grow lights, and advanced drainage system with a literal spare field down the road, that they couldn't do anything about it. To say I'm skeptical, is an understatement.

[-Hammer-]

Now that all said, to any of the CFL players chirping in on this one. Especially the Argonaut players, just shut up. Tension in Toronto with the CFL is at a palatable high to the point of absurdity, and you're going to fire a shot across the bow at a player of another Toronto franchise? Who the heck do you think you are?

I wasn't aware that the Argos were doing so great that they could afford to alienate people. I wasn't aware that the Argonaut organisation was such a resounding on field success that they could chirp another team that actually made their championship. I wasn't that the Argos and the CFL's Grey Cup ticket scandal that was so great that chirping the MLS final in Toronto which sold out far faster without price reductions made you the awesome judges of sport exceptionalism.  You are supposed to be professionals, well you sure aren't acting like ones.

This whole mess has left me with a sour taste in my mouth. Rant over

[Free kick]

18 hours ago, Levi Oakey said:

Oh please. Groundshare is quickly going to become the norm. This isn't the 1800s when you can just buy land for cheap in a city core. Look at Spurs new stadium? Looks at other Premier League teams that aren't ages old. They groundshare.

Are you ready to fork out millions of dollars for max 20 home games a year? Just to be clear, that's millions of dollars to support something that takes up less than 1% of the year. 

Governments are not going to fund this stuff so easily in the West anymore. Even for the Olympics there is talk of saying that all stadiums need to have secondary tenants. Look at Brazil. They are getting hammered due to the Olympics and the World Cup.

 

News to me.  Baseball teams are not sharing anymore.  It use to be that stadiums accross north america would be built for baseball and football teams in 70's and 80's. Not anymore. 

In city report a few years back posted here on this forum,  it was reported that BMO field was the only city owned facilty that was generating positive cash flow for the city.  It was the only one. And that was before any talk of the Argos moving in. 

So its incorrect to say that soccer doesnt generate the revenues on its own.  That's an issue for the cfl ( with only 9 dates a year) not MLS.  Also, the article mentions the ball bounces, this is some that i noticed as well and that i hadn't notices previously.  

 

[Greatest Cockney Rip Off]

The people who are affected the most by ground shares are the supporters.

I can tell you watching football every other weekend in a multipurpose facility is completely shit. 

[gator]

The animosity towards guys that actually played on this surface and came out and spoke about it is a little surprising to me on a soccer forum, the timing may be questionable, when would be better, before the Cup Final? BMO has been compromised for CFL no matter how much the grounds crew tweets and tells you otherwise and no matter how ML$E and their propaganda machine want to spin it! Argo players chirping is real rich too, they were the undeserving recipients of a gift and were unable to take advantage of it1

[Levi Oakey]

2 hours ago, Free kick said:

 

News to me.  Baseball teams are not sharing anymore.  It use to be that stadiums accross north america would be built for baseball and football teams in 70's and 80's. Not anymore. 

https://www.atr.org/it-s-time-stop-taxpayer-funded-stadiums

http://stadiumscam.com/

https://www.brookings.edu/research/why-the-federal-government-should-stop-spending-billions-on-private-sports-stadiums/

http://www.missourinet.com/2016/12/12/missouri-lawmaker-wants-to-stop-use-of-state-money-for-stadiums/

New stadiums are going to be a problem. But the appetite for sports teams is growing. It's supply and demand.

[1996]

Did Giovinco mention the Argos no? He spends like two seconds talking about the pitch, his main point was to say that he was not feeling right and with the way Ricketts was doing coming on late in games and changing the game Giovinco was like you know what I'm not helping my team by staying on and not being able to perform so why not come off and give Ricketts a chance and see if he can change the game like he had done in previous games. Shame on TSN for making a big deal out of nothing and that's what prompted the Argo players to chirp which they should not have not only chirp but took shots at Giovinco lol.

