The main reason the stadiums will feel dystopian is because they'll be without Freddy Adu, who is no longer playing football, having retired several years ago.
He could mention that for example, the Washington Commanders(formerly Redskins, yikes), used to play within DC at RFK stadium. Where Freddy Adu made his professional debut with DC United.
My team’s stadium isn’t like that although the name would certainly fool you. Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte was built in 1995 and incorporated into the city similar to those European examples.
As an American who just went to a few premier league games, I couldn’t believe how easy it was to take public transportation and not have to sit in 2+ hours of traffic instead! Very jealous
Help spread this gospel back to America....... Meanwhile, Insensitive American Hedge Fund Owners of EPL/EFL teams are trying actively to RUIN this vibe and convenience that you experienced.
Luckily, every stadium I've been to in the US has been easily accessible by public transport, but im sure there are some out there that are a nightmare to access.
man getting from paddington to tottenham last may was simpler and easier than getting to any stadium in Denver where i live. actually was in shock man lmfaoooo
Right. One can easily walk from Lumen Field past thousands of homeless vets, strung out crackheads, and Venezuelan gangsters to the central business district.
As an American, the even more dystopian part of American stadiums is that they are basically used as hostage situations. You mentioned it a bit, but billionaire owners of American sports franchises will use relocation as a threat to get new venues. Basically, if you (the community) don't pay hundreds of millions (if not over a billion) dollars towards a new venue, we will move the team that has been here for decades to a location that will. I'm from west of Chicago in Illinois, and there are multiple examples going on RIGHT NOW just here. The Bears are threatening to move to Arlington heights (30 miles northwest of Chicago) if the city/state don't pay significant portions of 5 billion stadium/infrastructure project. Soldier field was extensively renovated (for the worse) in the early 2000s. The White Sox are also looking to get about half of a $2 billion stadium paid for at the same time, but they may leave for Nashville or another unknown city if they don't get what they want. Keep in mind that they stadium the White Sox play in is slightly more than 30 years old and has undergone significant renovations since. In the late 1980s, the owner threatened to move the Sox to Tampa, Florida if the current stadium was not built. Basically legal extortion, YAY!
issue isnt the hostage situation, its the supporters not sticking up for the team and the rules from the sport leagues. i mean if man united wanted to move to liverpool for a new stadium over night it goes from sold out to empty. yall just accept it. not to mention in many cases if a citys would like to fund a new stadium for a team in many countrys in europe that would mean a unfair advantages and not be possible by law or sporting league dissicion. the issue isnt what owners want its the NFL itself (who gives them to much power) not to mention the relgation promotion which allowes them to stay in the top league forever
@@robertv7996 I would say it fits the poster's description because your taxes are being held to ransom by a skinflint billionaire who doesn't want to cough up the money just seems spectacularly crass. No-one should experience that. Not the fans or the residents of the area that couldn't give two shits about the team in the first place. But then fan emotional manipulation in American sports is just ugly.
A 30 year old stadium is a dinosaur by NFL standards. Lambeau Field makes a tenth of the revenue that So-Fi or even Levi's Stadium makes. Europeans don't look at their stadiums as profit centers and job creators. You can't add 200 luxury boxes to Soldier Field to make it competitive with Allegiant or So-Fi or Levi's or Met Life. The Big Three (I'm not counting MLS or the NHL since they don't qualify) sports in the US balance their books (before revenue sharing) on their stadium income. But these stadiums also benefit their cities. Look at how St. Louis declined after the Rams left. Camden Yards revitalized and gentrified Baltimore's downtown when it was built.
When Wimbledon FC moved to Milton Keynes and renamed themselves to the MK Dons in 2004, the Wimbledon fans created a new amateur club, and rose through the football ranks, while the MK Dons lost their support and fell down the football league pyramid and now AFC Wimbledon is higher than the MK Dons in the football league lmao Edit: Oops he mentioned it in the video
With tailgating, it started with college teams so alumni could get together and mingle. In the US, public flagship universities were typically founded and built away from the major cities, so driving a few hours to get an entire weekend in in one day and back home for bed was typical. Basically like having a little picnic instead of trying to find a place to eat during a massively busy time before fast food was so prevalent.
at least with college it makes sense because there are parks and green spaces dedicated for it. instead of being in a hot parking lot in early september.
Worth noting that college football stadia are usually much more pedestrian and transit friendly than those of the nfl, even if many large state colleges are far from major population centers. Sure, fans who don’t live in town or aren’t current students will still need cars to get into town for the big game, but it’s also true that most college football stadia are seemlessly integrated into their campuses. Idk I guess the point I’m trying to make here is that even tho tailgating comes from college football tradition, I think college football stadia are, on average, much more urbanist than their professional counterparts
As an American, I’d argue that the culture of college football is more similar to club football, while NFL culture more closely resembles international football. There are well over 10 million Americans per NFL team, so they feel like they belong to the “region” more than the “city”. Meanwhile, there are about 2.5 million Americans per major college football team, so it’s not just alumni association with a university that gives it its local feel. I couldn’t imagine Michigan tearing down the Big House (1927; 107,601 capacity), Ohio State demolishing the Shoe (1922; 102,780 capacity), or Texas A&M moving from Kyle Field (1927; 102,733 capacity). Michigan Stadium, in particular, is a beautiful ground that I assume would not offend European sensibilities.
I profoundly disagree. The culture of college football doesn't seem to be found anywhere else. I mean Japan has some high school sports too but that's still very different in the same way American high/jr high is different.
@ I wasn’t saying they are the same. But if you want to draw comparisons, as this video does, it is more appropriate in terms of sports culture to compare club football to college football than to the NFL.
Nice try, but no. and I speak from experience , As a student, I lived iNSIDE Ohio Stadium as part of the Stadium Scholarship Dormitory there...and since then 40 years of My adult life has been spent living in England with many years as an Ipswich Town Season Ticket holder. The vibe between Ohio State and Ipswich is so profoundly different I can't even begin to properly give an analogy for it.
