My thoughts on the new stadium and what it means for Las Vegas.
Background on the move and stadium site
News about the Athletics and Las Vegas have been slowly coming out in the past few weeks. It started with the A’s talking about buying the property that currently houses the Tropicana and the process of them purchasing the land a couple of weeks ago. The location for the new stadium would be on the corner of Las Vegas Blvd. and tropicana ave in the heart of the Vegas Strip. As someone that loves downtown ballparks, this is a great location for the ballpark. A big reason why pro sports has been so successful is Vegas has been the tourist interest and that interest doesn’t happen with a stadium way outside of the city, love the move! This Stadium would be incredibly accessible by foot and transit and the strip monorail which ends at the MGM Grand which is steps from the potential stadium site. I’m skeptical about the parking and driving situation. Looking at google maps there doesn’t look to be an abundance of parking in and around the stadium but I’m sure there will be facilities built if a ballpark is going up in that area, for now, it’s all speculation.
Background on the Stadium
With renderings also comes specific on what the stadium will include. We know that the capacity will be 30,000 and will have a partially retractable roof. The Stadium will cost $1.5 billion which includes the stadium itself and rejuvenation of the area surrounding the stadium. More details about the park will surface as this project gets underway but as of new very limited details, the photos tell the story here so I’m going to get into what I like and maybe don’t about the renderings.
What I Liked
The View
I’m a sucker for a good view at outdoor stadiums and this stadium does exactly that facing the strip with a beautiful view of the Las Vegas skyline and the MGM Grand. This will make for some beautiful sunsets over the valley and night setting. Based on the stadium’s location it would be crazy to face the stadium away from the city so a great job by the design team to rotate this place the right way.
Left Field Gate Plaza
Just beyond the left field gate, there is a huge plaza area with fountains and social space to hang out either before or after the game, there appear to be shops and eateries along this walk which is perfect to get buzz around the stadium’s long before first pitch. Based on stadium location most fans are going to be coming from the north, so this stadium walks of sorts up to the gates is a super cool way to enter a ballpark. I hope they go through with the fountains with the huge athletics logos. a super cool touch!
Futuristic
I like how “out there” this stadium looks. The past era of new stadiums has been all about retro-classic stadiums. Camden Yards, Citi Field, and PNC Park all take design elements from past stadiums and give them a modern twist on a large scale. I like that the new area of the ballpark is being ushered in with Globe Life Field and this ballpark here is going all out to look crazy, cost a bunch and give you a unique experience.
What I Didn’t Like
Half Retractable Roof?
I was confused when I say the roof was going to be half retractable. I feel like a roof is one of the things where you’re either a full roof, retractable or not or it’s an open-air stadium. I like the ambition, but it feels like they want to be every kind of stadium, but they just need to pick one. The huge beam suspending the half roof reminds me of Wembley Stadium in England and I don’t like it very much, in my opinion, the roof needs a bit of a redesign.
Oddly Designed Outfield
The outfield design doesn’t make sense when I look at it. The smaller outfield sections make sense as it makes attendance look better on TV than it does in all reality, I’ll say the large space between the lower outfield and upper outfield sections looks wrong to me. I don’t understand why there are so many screen partitions in the outfield. It feels like it would get distracting if they all had different graphics on them. Of course, it’s all speculation until the stadium is built and changes are bound to be made. Personally, the outfield needs a bit of a redesign.
Lack of Screens
From the looks of this photo, there’s only one big screen out in the right field, In the days of replays and stats this just isn’t enough. While you don’t want to block that beautiful left field view of the strip a smaller screen set into that large gap between upper outfield sections and taking away the strip partition screen and making the right field screen bigger would-be good additions and changes to make.
Final Thoughts
This new ballpark looks cool and while I was critical of certain things, I will be making a trip out here. The modern look of the stadium blows the Oakland Coliseum out of the water and should be a fresh start for the Athletics franchise and another opportunity for Vegas to prove they’re a great sports city.
If you like stadium content and sports content check out my youtube channel where I travel to different stadiums in pro sports
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