[Gian-Luca]

After hearing all the hoopla, reading the comments in this thread and seeing the headlines on TSN, I went and watched the full Gionvinco interview on the TFC website, expecting hear him say stuff like "The Argos caused me to miss the net!" or "We would have won except for the Argos!" or something that ridiculous. Instead I see that he's actually trying to come up with theories as to why he kept cramping up during the last few home playoff games, and with all other things being equal/the same as before, he's making a self-admitted uneducated guess as to what might be the case based on the only thing that had changed - the quality of the pitch. It might be a stretch, but it might also be a political move to help make sure the pitch is better shape the next time the CFL goes into the playoffs in Toronto, It may simply be the natural reaction from a guy who's pitch standards ought to be incredible high given where he was playing before he came to MLS. It is not as though he is used to playing on home fields in Italy that are shared with such teams as the Torino Tiger-cats, the Roma Roughriders or the Cagliari Stampeders. If the guy wants a better quality pitch at all times of the year, I find it tough to blame him.

He actually ends the interview saying that he makes no excuses, which I haven't actually seen anyone mention, probably because TSN cut that part out given that it is not controversial/headline making enough.

[Gian-Luca]

20 hours ago, -Hammer- said:

 

I see you didn't once mention this was an issue when you beat the Impact, or when you had to play in Yankee stadium,

The season that saw TFC do the best it ever did, you are going to blame the pitch. Get real. We all saw the field at it was in pristine condition after the Grey Cup and the grounds crew posted day to day on it.

I imagine the reason why he didn't mention the quality of the pitch (or field in the case of Yankee stadium) being an issue in causing him to cramp up and sub out of games in Montreal & New York is because he didn't cramp up in those games. But he definitely did complain about the turf in Montreal before that game was played - according to Vanney Giovinco talked about it being very "dangerous" to play on. So I'm not really seeing any inconsistency here on his part.

And while I have my doubts that the pitch in Toronto is what caused him to cramp up, I will say that I don't think the field was in "pristine" condition after the Grey Cup. I understood they put a fair amount of sand on the pitch for the final and you could occasionally see that emerging from the field when somebody kicked the ball (IIRC Altidore's PK in the shoot-out is one such example).

[theaub]

4 hours ago, Levi Oakey said:

https://www.atr.org/it-s-time-stop-taxpayer-funded-stadiums

http://stadiumscam.com/

https://www.brookings.edu/research/why-the-federal-government-should-stop-spending-billions-on-private-sports-stadiums/

http://www.missourinet.com/2016/12/12/missouri-lawmaker-wants-to-stop-use-of-state-money-for-stadiums/

New stadiums are going to be a problem. But the appetite for sports teams is growing. It's supply and demand.

That's all fun and good and then teams give the ultimatum of 'build a new stadium or we leave' and 90% of the time the city caves in.  St Louis (and San Diego) are exceptions to the rule.  Situations like Arlington, Cobb County and soon to be Oakland are the norms.

The issue in this specific instance is that the Argos don't make any money, so you have both no potential private investors as no businessperson wants to spend money to build a stadium that has no upside, and the government isn't going to fully fund a stadium for a team that has shown no hope of filling it.  And of course the Argos aren't moving anywhere because there's nowhere for them to go, nor should they ever fold.  So you're basically stuck.

[Levi Oakey]

2 minutes ago, theaub said:

That's all fun and good and then teams give the ultimatum of 'build a new stadium or we leave' and 90% of the time the city caves in.  St Louis (and San Diego) are exceptions to the rule.  Situations like Arlington, Cobb County and soon to be Oakland are the norms.

Correct me if I am wrong, but aren't all of those in Suburbs? Which basically proves me point? You will struggle to build a downtown stadium in any major city in NA. Also most of those stadiums have had major Issues. Cobb County is complaining about lack of transit, because they built it so far from the core.

[Olympique_de_Marseille]

58 minutes ago, Gian-Luca said:

Torino Tiger-cats, the Roma Roughriders or the Cagliari Stampeders.

