Thursday, June 9, 2011

Soccer Specific stadiums

A Soccer-specific stadium is a term used mainly in the United States, Canada and Australia, coined by Lamar Hunt, to refer to a sports stadium either purpose built or fundamentally redesigned for soccer and whose primary function is to host soccer matches, as opposed to an all purpose stadium which is primarily used for soccer. These mostly refer to soccer stadiums in the USA. In the early history of the MLS, a lot of teams used NFL stadiums. Eventually, they got chased out. Some went to smaller stadiums, other football stadiums, or baseball stadiums. Some had the money and built their own park. With the opening of Livestrong Sporting Park, there's 11 soccer specific stadiums(for 12 teams). The first was in Columbus, then in 8 years 10 new stadiums were built. Here's a gallery.

Columbus Crew Stadium
Columbus Crew
Columbus, OH
22,685 seats
1999


The Home Depot Center
Los Angeles Galaxy, C.D. Chivas USA
Carson, CA
27,000 Seats
2003


Pizza Hut Park
FC Dallas
Frisco, TX
21,193 Seats
2005


Toyota Park
Chicago Fire
Bridgeview, IL
20,000 Seats
2006


Dick's Sporting Goods Park
Colorado Rapids
Commerce City, CO
19,680 Seats
2007


BMO Field
Toronto FC
Toronto, ON
23,000 Seats
2007


Rio Tinto Stadium
Real Salt Lake
Sandy, UT
20,008 Seats
2008


Red Bull Arena
New York Red Bulls
Harrison, NJ
25,189 Seats
2010


PPL Park
Philadelphia Union
Chester, PA
18,500 Seats
2010


Jeld-Wen Field
Portland Timbers
Portland, OR
18,627 Seats
2011


Livestrong Sporting Park
Sporting Kansas City
Kansas City, KS
18,500
2011


Those are the current ones above, but there are two still coming. Houston spent their history in the Houston Cougars' football stadium. The Earthquakes spent their recent return in the San Jose State Spartans' football stadium.

Dynamo Stadium
Houston Dynamo
Houston, TX
~21,600 Seats
2012*


New Earthquakes Stadium
San Jose Earthquakes
San Jose, CA
~15,000 Seats
2013*


The teams sharing stadiums are(not counting the Dynamo, and Earthquakes)
New England Revolution(Gillette Stadium, New England Patriots)
DC United(RFK Stadium, built for baseball)
Seattle Sounders(Qwest Field, Seattle Seahawks)
Vancouver Whitecaps(Empire Fields/BC Place, BC Lions)

In 2012, the Montreal Impact will be playing in a Soccer Specific Stadium of their own. They aren't in the league yet, and they built it in 2008, so it goes down here!

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