Discussions should start now to plan for Olympic stadium, regardless of bid’s success.
By Andy Cohen
San Diego Mayor Bob Filner wants to bring the Olympics to San Diego. Actually, he wants to bring the Olympics to San Diego and Tijuana.
This is not exactly news if you follow local politics at all. Filner has been rather vocal about his desire to bring the 2024 games to America’s Finest City, and even more adamant about it being a bi-national effort.
“Within a week we will announce our bi-national committee, the chairs and the membership from both Tijuana and San Diego,” said Filner last week during his periodic “Pen and Paper” session with the local media in response to a question about his proposal. There are outlines and timelines drawn up already, there has been contact with the various Olympic Committees, drafts of logos, among other things. “It’s really been moving along,” said Filner.
Any bid for the Olympic Games will by necessity have to include plans to build a new Olympic Stadium. San Diego (or Tijuana, but presumably San Diego) would have to build a brand new stadium in order to be able to host the event. Neither city has one currently suitable for The Games where the opening and closing ceremonies will take place, as well as all of the track and field events (and possibly the soccer gold medal game? Although that should probably go to Estadio Caliente in Tijuana, the home of the Xolos).
Building a new stadium for the Olympics would solve another problem: A new football stadium for the Chargers and SDSU Aztecs. Perfect solution. Atlanta did it, converting their 1996 Olympic stadium into Turner Field, home of the Atlanta Braves. Going from track and field to football should be even easier, one would think.
But we’re talking about a bidding process that could take several years, with the USOC determining its choice by the end of 2014 and the IOC choosing the 2024 site in 2017. Cities don’t make plans for venues until they know they’re the chosen site. And when a site is chosen, the construction of venues generally doesn’t begin until about four years out from The Games. Ostensibly that would mean construction on the new San Diego stadium possibly might not begin until 2020, oddly the same year that the Chargers’ current lease with the city on Qualcomm Stadium expires.
“The way I see this whole Olympic thing is it ratchets up what people see our city is able to do and what our expectations are and the excitement of something,” Filner said, feeding perhaps unintentionally off of President Obama’s “we do big things” mantra. “I was asked at every mayoral event during the election ‘What about the Chargers stadium? What about the Chargers stadium?’ But now, in the context, it’s not just a Chargers stadium. It’s ‘What about the Olympic stadium?’”
Filner is 100%, absolutely correct, only that’s nearly the identical argument that proponents of a new football stadium have been making all along (at least this one has). It’s not just a Chargers stadium, and it never has been. It’s a new stadium for the SDSU Aztecs, and a new home for both of San Diego’s college bowl games. It’s a venue worthy of a Super Bowl or five, and potentially a site for NCAA basketball tournament regional finals and Final Fours. San Diego might then be able to lure a MLS soccer team to town (Chivas USA is a likely candidate). Who knows? Perhaps the powers that be could be convinced to break from the norm and bring the college football national championship game here? And now, it could also be an Olympic stadium.
So we’re on the same page here, except for one thing: The Chargers really can’t wait until 2024, or even 2020. Something must be done well before then if keeping the team in town is at all a priority—and with some folks it most certainly is not. That’s understood. But let’s just for the sake of argument assume that for the majority of San Diegans keeping the team in the city—or at least in the region—is a priority. If Filner is truly serious about both luring the Olympics and keeping the Chargers in San Diego, and I believe he is, then plans for a new stadium need to be solidified within the next couple of years. And the new Chargers stadium could be built with the assumption that the longshot Olympic bid will bear fruit. Even if it doesn’t, at least he’s accomplished half of his goals.
And he should probably have a chat with the Chargers brass about it.
This part of the plan he has clearly not thought through very well. But with the rest of it he seems on his game. “The big problem with many Olympic sites is that not all cities had planned to use what they had built for after the Olympics. In one or two of those cities it’s just abandoned sites, whereas other cities have been very successful in using the venues and other infrastructure for things that really help the city. That’s how we’re gonna look at it,” Filner said.