Those teams actually really sound great! I'd throw in the Livorno Lions, Arezzo Alouettes, Bergamo Blue Bombers, Reggio Redblacks, Ancona Argonauts, Enna Eskimos and you have the Serie Eh!

[theaub]

52 minutes ago, Levi Oakey said:

Correct me if I am wrong, but aren't all of those in Suburbs? Which basically proves me point? You will struggle to build a downtown stadium in any major city in NA. Also most of those stadiums have had major Issues. Cobb County is complaining about lack of transit, because they built it so far from the core.

Depends which point.  Yes on it being tough to find land in a downtown area, but that doesn't mean groundsharing will become more common or that its any more difficult to get someone to publicly fund a stadium.  

Hell, if it wasn't for Argos ownership being dicks 12 years ago TFC would be playing in the suburbs.

[Levi Oakey]

27 minutes ago, theaub said:

Depends which point.  Yes on it being tough to find land in a downtown area, but that doesn't mean groundsharing will become more common or that its any more difficult to get someone to publicly fund a stadium.

A - I do think it will be harder to get funded stadiums. The tide has somewhat turned on that. But maybe I am completely wrong. But when I hear that lawmakers in many states want to permanently ban such deals. It is not looking good. And in most of these deals, soccer is not successful enough to demand large investment. 

B - I would say groundshare will become more common, like it now has in Europe, because of supply and demand. Yes you can go and build in the burbs, but those stadiums often get a lot of backlash. I mean why people say TFC was MLS 2.0 is partially because they built in a city core.

I don't see many suburban successful soccer clubs, where as I see a lot of successful urban clubs. There is a ton of reasons why that is the case, but it does come down to demand, and that is in city cores. So eventually teams will see that groundshare makes sense. There is not a huge supply of downtown stadiums that can fit sports, so sharing the grounds makes demand sense. That is all I am really saying. We have to get over groundshare as being a problem. My economics might end up being off, but generally speaking, I think groundshare will become the norm. 

[shermanator]

I think the tide is turning a little bit in terms of public dollars being handed out for facilities of professional sports teams. I also think the debate is handled much differently in Canada than in the US, where cities just seemingly throw endless piles of dollars at their sports teams.

I can't speak to other cities, but in some of the conversations around CalgaryNEXT, the Flames and Gary Bettman have subtly hinted (not stated outright though) that the Flames could move if they don't get an arena/stadium largely funded by taxpayers. And they've had their bluff called by both the mayor and many fans, although I don't know how much of the fanbase is seeing right through the veiled threat. And the proposal is essentially dead in the water as of today, the city is no longer looking into it.

[An Observer]

one thing he is used to is ground sharing....Juventus does it with Torino; the two Milan clubs do it; Sampdoria with Genoa; and I think Lazio with Roma....so lots of football played on those pitches...a lot more than 10 extra gridiron matches.

[Gian-Luca]

7 hours ago, Olympique_de_Marseille said:

Those teams actually really sound great! I'd throw in the Livorno Lions, Arezzo Alouettes, Bergamo Blue Bombers, Reggio Redblacks, Ancona Argonauts, Enna Eskimos and you have the Serie Eh!

Let's not forget the former US team names - the Genoa Goldminers, the Pescara Pirates, the Milan Mad Dogs, the Bologna Barracudas, the Sardinia Stallions, the Trieste Texans and my personal favourite, the Leaning Posse from Pisa.

[1996]

Again what he said was taken out of context badly and shame on the media for making something out of nothing, do they not teach reading comprehension in school anymore?

[pint]

On 2016-12-13 at 0:55 PM, Levi Oakey said:

Oh please. Groundshare is quickly going to become the norm. This isn't the 1800s when you can just buy land for cheap in a city core. Look at Spurs new stadium? Looks at other Premier League teams that aren't ages old. They groundshare.

Are you ready to fork out millions of dollars for max 20 home games a year? Just to be clear, that's millions of dollars to support something that takes up less than 1% of the year. 