@sirius.siri3Not quite true everywhere. Why spend 10 dollars on a beer when I could buy a whole case and drink it in the parking lot for the same price?
If you got pissed up in your car in Europe, the police would have something to say about that, not to mention the public as a whole. What's the fucking point of driving to somewhere, getting shit faced, and then not being able to drive home? 🤦
@sirius.siri3not really, even MetLife has the American Dream within walking distance that is chocked full of all sorts of pubs and stuff. Really it’s more like the appeal of camping for Sporting events.
Alfie, you’re actually wrong, here’s the things, most of the supporters don’t actually live in the city center, most supporters who can actually afford to go the games nowadays live outside the city. I can tell you the majority of Washington Commanders fan don’t live in DC, they live Maryland or Virginia. The majority of Dolphins fans don’t live in the City of Miami itself but the surrounding areas. Miami actually built their new baseball stadium in the city and no one goes, Marlins’ attendance had declined.
yeah, I think he might have missed it, or have been aware of it, but wanted to draw the comparison, because in Europe this kind of arrangement would be seen as strange
True. Most people in urban areas in the us don’t live in the actual city centers, they live in suburbs as far away from the city centers as the stadiums themselves are.
Arguably the most car dependant nation on the planet where driving out of town to large shops/restaurants is completely normal, not sure why anyone would expect anything different
@@timboslice150 I can’t stand the “Americas just too big to be built like a normal country” argument. It’s patently false. The vast vast majority of Americans live in urban and metropolitan areas. States like California and New York are, at the state level, denser than countries like Spain or Germany. That is a statistical fact. Obviously at a more micro local level, you start to see a real difference in density between the US and Europe, but when it comes to population clusters, we are no “bigger” than Europe. The vast vast majority of Americans live in the Northeastern Megalopolis, Southern California Metro, Texas Triangle, Great Lakes Conurbation, the Bay Area, the Florida Conurbation, the Piedmont Area, and the Pacific Northwest metro cluster. All of these regions have comparable densities to Europe. Is it true the Alaska and Montana are really big and really undeveloped? Certainly. But that’s no excuse for the fact that most people live close to each other, and we still don’t have a proper transit system or walkable streets.
@@pjkerrigan20 Sure all of what you said is true, but all of Europe was built basically before America was even discovered. Every city in America is designed with car in mind and its hard to find a city in Europe built after cars were invented. The “Americas just too big to be built like a normal country” is more like "Americas just too young to be built like a normal country. Especially in the west. Not saying the fact they have a terrible public transit system isnt their fault, cause it is, but its less of an issue not to have one.
@autkev7112 Everything you just said applies to modern China as well and yet they have extensive high-speed trains. Everything was built from scratch over the last century.
its mainly to do with that European Cities grew organically over hunderds and possibly thousands of years based on humans where US cities were planned by a group of architects and built for cars over the course of a couple decades.
Not entirely true. American cities,especially on the east coast were already big and had streetcars and dense city centers before cars became affordable. They were bulldozed for the car, not build for the car.
That isn’t entirely true however. Look at Australia, follows the same trends or car dependency and pre planning for its cities yet its major stadiums are all much better integrated than their American counterparts.
@17Trees33 older U.S. cities along the Atlantic coast were planned before the cars. Land is just very expensive in the major cities, so NFL teams couldn’t viably build stadiums in NYC and Boston and DC proper.
@@chadchadderton while Australia is big and spread out, much of the land is not habitable, so most people live in the major cities. The same applies to Canada. Both nations are more urbanized than the U.S., in the sense that a higher percentage of the population lives in a few major metropolitan areas.
I like these guys videos but it’s always annoying to me listening him to talk about the US. Like his serious approach to “the European mind could never comprehend this” comment as if it isn’t literally a joke was so cringe lol
@@LordZontar the only internet s*** I have on my phone is RUclips. And sometimes I login to twitter on the browser. This guy is active on both (and fair enough he gets paid to be an internet dwelling lib) and I’ve seen more than enough on both platforms especially twitter to see he’s a radical heavily indoctrinated dumb lefty. I laugh at both radical sides but the left is more silly and funny and stupid I have to admit.
Chicago has done a great job of keeping sports venues easily accessible, the only except would be Rate Field which does look more "traditionally American" in it's placement and car-centric environment.
@@samelmudir that’s not why the Bears want to tear down Soldier field. It is tiny by NFL standards but the problem is lake side property is obviously much more expensive than suburban property.
The city of Cleveland is currently in a tug-of-war with the owners of the Browns (American Football) to keep the team in the city and not, as proposed, shipped out to a suburb called Brook Park. The current stadium is right on lake Erie, adjacent to downtown and has light rail service on game days. It looks like they'll probably be moved but I don't think anyone in Cleveland thinks it's a good idea (besides the actual owners of the team) to go from a prime area in the city to a dystopian parking lot across from the airport, many miles from the city center.
Part of the reason for the differences are the big differences in sports structure in the USA and Europe. The NFL has 32 teams across the entire country and there is no promotion/relegation to and from lower divisions. New York City, with a metro population of over 20 million has two NFL teams. London, with a metro population just under 15 million has 17 professional football (soccer) teams with as many as 8 (in the 1989-90) season being in the top flight at the same time. There are currently 7 teams participating in this season's Premier League in London and an additional 2 in the 2nd tier EFL Championship.
Really has more to do with laws requiring a certain amount of parking spots at a specific venue or any building. It may be a car thing but a lot of old stadiums look like Europe
@@mof5490I personally like cars and always have. One thing I hate though is traffic, air & noise pollution, having to commute long distances on the wheel, accidents and not being able to walk or bike to the city center.