For a little context, Filner explains that the Olympic Village, the home for the Olympic athletes for the duration of The Games, could be converted into affordable housing after The Games have left. Public transit would have to be seriously bolstered to accommodate The Games, which Filner says would be a “legacy afterward.” These are things that directly benefit the city in the long term.
To his credit, Filner acknowledged that the Olympic stadium plan should incorporate the Chargers, but he seemed to be operating under the assumption that the team would be reluctant to go along with the notion of having the stadium they play in be used as the Olympic centerpiece. That assumption, I believe, is completely baseless. It would take some clever design work to go from a football stadium with a modern, intimate feel to it to a track and field stadium—which have major inherent differences—and back to a football stadium. But it can be done.
“Until we are not a player in (the Olympic bid) process, I want to have them thinking in the context that it could be used for both,” he said.
Note to Bob Filner: All that would be necessary to make that a reality is to talk to them about it. It’s a near certainty that they will quickly jump on board. This would seem like the perfect opportunity to get the ball rolling.
Andy Cohen
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How would this be paid for, Andy? As a resident of San Diego City, I take exception to the stadium if we are the only ones footing the bill. If all of San Diego County residents would pay I am more prone to support it. After all, it is not just the City residents that attend the games. Are we, the residents, giving the Chargers what they have been asking for for years – a new stadium? What will be their financial obligation?
David Cay Johnston in “The Fine Print” has exhaustively debunked the fact that the only reason professional football makes a profit and creates billionaires out of its owners is the taxpayer subsidy they get in building the stadiums. Essentially they get free land, the taxpayers build the stadium for them and they get tax breaks from the city too. However, all of the profits go into the owners’ pockets. The one exception is the Green Bay Packers which are owned by the city itself.
I suggest that the City of San Diego buy the Chargers and make the profits from their ticket admissions, TV rights and concessions. Then it truly would be a San Diego team and not just a way to scam taxpayers for private profit.
The NFL’s owners make enough money to finance the construction of their football stadium for themselves, on their own. But they don’t. No matter how patriotic and supremely self-reliant the owners may claim to be, since The Reagan Revolution they have relied heavily on local governments to pony up the cash ensuring their own profits. If the Chargers are allowed onto the high Olympic committee that Filner puts together the Olympics will suffer and the Chargers will profit. We’re talking about the Olympics, not the NFL. One ought to be for private profit, and the other for the public’s. Taxpayers have been suckered by private-public scams for too damn long, and a proposal this expensive shouldn’t be opened to NFL participation.
DBRDS’ free design concept for a world-class stadium facility in East Village (in the heart of San Diego’s existing transportation infrastructure & adjacent other large scale civic buildings including Petco Park & the new Library) is available for discussion at any time…visit link below to see the research & design concept behind this idea:
additional renderings here:
3D animation fly through here:
Yeah, not a fan at all of their proposed design. It merely continues to feed upon the whole outdated “bowl” concept, and does nothing to meet the standards of modern sports spectators. For example–and this is my main gripe–you’ll notice that every new stadium has the majority of its seating capacity along the sidelines. The typical ratio is 80/20 sideline to end zone seating. Qualcomm is roughly 60/40. The DBRDS circular design merely perpetuates that problem.
The other thing is–and I realize that this is just a conceptual design–the way it’s drawn up it could not accommodate Olympic track and field events. Seating areas would have to be moved back far enough to install an Olympic size running track that surrounds the field. The stadium needs to be designed in such a way that the stands can be moved back far enough to fit the track, but when the track is not needed, everything can be once again moved forward to make it the intimate football stadium that the newer venues are designed to be, with the fans right on top of the action. That’s one of the main problems with Qualcomm (among many, MANY other things)–everyone is set so far away from the field of play.
