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Old Posted Oct 1, 2021, 11:36 PM
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ardecila ardecila is offline
TL;DR
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: the city o'wind
Posts: 16,356
Sports can be a tool for urban regeneration, but the problem is not all sports are created equal. Land in a downtown should be intensely used, given the high land values and extensive infrastructure that supports downtowns. That's why arenas are the best fit for a city. Not only are basketball and hockey played on a smaller playing field that makes the buildings themselves fairly compact, but they also have long, intense schedules that guarantee the building is well-used throughout the year. That creates so much potential for businesses and amenities to grow up around an arena - it's criminal how we've allowed the area around the UC to languish.

2nd best is perhaps baseball - a bigger playing field and fewer games, but still quite a bit (~81 home games/year). Medium potential for surrounding development, which is still quite a bit of potential - see Wrigleyville. Also, baseball was born in cities so the dimensions of the playing field are flexible and not fully set in stone - that makes baseball stadiums uniquely able to fit into different urban sites without needing to wipe out their surroundings.

3rd best probably soccer, the playing field size is comparable to football but the attendance at games is not the same as NFL, so the stands can be smaller or more vertical and they don't need to curve so a soccer stadium plays nicely in a rectangular street grid. There's also little to no tailgate culture, so parking lots aren't a must-have. So much of soccer culture is influenced by Euro and Latin countries where it's simply not realistic to drive to a game. And the current MLS season gives teams ~17 home games per season.

Of course, football is the least urban-friendly. Stadiums are large, purpose-built and hard to adapt for other uses, and they are an odd shape that swallows up land. Fans, especially for professional games, demand the ability to drive to a large open-air parking lot to tailgate. And of course, only 8 home games per year.
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