Chandler originally submitted the following piece for a journalism class. He shamefully recycles it here, with minimal modification, as content for his blog. The format and style may be a little different from that of the usual content published in this forum, but hopefully it is no less enjoyable to read. One disclaimer: Being written for a class that happened a year ago, the piece contains references to things that happened a year ago as if they were happening today.
More and more, it seems stadium experiences are losing the "stadium" part. And the "experience" part.
Suites were always a way to detach oneself from the action, but watching the game from seven stories up and behind glass might be more intimate than using some of the features of the modern sports venue.
Dallas Cowboys players walk through a nightclub on their way from the home locker room to the field at AT&T Stadium. HKS, Inc., the designing firm, thought the idea was so good it was worth copying into the Vikings' U.S. Bank Stadium a few years later. Both stadiums also feature art collections and couch seats.
When Target Field opened in 2010, it included a bar tucked behind the left field foul pole, one just above it on a deck (featuring a fire pit), one behind home plate, one behind first base, and one behind third base. In 2016, the Twins added another two above the batter's eye, and last week, they opened a renovated right field club called Bat and Barrel. There's also baseball.
Is sitting at a counter with music blaring and a beer in your hand too much to handle? At the Diamondbacks' Chase Field or the Jaguars' EverBank Field, you can watch a game from a pool. At Dr Pepper Ballpark in Frisco, Texas, home to the Rangers' Double-A affiliate, you can drift down a lazy river in right field. You'll ask, "How did I ever watch sports dry?"
All of the aforementioned venues, however, will soon be blown away by a renovated Philips Arena in Atlanta. Beginning next season, fans can watch Hawks games from a bar behind the basket, get a haircut at the "S.W.A.G. Shop" overlooking the court, or not watch at all from the isolation of a Top Golf-sponsored "swing suite," where visitors can drive digital golf balls. (Never mind that you can do the exact same thing at an actual Top Golf just 12 minutes from the arena.)
In addition to often being wasteful ways of spending the money teams repeatedly extort from taxpayers, these "enhancements" abandon the point of going to sports venues: watching sports in person.
Despite teams' strongest efforts to beat you into submission with ads, overwhelmingly loud music, forced crowd cues, and other repetitive gimmicks, the live experience is far superior to any other way of watching sports.
Every fan base and venue has its own culture, traditions, and quirks. The bands at a college football game. The chants at a hockey game. The special sections of a ballpark. Signature dishes. The types of things that make each place you visit unique and that you cannot feel unless you're around them.
There is nothing like seeing a brilliant athlete with your own eyes. And I don’t just mean the elite of the elite. Especially with pro sports, everyone you watch qualifies as a brilliant athlete. Seeing them up close reminds you just how coordinated and talented they really are. You miss that perspective on your flatscreen, no matter how big it is.
And should someone special come along, you are remiss to look away. You only get so many opportunities to see a truly transcendent athlete. When you get one of those opportunities, you have to appreciate it.
Experiencing all of this requires actually experiencing it, of course – something you cannot do from a club or a barber's chair. You might be present, but you’re not there.
It can surely be a hassle to attend games. Buying tickets, driving to the stadium, paying absurd parking costs, passing through security, dealing with drunks and the aforementioned stimuli overload, walking back to your car just to sit in traffic for a while, getting home close to midnight – there's a reason people watch at home.
What makes live sports worth it, though, is when you experience something meaningful and memorable.
Surely if teams keep pumping money into non-sports areas of their sports venues, there must be some market for them. But I have to ask of anyone who picks the outfield bar, the luxury suite, or some other distraction over the traditional experience:
What meaning and memories can any of those overpriced amenities provide?
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