6:58 As a European Giants fan, it did confuse me why other fans mock the Giants and Jets by calling them the New Jersey Giants/Jets - when other teams' stadiums are much more further away from their namesake.
Am an American jets fan. It’s just one of those things. Stadiums that are miles away from the city they represent is normal (like you mentioned), but it’s not normal for the stadium to literally be in another state. It’s basically just a technicality that gets used to make fun of the giants/jets.
@ I'm just glad this isn't happening with the sixers. Camden NJ may as well be greater Philadelphia but there's just something about crossing state lines that feels so much more wrong.
The Detroit Lions of the NFL played in Pontiac (the Silverdome; where Trevor Francis played briefly for the Express) from 1975 to 2001. When the team was bad, they were called (by some) the Pontiac Pussycats.
@@kakol20908 it’s just petty banter. People love to joke that the Buffalo Bills are the only “real NY team”. In reality, Giants and Jets are New York sports teams, as in representing the city of NY. No one in NYC or Long Island cares about the Bills, local NYC media does not cover the Bills
I live 30 minutes from the Metlife and I have NO IDEA how we are gonna handle that kind of traffic. It’s going to be an awful experience for all who visit.
@@lordfizzz 80,000 is the capacity of the stadium regardless of what’s going on there. That’s the same amount that f people that go to nfl games there every weekend.
A big reason you didn't really cover on why the parking lots are so big is because the owners make TONS of money on the fans parking in those lots, so they are (almost) encouraged to make the stadiums more inaccessible and reliant on car transportation because they stand to make even more money. This even manifests in owners intentionally tanking public transportation projects to their stadiums, like in the case of SoFi Stadium, because the project would eat into their bottom line, even if it would be a net benefit for the fans as a whole
This is a very good point. Parking is so freaking expensive at these places. You're right, big miss not covering that aspect. If you ever want to know why Americans do something, just follow the money.
Yet people still attend these things and likely pay an annual salary just to experience the corporate entertainment life for one game.. That boggles my mind.
@@apropercuppa8612 its because a lot of Americans make a lot more money than most Europeans. Its not a financial burden to frequently go to these games when Americans make, on average, around $20,000 more per year than Brits. I paid close to $1000/yr for 2 supporters section season tickets to my local MLS side, which would be an outrageous sum for the quality of soccer compared to the EPL, where the prices outside the big 6 are roughly equal, but it didn't feel as big of a purchase because I made around the average US salary at the time.
Fenway Park is one of America's best and most authentic stadiums in my opinion. My dad and I used to go once a year and it has this intimate and authentic feel that I haven't ever gotten visiting Foxborough or any other stadiums for that matter. My trip to Anfield had the same feeling. Say what you will about John Henry but he has good taste.
If you haven’t already, you should try to visit Wrigley on a nice summer day. In my opinion, it’s the only ballpark experience better than Fenway. The neighborhood is a lotta fun, similar to the area around fenway, but the ballpark was really gracefully renovated a few years ago, so it’s like a more polished Fenway experience. I guess there’s an argument to be made that more polish would worsen the Fenway experience, but trust me Wrigley is a real treat.
So-called greatest country on Earth has a less developed transit system than the poorest EU country All the while Lausanne, a city of less than 150 000 people, has 2 metro lines spanning 28 stations
@@Ben-po8kfhere we go again with the classic “America is too big for good transportation excuse. Not sure if you’re aware, but this excuse has been overused by Americans for decades despite the fact that it’s literally not true. China, India and even Russia are all huge countries with better nationwide transportation infrastructure than the US. There is no excuse other than the fact that Americans and Canadians have dug themselves so deep into car-dependency and are now in a position where they cannot fix it. I keep seeing Americans use this whack excuse. I swear if I see another American say this I will lose it
@@Ben-po8kfbro we have heard enough of that nonsense from Americans, your country isn’t too big for transport. You know it’s bad when freaking India has better train services than you
Stop saying the word “the” before the names of American stadiums. Us Americans don’t to that because it sounds weird. The Polo Grounds is the only exception.
I grew up 5 minutes away from Gillette stadium. Whenever our football team scored a touchdown I could hear the cannons going off. Although the loudest I've ever heard the stadium was a Rammstein concert.
Also most cities in the us only have one team in each major sport so it’s not weird for the one team to be located anywhere in the metro area where it’s convenient. The 49ers moved to Santa Clara because they already owned the land next to their practice facility that was being used for parking for the great America theme park. In Europe the teams tend to be associated with a certain neighborhood because there are multiple teams in a metro area.
An example from this side of the Atlantic of a team building itself a new home next to its training facility on land it already owned was in fact briefly mentioned in the video: Barnet FC's Hive Stadium.
I am a New Jerseyan whose wife is from Birmingham. MetLife stadium is an absolute eyesore. I hate that oversized air conditioner. I am jealous of my wife getting to grow up near a stunner like Villa Park.
I wouldn’t be too jealous depending on how close she actually lived to villa park it’s not the best of areas but then again compared to Newark I’d rather live in Aston
American football is a physically demanding game, so there is only 17 games in a season so owners make tickets prices about $100 and resellers make them even more expensive. Football games aren’t for the people in the city they are for suburbanites with disposable income and a big car. There is only 1 fan owned club in the nfl so the owners just decide build stadiums where land is cheap in the suburbs. The nfl is not an accurate view of American fan culture, college and high school football is.
We have thousands of high school football teams, hundreds of college football teams, but only 32 pro football teams. None of them are franchises that can be moved and have no owner. Elite D1 football schools have about as much popularity as either the MLB or NBA (more than NHL or MLS), while the U.S. only has 154 pro teams in 5 different sports anyway. Compare that to the number of pro teams in Europe who are usually owned by somebody. Yet what do most foreigners always talk about?
