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[Seattle Times] 15 years after moving Sonics, now it’s the Thunder asking for publicly funded arena
(www.seattletimes.com)
this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2023
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Unrelated to the public funding, I cannot fathom how often stadiums get replaced nowadays. Boston Garden was around for 70 years or so, MSG has been around for 60 years, Lakers used the Forum for 30 years, but it's still in operation today. How is it that the Thunder need a new stadium after 15 years?
I see the same thing with baseball. The Mets and Yankees had Shea Stadium and Yankee Stadium for 50 years each before getting new parks. Now it's like it only takes 20 years for a new park to be built. It's so wasteful
Paycom Center opened in 2002, the proposed new stadium would open in 2030, so 28 years of operational use, but I understand the point.
The answer, of course, is money. New stadiums=state of the art amenities, bigger footprint, more attractions, higher prices. Going to JerryWorld (AT&T Stadium, Cowboys) is a radically different fan experience from going to, say Soldier Field in Chicago or Lambeau Field in Green Bay.
As a Bears fan, Soldier Field is a dump and I yearn to visit SoFi for a game sometime. It looks so shiny and nice on tv.
I've been to games at Soldier (and Lambeau, and AT&T). I enjoyed Lambeau the most because of the atmosphere of the fans, but my extremely-casual-only-knows-Travis Kelce-because-of-Taylor-Swift NFL fan wife had a lot more fun at AT&T. We definitely spent more at AT&T, too.
Yankees had OG Yankees stadium since the 20s, it was more like 80 years. Sox are still in Fenway which is over 100 years old.
tbf Yankee Stadium got renovated in the 70s which definitely helped its shelf life
Oh yeah, that’s a good point