It's hardly groundbreaking news, and can easily be written off as more empty promises, but I suppose it's a step in the right direction that New England Revolution COO Brian Biello has called building a Soccer Specific Stadium a top priority and even said the team would have its own pitch "at some point." That said, there's really nothing to get too excited about in Biello's recent interview.
New England Revolution Set Sights On Downtown Stadium
The big problem in New England seems to be there's no pressing reason for the Revolution to move. Sure, those empty seats look bad for the league, look bad for the team, frustrate MLS fans around the country and diminish what could be a great market, but it seems to be working from a financial standpoint.
The Krafts own Gillette Stadium, so it’s not really costing them anything for them to be there. Even if you factor in the potential lost profits of improved exposure that would come with a downtown stadium, it’s hard to believe that would pay off in the short term. Frankly, it’s hard to argue that the Krafts are being anything less than good businesspeople by allowing MLS to reach a certain level of popularity before investing anymore than they need to.
Without getting too deep into the whole single-entity structure, this is one of the problems. Owners like the Krafts are under little to no pressure to improve their off-field product. While they have managed to put together one of the more consistently competitive teams in the league’s history - appearing in four MLS Cup finals - they have only averaged more than 18,000 a game once in their history (1997) and are consistently below the league-wide average.
There are plenty of reasons to believe that in the right situation, the Revolution could be among the marquee MLS franchises. There are 52 colleges in the greater Boston area, 32 of which have enrollments of at least 1,000 students. Boston is among the continent's great sports towns, with the Red Sox, Patriots, Bruins and Celtics all regularly playing to sellout crowds. The three MLS Cups that have been played in Foxboro have drawn an average of nearly 47,000 fans, including a record crowd of 61,316 in 2002 when the Revolution played the Los Angeles Galaxy.
Gillette Stadium works great for the NFL and even for big MLS events, but it’s probably the worst stadium on a week-to-week basis in MLS. Revolutions fans and Boston sports fans deserve better. Hopefully, this latest proclamation is an honest one.
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