One thing to consider is that the NFL teams play 8 or 9 games at home every year, and the games are schedualed months in advance, so people can actualy schedule for a long comute to see the games. In Baseball, where every team plays 82 games at home, the stadiums are way more integrated in the city centers, usualy. If my soccer team played only 8 home matches every year, it would not be such a assle to drive 90 minutes to the stadium.
The new Cincinnati Stadium wouldn't look out of place in England with all the residential brick housing around it. Hell, a good chunk of MLS stadiums are downtown or near the city centre.
As a European who spent a year in good old St. Louis a while back, i completely agree. The creator of this channel is some sm ug spoi led brat wannabe comm ie with an agenda. While there are plenty of bad things and bad examples in North American pro sports culture, there is plenty of good as well. Like this thread mentioned, MLS so far has been a small but linear success story with almost all teams playing in a purpose-built "soccer" specific 25,000 stadium, and the majority even plays on real grass, most are accessible within the cities. Some exceptions of course, or like NYCFC still in the process of building one, but overall they follow this pattern. MLS also has seen very very little in terms of teams being relocated, a handful (?) has folded, but their team names have not been touched. And let's not forget the abundance of great Ballparks the US has, many of whom are located very much in the city centre. Some have absolutely stunning views ( Pittsburgh 😍, St. Louis 😍 , San Francisco 😍 & many more ) from the inside not a single European stadium can provide, because skyline and skyscrapers are super duper rare over here. He also didn't mention ballparks like Fenway Park, Wrigley Field or Dodger Stadium. Absolutely on the same level as El Bernabéu, Camp Nou, San Siro, Anfield, Westfalenstadion! Why do i keep harping on about Baseball? Because it is the traditional American game dating back to the very early beginning of the 20th Century. The first World Series was played in 1901 (?) - Baseball is the original traditional American team sport - not Football! Football might have overtaken Baseball since the 1990s (?), but the faux comparison is extremely disingenious. The first UEFA Champions League predecessor was only played in 1956, the first Premier League in the early 1990s!!! And i haven't even mentioned old stadiums like the Polo Grounds in NYC or others. Last but not least, check out St. Louis - stadiums for all 5 major sports ( although they currently only have 3 out of 5 sports represented ) are centrally located and within walking distance of the City Hall and its main sight - the Gateway Arch. Some other cities like Detroit or other Midwestern cities are similar. I could also go on about the Forum in LA or MSG, or how the recent trend of new arenas and super stadiums is even in the US a trend that only really got started in the 1990s but only really in the last 15 (?) years has really started to reach absurd levels. Sorry for the ra nt. Thanks for reading. 😁 From Germany with ❤
American here, Went top the Argentina vs Chile Copa America group stage game at metlife as iI usually only live a 20 minute drive away from the place. I took me 2 hours and 30 minutes to park my car and start walking to the stadium. It was an absolute fucking nightmare and that is honestly the average game day experience for professional sports here. Leave 4 hours early if coming to the World Cup here.
we could have built it in a much better place to be honest, i live in stoke and i have to drive to get to the stadium because of the A500 and A34, i get not wanting to build it in Hanley but putting it right in a industrial park and next to the giant incenerator plant which you can see from the stadium, its uglyyyy
I don’t care what anyone in Chicago claims, the stadium where the original Soldier Field is now is not very old. It’s a new stadium built on top of the old.
NFL teams typically play at home 8 times a year and the games last for 3+ hours. MLB stadiums and NBA arenas are typically more accessible because they play far more frequently and team owners want to reduce barriers to attendance. Travel time is less of a concern when it is infrequent (mostly on Sundays) and part of a day long event. Pub culture makes more sense for frequent matches that are < 2 hours. College football is far more analogous to European club soccer but the European mind cannot comprehend college sports.
The New England Patriots are actually an example of trying to maintain consistency between name and location. They were the Boston Patriots in the 1960s, but they could never find a suitable stadium within Boston, so when they moved to Foxborough they changed their geographic descriptor from Boston to New England, which is a regional name that applies to 5 entire states. They could move to Hartford, CT (they almost did) or Burlington, VT or Portland, ME and still be in New England.
I will say this… huge difference between college football stadiums and NFL. College football has some of the best and most beautiful stadiums in the world. Amazing atmospheres too.
@gabriellabankova5539 either. It's up to Alfie to make the rules to keep it as interesting as possible. Making it worldwide allows him to give some more interesting players, probably someone most have never heard of before thrown in
Things feel a little dystopian compared to European stadiums based on a few factors. #1 being how North American Sports operate differently than European sports. Your clubs were mostly likely formed in specific neighborhoods, hence stadiums being kept in a specific area of that city/town. Our sports don't operate like this anymore, with a few notable exceptions (Yankees in the Bronx, Mets in Queens, etc.). The teams are meant to cover a large geographic area because of fan interest, but mostly due to territorial rights in TV distribution. While the San Francisco 49ers play in Santa Clara, the fans come from all over the Bay Area and Northern California. Having the stadium in Santa Clara opposed to San Francisco isn't a big deal because a large majority of the fans travel large distances anyways. It's not the right way to do things but just the reality of the situation.
To me as a native San Franciscan, that shot of Camp Nou nestled into the cityscape looks like what I would imagine if they had expanded Kezar Stadium (in the middle of the dense Upper Haight) to mega-size instead of drastically downsizing it after moving the Niners down to Candlestick Park. That was NEVER going to happen, and just the thought of it seems absurd. Now they play at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, about FORTY FIVE miles away from old Kezar Stadium and the city of SF. I hate the fact that it's so far away now, and like many San Franciscans, I don't even drive at all! Getting there on public transit from my place in the city on gameday can take well over two hours each way (and I'm on the southern side of the city). By the way, the fact that the distance between Kezar and Levi's is greater than the distance between Anfield and Old Trafford is mind-blowing. Yikes. 🤯😬
@@therealking6202 I'm from the Excelsior, so Candlestick was actually closer to me than the current Giants ballpark, but it's still much easier to go to games on public transit now. I grew up going to the Stick though, and I definitely miss being there (with a blanket, a thermos of hot chocolate, and a Roxie sandwich, of course). So many great memories! 🧡🖤
Sorry if I sound like an American asshole but you said the commanders don’t play in Washington DC but a different state but Washington DC isn’t a state itself cheers mate
I am an American whose family had season tickets to the New York Giants for generations, but who has completely abandoned American football. This video covers a big piece of what turned me off. Meanwhile, I spent 3 weeks in London last spring and my AirBnB was on Loftus Road. I walked to a QPR match from my flat, saw club staff coming and going around the neighborhood all the time, and it made them feel like "my" club. I follow every match now. (What Marti has accomplished on the pitch in that time hasn't hurt either.) I hope English football is always played by hundreds of clubs representing sections of cities and little towns in 100+ year-old stadiums.
