Sports in America by James A. Michener
I had missed a point. ‘You mean your guests sleep here on game nights?’ I asked.
‘No. The suites are open 365 days a year, if you want to use them. I do. Most of my entertaining is done here. You ought to see this place on a snowy night, with only four lights illuminating the stadium …’
‘Then your costs are a lot higher than I indicated.’
‘Much,’ he chuckled. ‘But I wasn’t going to correct your figures.’
I was afraid it might be insulting to ask him if this was all tax deductible, but obviously it was. It’s the way America does business these days, this cross-fertilization of sports and industry, and it accounts in part for the tremendous boom in sports sponsorship.
Frequently the suburban county that declared a jubilee when it lured the stadium out of the city learns to its dismay that large stadiums almost never become self-sufficient, especially those far removed from cities. Even Houston’s legendary Astrodome cannot break even of itself; the income that saves it comes from ancillary operations, including rental on a building put up nearby to accommodate those very cultural and business events that were supposed to keep the dome lighted. I have studied the prospectuses for a dozen projected stadiums, and every one was filled with phony promises. The ‘other activities like conventions, business gatherings, Billy Graham revivals and Frank Sinatra concerts’ which are depicted so glowingly could not possibly materialize. One cynic has said accurately, ‘A huge stadium built principally for football is often peddled as a multi-purpose center. Well, such a stadium is good for football, and marching-band competitions … and nothing else.’ (I once calculated that if Billy Graham were to rescue all the stadiums into which he had been thrust by publicity brochures, he would have to hold evangelist services 431 nights a year.)
Arlington, Texas, learned the cruel facts when it built Arlington Stadium, a baseball field halfway between Dallas and Fort Worth. Its dream of riches started to come true when it seduced the Washington Senators to Texas and lined up lucrative radio and television contracts. But the ball team proved a bust, one of the worst profit-and-loss operations in history, and the media income did not eventuate. Arlington faced the inevitable: assume financial responsibility for the operation and force the local citizenry to pick up the tab through real estate taxes.
It would be preferable to build stadiums from the beginning with tax money, openly acknowledged. But this honest way of doing things is difficult, so devious routes must be resorted to. It is probable that stadiums which have been recently built with the promise ‘that no penny of taxpayer’s money will ever be spent’ will ultimately have to be shifted onto the public at a total cost of about one billion dollars.
The problems an architect faces when planning a new stadium intended for both baseball and football are exemplified in New York’s Shea Stadium, built originally for baseball but converted belatedly to football too. A playing field adequate for baseball requires an area of 150,000 square feet, but football needs only 90,000. So to build a bi-purpose stadium you must first make it large enough for baseball, and then, by some device or other—retractable seats is a good one—scale it down for football. But then a problem arises. The average baseball city needs no more than 48,000 seats; football can use 86,000. Also, as architect Ron Labinski points out:
Each game has its own pace—baseball fairly slow, football with constant action. That makes spectator facilities different for each sport. In baseball you have about eighteen opportunities to get up, walk around, go to the bathroom, buy a beer; in football, all of that is concentrated at half time. For football you need fast food service, high turnover and a limited menu; baseball allows time for slower service and more choices. Sales are greater at football games, and more vending facilities are needed. Ticket sales differ too; season tickets are the thing in football, but baseball seems to draw a walk-in, one-game-at-a-time crowd.
The most ineffective design for any stadium, other than one for bullfighting, is a circle, for then most of the seats have got to be poorly situated. The best design for baseball is a modified V, with the arms reaching out along the base paths to first and third and no distant seats in center field. The best design for football would be two gently curving arcs focused on the fifty-yard line and with no seats in the end zones.
Shea Stadium, an open-ended horseshoe, with lots of seats along the base paths and none behind the center fielder, is almost ideally adapted to baseball, but when a football team has to use it, the deficiencies become appalling. It provides 55,300 seats regularly—which baseball in New York can occasionally fill—and this can be upped to 60,000 for football, which is far too low. Its design means that it can never be suitable for football, but if the open end of the horseshoe, out beyond center field, were closed in, which could be done at no great cost, football attendance could grow to 83,000, enough to make the game profitable. But baseball refuses to allow those extra seats, for they would stand glaringly empty most of the year. An impasse has been reached, one that is experienced whenever these two popular sports try to occupy the same stadium. Since baseball cannot use a restricted field, it is football that suffers.
The inescapable problems at Shea have been multiplied in recent years. The baseball Mets were supposed to have the stadium to themselves, but then the football Jets were moved in. Then the baseball Yankees lost their home while it was being refurbished, so they were crammed in too. And the football Giants, having announced that they were moving to the Jersey swamps, discovered that that promised nirvana might never be built. They tried playing their home games in Yale Bowl, not happily, and finally they, too, were thrown into Shea.
So a rather modest stadium intended for one baseball team now had two, plus two football teams, and it required a computer to arrange schedules, with both football teams forced to play the first half of their schedules as away games, since the home field was still being used by baseball. To defer playing before hometown fans until the club has absorbed four or five drubbings on the road is grotesquely unfair. New York is undersupplied with stadiums, because even when Yankee Stadium is redone, the city will still have no field adequate for football.
