Quote for the Day - Part 1

Amazing article on soccer and political strife in war torn Angola. With this line from a local Cabindan:

Nor was he happy that the Angolan government had spent so many millions of dollars on a futuristic new 35,000-seat soccer stadium in Cabinda when the money could have been spent on other things. "For me, the stadium is nothing for us," he said. "They are playing today, but tomorrow the stadium will be dead like a dead man. All the people really want is a bigger port, not a stadium, and education, hospitals, universities, a bigger airport. Things like that."

Outsider Review: Ballpark in Arlington

From Deadspin:

The stadium itself was a scandal, an unabashed land grab that lawsuits would later describe as "sordid and shocking" and "astounding, unprecedented and blatantly illegal." It was also Bush's signal achievement as an owner. I'll leave the details to others, but in essence, Bush and his fellow Rangers owners somehow contrived to privatize the city's power of eminent domain. Then they went shopping. They bought up land on the cheap for the twin purposes of baseball and speculation, and dropped a hideous, plagiarized ballpark in the middle of it all, next to an artificial lake, with thin bands of granite circling the exterior that might as well be police tape.

Pro Sports and Carbon Footprints

This line says it all right here doesn't it?

The energy required to operate a sports venue is fairly minor compared with the energy that fans expend in simply getting to a game...

From Slate.

Now let's compare (I would use some Google Earth mapping, but apparently that program is having a hissy fit today):

Oriole Park at Camden Yards, embedded in the heart of downtown Baltimore near the Inner Harbor, and you can walk to, bus to, or train to...



or...

Shiny, happy Jerry World set in beeeeeyooooteeeful Arlington, Texas, home to the largest city in the country with no, ZERO, mass transit. Good luck hosting the Super Bowl, the NBA all-star game, and the Final Four in coming years while everybody stays in Dallas or Fort Worth without any way for these people to get to the venue.




Now, let's say the average fan is traveling the 20 miles from Dallas to the game, for 8 games a year, but we'll say 9 b/c the Cowboys are good at making it to one playoff game, and seats 80,000 people per game (assuming 80,000 people are willing to travel that far, pay for gas, and whatever Jerry Jones is charging for the upper level seats (cuz you ain't getting the lower level ones my friend). 80,000 people travelling each travelling 20 miles, 9x/year = approximately 720,000 gallons of gas.

I know, I know. Not every single fan will be driving solo, but yet again this is Dallas.

Somebody plz tell me how Arlington, and in turn, Dallas will NOT be laughing stocks like Houston and Jacksonville or Jacksonville again when the Super Bowl comes to town?

If you don't feel like clicking the links, here is the criteria ESPN's sports guy used to describe the ideal super bowl setting:

Does this mean Houston should be hosting a Super Bowl? Of course not. It's ridiculous. There should be five trademarks for every Super Bowl experience. This is not negotiable. Here are the five:

1. Warm weather.
2. Serviceable stadium.
3. A downtown that's easy to get around.
4. Fun things to do at night.
5. A city that gives you that "Wow, what a city!" feeling.

If you're scoring at home, for Arlington that is: yes, presumably, no, no, GAWD no.