My family had Jets season tickets for many years, but we gave up not long after Metlife was built. Having to drive to the Meadowlands from Long Island was brutal, but we put up with it because of the gameday experience and the friends we made. Everything changed with the new stadium, and we just couldn't take it anymore.
Is it really so hard to comprehend that they need the parking because in the US most teams are the “local team” for an area the size of entire EU countries, meaning that more people need to drive to the games because it’s not nearly as feasible to use public transport when you are driving 4+ hours to the game and you never leave your home state? Take Minnesota for example. It has one NFL team, it is bordered by 4 other states, 3 of whom don’t have an NFL team. Then think about the fact that MN isn’t a particularly large state and realize that it is bigger than England and Scotland combined. Sure other teams are more closely packed but not anywhere close to what it’s like in Europe. Going to an away game in the NFL is more akin to going away in the UCL than the EPL when it comes to distance and travel.
@ who rents the bus? The fan who doesn’t need the space or the team who would just send them out randomly? The space bing covered would be like man city sending busses to London, Newcastle, Liverpool, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Bournemouth, Norwich, Aberdeen. If a bus holds 70 people the team would have to send 100 busses to transport just 10% of the stadium capacity.
This is actually somewhere that Europeans should get off their high horse imo (as a Brit who dislikes much about America especially rn). Yes the Metlife looks terrible, but it's not the be all and end all of American stadiums - many of which are fascinating. Wrigley Park is so embedded in the city landscape that there's literally seats on the roofs of houses across the street that you can buy tickets for, Coors Field has a forest in it and there's so many MLB grounds where exploring the stadium is as much part of the experience as the game itself. College football (🏈) stadiums are often the epicentre of campuses, surrounded by departmental buildings and in view of dozens or hundreds of classrooms each with unique pre and post-match traditions and even though Arrowhead and the like may look soulless out of season, on a gameday they're absolutely electric - it genuinely looks like the Kaaba in Mecca. And is being herded by police into packed, sweaty boozers segragated from the opposition fans really much less dystopian than sharing a barbecue and a drink outdoors with your family and the away fans? I'm not sure. Not to mention many newer European grounds are as concreted as the US examples Alfie mentions (Coventry, Reading, Stoke, Shrewsbury, Wigan and Le Mans from personal experience). Having experienced a range of both, I think its fine for different continents to have different match traditions and practices, and for their stadia to reflect that - why not embrace it rather than put the other down?
I would recommend any Europeans visiting America to go to MLB games. The grounds are phenomial and have great fan culture. I am a Yankees fan and have been to many games. The vibe with all the bars and restaurants next to the stadium is what I imagine the UK pub culture being similar to. You guys might not like baseball but it is the best fan experience in American sports. It is fairly common for baseball fans to try and visit all 30 MLB stadiums as all are incredibly unique. Whereas if you have been to one NFL stadium you have pretty much been to them all.
For real he has a lot of good videos about interesting topics but then he just goes and gives biased talks about how much better it is where he’s from and how much worse it is in America. Maybe he should come to the United States and take in our sporting events and have his own personal lived experiences then give his takes.
Stamford Bridge is no older than the oldest sports franchise in America. The Altlanta Braves were founded in Boston in 1871, the Chicago Cubs have been playing bad baseball in Chicago since 1870 and if we want to consider Canada as America, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats (as the Hamilton Football Club) were also founded in 1869 (as the Hamilton Football Club) and are still playing.
Don't forget the NFL (Glendale) Arizona Cardinals formerly of Chicago, St. Louis and Tempe/Phoenix, having been established in 1898 they actually predate Chelsea FC.
And the best thing about this. The one good USA stadium example he uses (Solder Field) is in the early stages of being replaced either with new stadium in the same location (Which is not happen due to the city of Chicago being broke and the state of Illinois not willing to put money up for it) or moved out to the suburbs almost 20 miles away from the city.
I feel like so many people miss this with American city layouts (Americans included), where suburbs are still identifiably part of the city despite being under a different government or name. As bad as the Niners' move to Santa Clara was (Very Bad), it still kept games within the broader Bay Area and in a faster growing area, so not completely unfounded
The Los Angeles dodgers are rivals to the Yankees but Tottenham and crystal palace are too far away to be rivals 😂 which is basically like driving from Lisbon to Moscow 😂
@@TheGreenCouncil True but for 50+ years it was the Yankees in the Bronx and the Dodgers in Brooklyn so it’s more a residual rivalry as they were the two top side in late 40s-50s
the word “tailgating” is used in both contexts in America. you can tailgate the person in front of you while driving as well as while parked at a college gameday
The reason why all those flyovers are done at NFL stadiums and oherwise is for the pilots of those planes to have practice hours. Yes, I'm dead serious. Those practice hours would be spent at air bases otherwise, and they would rather use their marketing budget to fly those cool looking and sounding planes over stadiums to get young people in the door to serve.