A compromise was attempted in building Philadelphia’s Veterans Stadium; the architect devised an octorad, a squarish-looking circle consisting of eight arcs which smooth away the deficiencies of either the square or the circle. This unique design provides major seating for football, satisfactory space for baseball, with 6,000 seats moved out of sight and 9,000 more screened off behind center field. It is not ideal, by any means, and the shifting of seats is never as easy as it sounds, but it is an ingenious solution. A better, of course, would be to build two separate but adjoining stadiums, one for baseball and one for football.
One of the more captivating ball parks I have seen is that little jewel in Montreal—Jarry Park. It seats only 28,000, and may be uneconomical to operate but ballplayers love it. Howie Reed, an American who had a good experience as an Expo pitcher, told me, ‘I’ve pitched in those big, sterile stadiums in the States, and believe me, it’s much better to play a ball game in Jarry. Intimacy is an asset.’ Other ballplayers who felt the same way explained why Jarry was so much fun: the spectators were down in the game, part of it. Reed concluded, ‘I’d not hesitate in calling it the best place in the world right now to play baseball. It actually adds to the enjoyment of the game.’ I used to feel the same way about Fenway Park; that left-field wall was part of every game, but Jarry seemed even better.
But in spite of its quiet excellence, it may be doomed. The 1976 Montreal Olympics require a large domed stadium, and the proposed design is most interesting, with a giant cantilevered hook hanging down above the roof of the stadium, issuing cables that will lift the roof in summer and lower it in winter. Clearly, Canadian politicians will apply pressure on the baseball team to quit Jarry and move into the great vacant arena, about as unsuitable a locale for baseball as could be imagined and with none of Jarry’s intimacy. Politics and finances may make the move inescap
Some of the newer centers combine cultural activities and sports. The best I’ve seen is the one about to be finished in Alabama. The Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center comprises a massive exhibition arena, a symphony hall, of splendid dimension and sound, seating 3,000, a theater seating 1,000, a large central esplanade, and a basketball-hockey arena seating up to 20,000, all smack in the center of town, and well related by ramps and tunnels to the art museum and other cultural activities. It is beautifully designed and imaginatively interlocked. It was so symbolic of the future that I went back three times, to attend a business exhibition, to listen to a Rachmaninoff piano concerto, and to watch a ballet rehearsal. I wish I could have seen a basketball game, but that part wasn’t finished. Except for the inevitable lack of parking, this handsomely arranged center establishes a standard which any medium-sized city ought to be able to meet, but only if architectural imagination is applied from the start.
The Superdome in downtown New Orleans is the sort of flamboyant elegance every nation ought to sponsor … once. Even in its unfinished state it delighted me, a stupendous building that enlarges the mind of the unprejudiced visitor, an enormous ring supporting a roof so towering, it looks as if it must collapse from its own weight. A jaundiced critic sought to disenchant me, reciting those grotesque cost overruns of which I have spoken, but I told him, ‘I’ll bet it works. I’ll bet it more than earns its unkeep. In the years ahead the city will derive enough profit from it to justify the cost of construction.’
‘If it wasn’t already built, would you authorize going ahead now?’
‘Unquestionably. If it didn’t exist, it ought to.’
‘But do you know about the scandals?’
‘Deplorable. Those responsible should go to jail. But even so, when I look at it my heart skips a beat, just for the sheer hell of it. When I become more sober I see four things. First, the cost was excessive. Second, the chicanery connected with its financing and building was disgraceful. Third, it’s a stunning building and I wish we had it in Philadelphia. Fourth, it will be a focus of nationwide attention for the next forty years, after which it may have to be torn down to be replaced by something better. But you have a bargain, pal, and in time you’ll appreciate it.’
I spent long hours, repeatedly, inspecting the Superdome, and it excited me as no other building of its magnitude has ever done. It’s a major effort, handsomely designed and well built. It looms above the city like some gigantic growth in a jungle, its dome glowing in the sky, so huge that it can be comprehended only from afar. It dwarfs any other stadium; the Houston Astrodome could be slipped inside with space to spare.
An effort has been made to make it adaptable: for rock-and-roll it can seat 97,363; for a Super Bowl football game when Chicago is swept by blizzards, 75,795; for baseball, 60,543; for basketball, with all seats close to the playing area, 19,678.
I doubt that the cost can ever be amortized, but the dome should earn operating expenses. A tax on hotel rooms will help; so will parking fees and rentals. While I was expressing this confidence, my critic kept intoning his miseries: ‘It has eighteen hundred seats which can’t see the scoreboard. They forgot to provide dugouts for baseball. I hear they put men’s urinals in the women’s washrooms.’ And I said to myself, ‘Here they build one of the prime architectural inventions of this century, and it has three little errors which can be corrected over the weekend. Who really gives a damn?’
When I spoke to the man who had been in charge of putting the whole majestic concept together, he said:
We built an open doughnut first, just those flared upright walls. See how the upper lip of the wall forms a concave receptacle. When the walls were completed, with no roof at all, we came inside and built sixteen tall towers. On them we constructed the large domed roof, with its lower edge convex, so that it would slip into place when the towers were lowered, convex edge of the roof fitting into the concave lip of the wall.
