Union delays home games for construction
Friday, February 5th, 2010
By: Shai Ben-Yaacov
sben-yaacov@whyy.org
After months of speculation about when it will open its 18 thousand seat stadium on the Chester waterfront, the Philadelphia Union soccer team says it will play its first game at the arena June 27. The team announced last year that the stadium wouldn't be ready in time for the team's first home game on April 10 because of construction delays.
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Union President Tom Veit says the credit crunch couldn't have come at a worse time for the fledgling Major League Soccer expansion team, which broke ground on the 115 million dollar stadium in late 2008. Construction was halted when the team was unable to get adequate bond revenue.
Veit says the stadium will be completed in June – after the team plays two home games at Lincoln Financial Field.
Because of the construction delays, Viet says, the team scheduled as many home games as possible later in the season.
Veit: We had made a commitment to our fans to play as many games as we could in our home stadium, so that means it's a little inconvenient for our team to have to go on the road, but it's worth it to make sure that we can keep our promises to our fans.
Veit says the team will play the Eagles for use of the Linc, but declined to say how much.
I would expect the rent for the Linc to have been rather expensive, which is part (but only part) of the rationale between having 10 or the first 12 games on the road. Another part is that 18,500 fans in a stadium that seats 18,500 fans and is built for the sport looks a lot better than, say, 22,000 in the 68,500-seat Linc.
Now, the very first Union game will draw a good bit more than 22,000 fans (35,000 wouldn't be an unreasonable guess based on franchise debuts for other MLS teams), but the team will want the motivation of restricted supply to help stimulate the kind of season-ticket sales (9,500 so far) that will make every single game well attended. It's one thing to draw well for the opener, the finale, against rivals, or against David Beckham, it's another for that Thursday-nighter against Kansas City. For that, you need the season tickets.