It was with good reason (as was implementing segregated seating between fanbases). It's also slowly being reversed - they're trialling allowing drinking at your seat in the women's leagues soon
28:11 - This is Memorial Stadium in Baltimore, MD. The Raiders never played there as a home stadium. You might have been looking for the Oakland Coliseum, where they actually were until after the 1981 season.
In the spirit of Ryuzaki Day 20 of asking for an in-depth video on Bodø/Glimt, who just recently became champions for the 4th time in 5 years, and who only got promoted back to Eliteserien as recently as 2017 Furthermore, they now regularly compete in Europe, have kept their successful trainer Kjetil Knutsen, and are on course for a new modern stadium that will replace Aspmyra It was my birthday a few days ago. Don't make me wait for my next birthday before you make this video 😢 Cheers 🇳🇴
Some Americans agree with him in the comments, though. But yes, definitely a European/British perspective on it. I'm sure Alfie would agree he is biased, as everyone is. Point is to just enjoy it and accept people think differently, while agreeing/disagreeing
My American mind can’t comprehend the enjoyment of population density. Every time I travel and visit “walkable” areas, I hate it. I definitely prefer the space of the USA. I love sports but I don’t want a stadium near my house.
Same. It’s a cultural difference most Europeans don’t seem to understand about the US. Most of us don’t want to live all the time in high-density urban areas. I’m very happy living in the suburbs, even if it means driving quite a bit. Our infrastructure could certainly use some improvements, and I’m all for that, but we’ll always be a more individualistic and car-centered culture than in Europe. There’s no reversing the suburban boom of the 1950s at this point. We just have to manage its growth and connectivity better. Any foreigners who visit Houston for the World Cup next year are gonna be in for a major shock if they don’t plan ahead. 😂 That’s a huge city that is extremely unwalkable. You simply have to have a car to get around.
definitely fun to hear different perspectives lol. It's not like I like population density either. I'd prefer a place with a smaller population too, as an European, and live outside a major city rather than in one. But I also commute everywhere via public transport, rarely by car, and everywhere is "walkable" if you want to.
also, having to drive by car is something I'd consider inconvenient. That's another difference. Having to drive anywhere feels like a chore. Sure, if you can't avoid it, by all means, do it. But I'd much rather walk to a nearby grocery store than have to drive or commute to it. It's the same with anything else that I want to access. It's interesting you guys find driving everywhere comfortable. Not judging, just find it to be a foreign concept
Taxpayers subsidize us football stadiums, but that doesn't give us a break on ticket prices, and the profit is all privatized. Say it with me: privatize the profits, socialize the losses Great video. For non-americans out there, it was 100% spot on. Traffic and cars are a huge part of us professional sports experience almost everywhere
Our side of the pond, it's considered bad form to refer to a stadium by the brand name of its naming rights owner. It's better to call a stadium by it's geography (Foxborough), team name (Nationals Park), or the many quirky exceptions like a person's name or nicknames like Mile High, Arrowhead, or Candlestick Park.
For the sake of clarity for any non-americans reading, anyone in the replies insisting we actually do use brand names is trolling. It's sort of a big inside joke here.
It's also the case in Europe, so it makes. There's many teams who have "sponsored" stadium names but you don't use those, and instead use the ones that existed before that, at least if they are distinctive
This is a banger of a video! I didn't expect to find a video combining my to biggest interests, transportation and sport, but I'm somehow not surprised that if anyone would do it, it would be you. One of the many reasons I'm subscribed
It's just economics. American football stadiums are huge because there are only eight or nine home games a season. There is a lot of demand for tickets and is why you rarely see empty seats. Its just less expensive to build in the suburbs. As a fan of the Packers, the restaurants and bars near the stadium are enormous to handle the crowds, but are barely full at all on non-game days. Baseball stadiums are smaller, because there are 81 home games, and are usually built much closer to the city center. And these days, almost all new NBA and NHL arenas are build in the city center.
It's also worth noting that the league structure for the NFL is part of what allows stadiums to be located as far away from large urban areas as they are. The NFL season is only 17 games long plus a few playoff games if you're lucky, which makes the distance much more tolerable for fans, only having to make that daunting trip a few times a year if you can afford it. MLB (baseball) by contrast plays a brutal 162 game schedule over 6 months, which is why their stadiums resemble the European model more closely. Taking a 2 hour drive to watch baseball 162 times in 6 months would be an insane thing to ask even the most die hard fans to do.
Most of the suburban stadiums have the car parks not only because of car culture, but for the reason that cities were already built and land prices within cities are exorbitantly high, so building in a suburb reduces those costs. Unlike Europe, there’s large gaps between major cities in the US and pro teams are really regional (New England Patriots being the only one to really have that in-name). In the days of starting suburban stadia, it was seen as a plus to build next to major highways and build the infrastructure to suit the stadium and keep even worse traffic and overloading into the main city.
The better comparison between European Football stadiums is with American College Football. Don't think that's a step-down, not at all. The biggest stadiums in the USA are all college football (the University of Tennessee, Michigan, Ohio State, Alabama, Texas, Texas A&M and many more, dwarf almost all NFL stadiums). My university is the University of Oregon, and it's short walk from campus thru a small woods and over the Willamette River to a very nice, beautiful stadium, Autzen Stadium.
As someone from North America (Canada specifically), I find it so refreshing to hear about stadium placement from a European point of view. Although, being from Montréal, all our stadiums are in the city and easily accessible by public transport which kind of gives me both point of views.
Love the more than footy content. I'm really happy that proper urban systems thinking has reached more popular spheres. Long time follower, just wanted to share some appreciation. (Architect academically interested in urban studies)
Tailgates are a perfect example of American individualism vs itself. We don’t have bars and restaurants near our stadiums because of the need to sustain a culture built around individual car ownership over public transport, so we simply bring the equipment to make our own bars and restaurants to the stadium and have a good time anyway. Then a Bills fan breaks a plastic table by falling through it and we all have a good laugh watching it the next day.