So the day came when we started to lower the towers, hydraulically, a quarter of an inch at a time, all sixteen towers together, with the dome slowly descending. Finally only a quarter of an inch separated the roof from the wall.
We decided to slip the thing into place early one morning. Everyone was in position. We all had walkie-talkies and each tower would report to me. It was now or never, so slowly we lowered the towers for the last time. That roof weighs tons, many tons. And without a sound it slipped into position, found its balance, not an inch out of line. When the last tower called in, ‘No pressure here,’ and it was home safe, I burst into tears.
New Orleans is not yet home safe with its Superdome, and I suppose it will never be. But after the years of travail the city will have a masterpiece. You have to have faith in men who have the nerve to call their artificial turf Mardi Grass.
The best solution to the stadium problem for a major city that I have so far seen is the Harry S Truman Sports Complex in suburban Kansas City. Had it been erected within the city proper, it would be ideal; as it is, it is well-nigh perfect as a suburban solution.
Its merit lies in the fact that it consists of two complete stadiums about one hundred yards apart, one designed especially for football, the other for baseball, and with adequate common parking for both. The interiors are artistically handled and the movement of people has been rationalized.
The original public authorization, voted by a single county east of Kansas City but within the metropolitan area, was $42,000,000, but as should have been expected, final costs were something like $75,000,000, which seems within reason for a dual structure of such excellence. However, many of the things I liked existed only because two very wealthy men owned the teams that were to play there. Lamar Hunt is the subject of one of the best recent sports stories; when he lost a bundle in the first year of his operation of an AFL football team in Dallas, a family friend complained to crusty H. L. Hunt, his billionaire father, that ‘Lamar has dropped a million dollars in one year,’ and H. L. replied, ‘Well, at that rate he can’t last longer than a hundred and fifty years.’ Lamar Hunt now owned the Kansas City Chiefs, who would play in Arrowhead Stadium, seating 78,000.
The Kansas City baseball team, which would play in Royals Stadium, seating 40,762, was owned by Ewing Kauffman, who controlled a fair share of Marion Laboratories. Hunt is reputed to have plowed in $14,000,000 of his own money to make Arrowhead just a little closer to what he wanted. I was told that Kauffman ‘had kicked in $6,000,000 to make Royals Stadium a little nicer.’ And the things these two millionaires added helped make the difference.
The most daring solution to the football-baseball conflict has been devised in Honolulu. Aloha Stadium is built in six sections: two, seating 22,000, are fixed; four, seating 28,000, are able to pivot and move into interesting new patterns. (They ride on compressed air, operated hydraulically.) For football the sections are arranged in an extended oval, with most of the seats in good position along the sidelines. For baseball the sections waltz into a compact double horseshoe, with most of the seats along the base paths. Will it work when finished? They say so.
I am encouraged by a small operation which was undertaken by the unlikely town of Pocatello, Idaho, population 40,000. Idaho State University is located there, registration 6,000, and its football teams faced a problem—extinction. An official explains:
We played our games in the Spud Bowl Stadium, a worn-out affair with wooden stands built in 1936 as a WPA project. Seated 5,000. Weather in Pocatello is a menace especially in early winter, and sometimes we had to play in heavy snow. That meant we couldn’t play our games Saturday night. But we oughtn’t to play them Saturday afternoon, either, because in Idaho half the population goes hunting then. We were withering, with no attendance, no money, no scholarships and damned little interest. We were spending $100,000 a year and taking in $20,000. It had to sto
Into this dismal picture stepped a group of local men with soaring imaginations. Dubby Holt, head of athletics at the university, said, ‘Problem’s simple. We’ve got to have an all-weather stadium so we can play at night, regardless of blizzards.’
Bill Bartz, the university’s business manager, said, ‘That means a domed stadium, and they cost upwards of sixty million dollars. Impossible, but if we could build one for about five million, I’d be willing to sell bonds, backed by student fees to get the money.’
John Korbis, the university’s engineer, produced the startling news: ‘I’ve been fooling around with plans for a totally different kind of domed stadium. I’m positive I could build it for—hold your breath—two million, three hundred thousand.’ Bud Davis, the energetic president who had once coached football, said, ‘Sounds feasible. I’ll back you all the way. Go ahead and build it.’ And for this sanguine judgment he was promptly dubbed by the local press ‘Idiot of the year for southeast Idaho.’ They called the venture ‘Idaho’s Half-Astrodome.’ Officially it became the Mini-Dome.
What this innovative team did was dig an immense hole in the earth, so that the cost of building side walls would be minimized. Then, across the opening they slung their version of a Quonset steel roof, well arched. This gave them a covered area in which a standard-sized football field could be laid out, plus commodious seats for 14,000 for football, 18,000 for cultural events.
The interesting thing is that the football field is laid out, not along the long axis of the domed building, but across it. Tests had been made, and no football kicker in existence could strike the top of the arch, 108 feet high, with a punt; field goals are kicked into the sloping sides of the roof, just as they are kicked into the end stands in an outdoor stadium.