Governments are not going to fund this stuff so easily in the West anymore. Even for the Olympics there is talk of saying that all stadiums need to have secondary tenants. Look at Brazil. They are getting hammered due to the Olympics and the World Cup.

20/365 = .05479 or 5.479% of the year. Just to be accurate you know

[Levi Oakey]

1 hour ago, pint said:

20/365 = .05479 or 5.479% of the year. Just to be accurate you know

I actually calculated it by minutes: 90*20 = 1800 and 1800/525600 = 0.00342465

[pint]

16 minutes ago, Levi Oakey said:

I actually calculated it by minutes: 90*20 = 1800 and 1800/525600 = 0.00342465

Touche

[to70]

not sure if I'm the only one of this opinion, but I honestly believe that most of the damage to BMO field was during the TFC v. Impact eastern final in that driving rain. if you watched that game there were chunks of sod dug up throughout the match.

[paul-collins]

The way I read the comments by the players, it was death by a thousand divots, and I think the Impact game was the hardest on the grass.  It was weak already because that was only 3 days after the Grey Cup, remember.

(Sometimes it's that second effort that pops the lid off the jar)

[matty]

Wait till you see it

[Joe MacCarthy]

Toronto FC tired of playing on ‘cow pasture’, installing new grass surface at BMO Field
Neil Davidson, Canadian Press May 5, 2018

Tired of playing on a “cow pasture,” Toronto FC plans to lay a new grass surface at BMO Field later this month.

The existing pitch has suffered through a long, severe winter. Its condition was not helped by an unforgiving, crowded schedule that saw Toronto begin CONCACAF Champions League play in late February.

Head groundskeeper Robert Heggie says the combination took its toll on the grass, which has been cutting up during play.

The new pitch will be installed after the May 26 Toronto FC 2 game. The senior side does not play at home again until June 13 when D.C. United visits. The ArgosCFL home opener is June 23.

“Basically after the resod, we have five weeks with one interruption,” said Heggie.

Toronto put in a new grass field after BMO Field hosted the Centennial Classic outdoor hockey game in January 2017.

After last December’s MLS Cup, club officials debated whether to install a new surface but elected to wait out of the concern that it might not take over the winter.

“We weren’t sure how far along and how good the surface would have been a few weeks later,” said Heggie. “So it was kind of the devil you know versus the devil you don’t.”

So the replacement grass pitch was left in Burford, Ont. The existing surface, meanwhile, took a beating from Mother Nature.

“Basically you saw a green field but it didn’t have any root structure,” said team president Bill Manning.

The TFC boss says it has made life difficult for his players.

“You have a player like Sebastian Giovinco and the analogy I use is he’s a Ferrari. But if you put a Ferrari on a muddy or shoddy field, it’s not going to drive so well.”

“In hindsight we put down the (new) turf right after MLS Cup (last December) … In some ways our guys have been playing on a little bit of a cow pasture,” he added. “And it’s been very difficult. Mother Nature was not kind to us this winter.”

The new grass will be the fifth in eight years at BMO Field, which has undergone considerable construction to expand and improve the original venue that opened in 2007 with artificial turf.

The plan from now on is to lay a new surface at the end of every season.

Toronto is also going to have another look at the kind of hybrid turf used by teams like the Green Bay Packers. With about five per cent of the surface synthetic, that type of surface offers more durability.

“As we go into the off-season, we may very well go that direction,” Manning said.

Even though BMO Field has underground heating, an inflatable cover and grow-lamps, that isn’t enough to preserve grass in the depth of a Toronto winter.

“That’s the burden of being a successful club. When you have an 11-month season, it’s tough,” said Heggie, who was named Sports Turf Manager of the Year in 2015 by Sports Turf Canada.

“We do our best,” he added. “Usually we pull off some miracles. But Mother Nature wins. She’s always the judge, jury and executioner at the end of the day.”