It’s like the best of both worlds. I like having a yard and living in a somewhat low density environment but on the weekends, I can hang out with people on the one day I want to be social lol
@@adcole09 tailgating as a practice is also a lovely way to ensure that our streets and highways get a sudden rush of thousands of drunk drivers, usually well after dark. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had fun at tailgates. I even once ate thanksgiving dinner at a tailgate. But god what a ridiculous practice
@@StaySqueezy12 this is the exact attitude that has led to suburban sprawl engulfing rural areas across the country, building sprawling towns that cost multiple times more money and physical resources to maintain than denser areas. I’ve spent the majority of my life living in sprawling American suburbs, and it strikes me that most people who “like” that experience are the victims of Stockholm Syndrome
I went to see union berlin play and you walk to the stadium from the train through a forest, we even seen a swans nest with eggs in it with a little cardboard sign stuck onna tree asking people not to touch it, was a really nice walk and then at the ground was very easy to get food and beer and the atmosphere was amazing, those american stadiums look like hell on earth
As an American it’s embarrassing we re-elected trump, but unrelated, we use cars to get most places and it’s easiest to have a huge parking lot right outside the stadium
@georgehenan853 and China's aren't? China is a similar size to the US and has public transport linking its most far flung cities. So does Russia actually
Africa is always ignored on these conversations of cultural or geographic differences between America, Europe, Asia or Australia. That’s a significant part pf the world you know Alfie🤔
RFK stadium was in Washington DC, Candlestick Park was in San francisco, presumably for financial reasons when the new stadiums were built they moved away from their city centre base
The total destruction of American cities in the US in favor of the private automobile was one of the worst decisions of domestic policy in the history of the country. Obviously not THE worst, but it's definitely a top 5. Our stadiums are only a small reflection of it
The main reason the stadiums will feel dystopian is because they'll be without Freddy Adu, who is no longer playing football, having retired several years ago.
Wow so funny
without further adu, this comment should be pinned.
I was disappointed he didn’t shoehorn Freddy into the video when he mentioned FedEx Field. As we all know, Freddy is currently based out of Maryland
He could mention that for example, the Washington Commanders(formerly Redskins, yikes), used to play within DC at RFK stadium. Where Freddy Adu made his professional debut with DC United.
My team’s stadium isn’t like that although the name would certainly fool you. Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte was built in 1995 and incorporated into the city similar to those European examples.
HITC Sevens urbanist RUclips arc, call it Not Just Football
The exact comment I came looking for
Or StadiumBeautiful ☺️
I forgot a lot of these urbanism concepts might be foreign to some viewers
Call it shit
AlfieSomething
FootballNerd
HITC Transit
As an American who just went to a few premier league games, I couldn’t believe how easy it was to take public transportation and not have to sit in 2+ hours of traffic instead! Very jealous
Help spread this gospel back to America....... Meanwhile, Insensitive American Hedge Fund Owners of EPL/EFL teams are trying actively to RUIN this vibe and convenience that you experienced.
Luckily, every stadium I've been to in the US has been easily accessible by public transport, but im sure there are some out there that are a nightmare to access.
I mean our public transport is the America of Europe so how you can worse than ours is very impressive
@DeeEditor1 went to yankee Stadium last summer, and I gotta say that the transport links to there were quite terrible
man getting from paddington to tottenham last may was simpler and easier than getting to any stadium in Denver where i live. actually was in shock man lmfaoooo
To be fair, not all of the stadia that will host WC26 matches are located in suburban wastelands.
Some of them are located in urban wastelands.
Right. One can easily walk from Lumen Field past thousands of homeless vets, strung out crackheads, and Venezuelan gangsters to the central business district.
@@Fred_Lougeeparroting right wing talking points under a video about stadiums are we ?
@@MJisAGlorifiedDemarDerozen Ever been to Seattle?
@@Fred_Lougee Im non-American and Seattle was way fucking nicer than Dallas and Miami
Not able to understand modern problems are we?
If they could, they would have drive-in stadiums
Please don't give them dumb ideas, they might just do it.
And imagine the braindead noise of 50k cars honking after a goal.
@@iQKyyR3K hahaha i see "cars" =)
funnily enough, most lower-level Australian football or cricket stadiums have parking bays to watch from
The local minor league baseball team here used to have a drive in area in right field 😂
this sounds like an amazing idea
As an American, the even more dystopian part of American stadiums is that they are basically used as hostage situations. You mentioned it a bit, but billionaire owners of American sports franchises will use relocation as a threat to get new venues. Basically, if you (the community) don't pay hundreds of millions (if not over a billion) dollars towards a new venue, we will move the team that has been here for decades to a location that will.
I'm from west of Chicago in Illinois, and there are multiple examples going on RIGHT NOW just here. The Bears are threatening to move to Arlington heights (30 miles northwest of Chicago) if the city/state don't pay significant portions of 5 billion stadium/infrastructure project. Soldier field was extensively renovated (for the worse) in the early 2000s. The White Sox are also looking to get about half of a $2 billion stadium paid for at the same time, but they may leave for Nashville or another unknown city if they don't get what they want. Keep in mind that they stadium the White Sox play in is slightly more than 30 years old and has undergone significant renovations since. In the late 1980s, the owner threatened to move the Sox to Tampa, Florida if the current stadium was not built.
Basically legal extortion, YAY!
issue isnt the hostage situation, its the supporters not sticking up for the team and the rules from the sport leagues. i mean if man united wanted to move to liverpool for a new stadium over night it goes from sold out to empty. yall just accept it. not to mention in many cases if a citys would like to fund a new stadium for a team in many countrys in europe that would mean a unfair advantages and not be possible by law or sporting league dissicion. the issue isnt what owners want its the NFL itself (who gives them to much power) not to mention the relgation promotion which allowes them to stay in the top league forever
@@robertv7996 I would say it fits the poster's description because your taxes are being held to ransom by a skinflint billionaire who doesn't want to cough up the money just seems spectacularly crass. No-one should experience that. Not the fans or the residents of the area that couldn't give two shits about the team in the first place. But then fan emotional manipulation in American sports is just ugly.