You all missed the point entirely. Theoretically, we’re building the stadium ANYWAY in order to host the Olympics. Unless you propose building it for the Olympics only….in which case, let me get this straight: The Chargers’ lease is up in 2020, at which point without a new stadium they will certainly be gone. Now you propose to build this shiny new stadium in time for the 2024 Olympics, but once the Olympics are over, we have this shiny new stadium with no major tenant? So we’re all okay with it sitting empty and completely inactive? Talk about a waste of money…..
And Bob, you’re wrong about the finances. Your statement above is at best a partial reading of the facts. The NFL collectively makes billions in revenues, but the individual teams do not make billions in profits (profits are different than revenues).
http://www.tinyurl.com/20130415a
Hi All. Please see our solution to pay for the Olympic/NFL Stadium and Contiguous Convention Center Expansion by a 5 percent increase to our Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) to an Effective Rate of 15.5 percent, from the current 10.5 percent. Taxpayer would pay for the State land (free) and the underground structural cistern foundation, and just like LA, the NFL, Chargers, AEG, and business interest would be for everything above ground including the Olympic stadium.
http://www.tinyurl.com/20110124a
http://www.tinyurl.com/20091130a
The short sided minutia whining about NFL owners is so tired and played. The Chargers aren’t the only one’s benefitting from a new Stadium. As has been exhaustively pointed out and continuously ignored, the City does reap benefit from having a NFL team and a world class stadium in San Diego. Not only for San Diego State, two bowls, Super Bowl(s), soccer, etc. but the City benefits from all the B-Roll and chamber of commerce marketing associated with every sporting event.
San Diego should be a world class city, not a small minded sleepy little surf town.
Well, short my side and whine my minutiae if you haven’t changed my mind, David. You made me like that “small-minded sleepy little surf town” better than the rest of this world class vision full of “Chamber of Commerce” … uh, straight fact?
Straight fact? San Diego isn’t Santa Cruz. You want a sleep surf town – there are plenty of small little towns along the coast to move to. San Diego is/should be a world class city hosting the NFL, Super Bowls, Bowl games, NCAA tournaments, etc.
A world class city needn’t have a world class stadium devoted to the headbashing and concussions that are engendered by professional football. Does Junior Seau ring a bell or have we forgotten about him for the moment? I think there’s more to world class than professional spectator sports played by millionaires.
John, a “world class stadium” is absolutely necessary if we have any designs at all at hosting the Olympics. No stadium, no Olympics. Period. Full stop.
As I’ve stated before over and over and over, and has been noted by others and in this piece here, this is NOT just a Chargers issue. Your comment above is nothing more than an attempt to maintain a singular focus, which is counterproductive to the discussion.
I new stadium with one cent of taxpayer money for a Spanos-run organization; are you kidding?
I take no joy in saying there is not one city in the USA that would build a stadium with taxpayer money as long as the Spanos family is involved. Sadly, it has been the second worst-run organization in the NFL since the team was purchased by Klein from Hilton.
The NFL does NOT want any Spanos-owned San Diego Charger organization to fill the void in Los Angeles, which is the second largest television market for the NFL. The NFL would welcome the San Diego Charger organization to the Los Angeles market provided new ownership was in place. Only the Chicago Cardinals-St. Louis Cardinals-Arizona Cardinals franchise of the NFL, run by the inept Bidwell family, exceeds the San Diego Charger organization in futility with regard to the relationship between management and ownership.
It is impossible to believe that an owner, Spanos, would allow his general manager, Smith, to have a non-relationship with the head coach, Schottenheimer. When Marty Schottenheimer left the Charger organization over the ruse of hiring his son as special teams coach, that represented the finest fiddle playing in the history of classical music or sport. Schottenheimer has one of the finest coaching records in NFL history considering the caliber of teams he was provided to coach!
The San Diego Charger organization has zero leverage with the City of San Diego. It is my hope San Diego Mayor Bob Filner is not forced into a situation by the good-old-boy network, including the Manchester Mess. If the San Diego Charger organization is able to find a city that is willing to build them a new stadium, show them the door.