If the Hampton Roads area recieved a major league team, which sport...

[ThinkBlue82]

I agree with RT. I love baseball and would love to see a MLB team come here but it would not make it. We can barely fill Harbor Park during a weekend game and it's only around 10k capacity. A major league stadium would need to be about 40k+. Granted that is a minor league team but 81 home games is just too much.

NFL would only be 8 home games with an average of 1 home game every other week. If you consider the amount of people that would come to games that live in hampton roads, NC, eastern shore, Richmond area etc. I think you could fill a stadium up 8 times. If there was any set back it would be the cost of tickets.

[cityboi757]

There's probably about 4million residents between Hampton Roads and Richmond.

You need about 55,000 to fill an NFL stadium. That's less than 5% of the population that would have to attend 8 times! How hard is that guys? Not to mention the fans that travel from other cities following their teams!

[chesapeakesim]

I would love to have an NFL team here, but I can never see that happening. We have a lot of residents yes, but most people in the country don't even know what Hampton Roads is, let alone wanting to have a football team here. Like the poster above said, we don't even fill the minor league baseball games, I would really doubt we could fill an NFL stadium.

[SamAndrea]

Originally Posted by chesapeakesim

Like the poster above said, we don't even fill the minor league baseball games, I would really doubt we could fill an NFL stadium.

I have to counter this point. 95% of the general U.S. population do NOT care about minor league teams which is why none of the transplanted people (not locally raised) don't go to the local minor league games. A major league team would bring other major league teams here. With so many of the people in the area not being from here, it would be a great chance to see their home teams play against the local MLB team.

Same with every other sport. My only issue is that I'm not sure the area could support an NFL team with it's stadium only used 8 times per year. What's the stadium going to do the 358 days per year? Sit empty? A $50 million dollar waste of $$ in my mind. The area would be really taking the chance of being over-venued.

[Randomdude]

Originally Posted by cityboi757

There's probably about 4million residents between Hampton Roads and Richmond.

You need about 55,000 to fill an NFL stadium. That's less than 5% of the population that would have to attend 8 times! How hard is that guys? Not to mention the fans that travel from other cities following their teams!

1. You need more then 55k to fill a modern NFL stadium. The Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome seats about 64k for football, and it is widely discounted as too small. If you check most of the NFL stadiums, they are around 75k or more.

2. It isnt just about filling the stadium. Yeah, a Norfolk football team could probably fill a stadium on any given week. However, what if the team sucks? If you want to see what happens in a small market with a low prevailing wage and little corporate presence when a team sucks, check out Jacksonville or Buffalo (both are considering moving). You need people to buy seat licenses, luxury boxes, season tickets etc, even when the team blows. You can't simply get by with 75k people buying single game tickets from week to week. It wont work out when the team sucks.

[Randomdude]

Originally Posted by SamAndrea

Same with every other sport. My only issue is that I'm not sure the area could support an NFL team with it's stadium only used 8 times per year. What's the stadium going to do the 358 days per year? Sit empty? A $50 million dollar waste of $$ in my mind. The area would be really taking the chance of being over-venued.

Well, we could bulldoze the decrepit Scope, Hampton Coliseum, and other aging venues that are far past their prime. A convention center could be included in the stadium complex for the Admirals.

A major NFL stadium (which would be closer to 750 mil-1 billion, not 50 million), could be used to lure a whole lot of things that bypass the area because we dont have a professional size arena. The convention center could be used as well for conferences and trade shows.

The problem is, that a huge amount would have to be financed by the teams and the tax payers, because we arent going to find the corporate revenue that is present in many other pro sports cities. That is where the trade off would likely be sour. These owners do not like shouldering much if any of the stadium burdens, and they would certainly have to take it on to field a team here.

[ThinkBlue82]

Originally Posted by Randomdude

1. You need more then 55k to fill a modern NFL stadium. The Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome seats about 64k for football, and it is widely discounted as too small. If you check most of the NFL stadiums, they are around 75k or more.

2. It isnt just about filling the stadium. Yeah, a Norfolk football team could probably fill a stadium on any given week. However, what if the team sucks? If you want to see what happens in a small market with a low prevailing wage and little corporate presence when a team sucks, check out Jacksonville or Buffalo (both are considering moving). You need people to buy seat licenses, luxury boxes, season tickets etc, even when the team blows. You can't simply get by with 75k people buying single game tickets from week to week. It wont work out when the team sucks.

Good point about the luxury boxes. They are very expensive. My company has luxury boxes at Harbor Park and each game is outragous with the food alone. Way overpriced. If a new stadium would be built I'm sure they'd have at least 50 luxury boxes. I'm not sure this area even has 50 major companies in the area willing to spend that kind of money.