I remember that John Oliver had an episode where he talked about this and I couldn’t comprehend how that was a thing
A 30 year old stadium is a dinosaur by NFL standards. Lambeau Field makes a tenth of the revenue that So-Fi or even Levi's Stadium makes. Europeans don't look at their stadiums as profit centers and job creators. You can't add 200 luxury boxes to Soldier Field to make it competitive with Allegiant or So-Fi or Levi's or Met Life. The Big Three (I'm not counting MLS or the NHL since they don't qualify) sports in the US balance their books (before revenue sharing) on their stadium income. But these stadiums also benefit their cities. Look at how St. Louis declined after the Rams left. Camden Yards revitalized and gentrified Baltimore's downtown when it was built.
When Wimbledon FC moved to Milton Keynes and renamed themselves to the MK Dons in 2004, the Wimbledon fans created a new amateur club, and rose through the football ranks, while the MK Dons lost their support and fell down the football league pyramid and now AFC Wimbledon is higher than the MK Dons in the football league lmao
Edit: Oops he mentioned it in the video
With tailgating, it started with college teams so alumni could get together and mingle. In the US, public flagship universities were typically founded and built away from the major cities, so driving a few hours to get an entire weekend in in one day and back home for bed was typical. Basically like having a little picnic instead of trying to find a place to eat during a massively busy time before fast food was so prevalent.
See James Howard Kuntzler. Parking lots are the only place Americans have to hang out
@@Toro_Da_Corsa Dont be ridiculous. We have parks bigger than European countries…and gas stations lmao
at least with college it makes sense because there are parks and green spaces dedicated for it. instead of being in a hot parking lot in early september.
Worth noting that college football stadia are usually much more pedestrian and transit friendly than those of the nfl, even if many large state colleges are far from major population centers. Sure, fans who don’t live in town or aren’t current students will still need cars to get into town for the big game, but it’s also true that most college football stadia are seemlessly integrated into their campuses. Idk I guess the point I’m trying to make here is that even tho tailgating comes from college football tradition, I think college football stadia are, on average, much more urbanist than their professional counterparts
@@del-see-oh not for long! Exploratory resource extraction to happen in natal parks and public lands soon!
Alfie talking about terrible U.S. transportation while my train got canceled that I take to work ): Love the videos always Alfie.
Mate, do you actually want to get to work?
Olympics would have been in Boston in 24 but our trains were so bad people protested so we didn’t host
I am so ready for Alfie's urbanist arc
Green-pilled is the new orange-pilled
Every pretentious European goes through it.
not just bikes is already orange. so is the netherlands.
Environmentalism is just one among many reasons to be an Urbanist.
@Serena_Lunar
Let's fuckin' gooooo
@@del-see-oh*correct European you mean
As an American, I’d argue that the culture of college football is more similar to club football, while NFL culture more closely resembles international football. There are well over 10 million Americans per NFL team, so they feel like they belong to the “region” more than the “city”. Meanwhile, there are about 2.5 million Americans per major college football team, so it’s not just alumni association with a university that gives it its local feel.
I couldn’t imagine Michigan tearing down the Big House (1927; 107,601 capacity), Ohio State demolishing the Shoe (1922; 102,780 capacity), or Texas A&M moving from Kyle Field (1927; 102,733 capacity). Michigan Stadium, in particular, is a beautiful ground that I assume would not offend European sensibilities.
I profoundly disagree. The culture of college football doesn't seem to be found anywhere else. I mean Japan has some high school sports too but that's still very different in the same way American high/jr high is different.
@ I wasn’t saying they are the same. But if you want to draw comparisons, as this video does, it is more appropriate in terms of sports culture to compare club football to college football than to the NFL.
It doesn't at all 😂😂😂😂
from a culture of people who openly hoot, cheer, scream and cry in cinemas! at the sight of super heroes!
I 'd argue you lot are have serious issues
Nice try, but no. and I speak from experience , As a student, I lived iNSIDE Ohio Stadium as part of the Stadium Scholarship Dormitory there...and since then 40 years of My adult life has been spent living in England with many years as an Ipswich Town Season Ticket holder. The vibe between Ohio State and Ipswich is so profoundly different I can't even begin to properly give an analogy for it.
In the USA, the parking lot tailgate party is an important part of the stadium experience.
naturally, because there's no pubs near by
@sirius.siri3Not quite true everywhere. Why spend 10 dollars on a beer when I could buy a whole case and drink it in the parking lot for the same price?
@sirius.siri3 Not true lmfao
If you got pissed up in your car in Europe, the police would have something to say about that, not to mention the public as a whole. What's the fucking point of driving to somewhere, getting shit faced, and then not being able to drive home? 🤦
@sirius.siri3not really, even MetLife has the American Dream within walking distance that is chocked full of all sorts of pubs and stuff. Really it’s more like the appeal of camping for Sporting events.
Alfie, you’re actually wrong, here’s the things, most of the supporters don’t actually live in the city center, most supporters who can actually afford to go the games nowadays live outside the city. I can tell you the majority of Washington Commanders fan don’t live in DC, they live Maryland or Virginia. The majority of Dolphins fans don’t live in the City of Miami itself but the surrounding areas. Miami actually built their new baseball stadium in the city and no one goes, Marlins’ attendance had declined.
yeah, I think he might have missed it, or have been aware of it, but wanted to draw the comparison, because in Europe this kind of arrangement would be seen as strange
Commanders have a Maryland stadium
True. Most people in urban areas in the us don’t live in the actual city centers, they live in suburbs as far away from the city centers as the stadiums themselves are.
Arguably the most car dependant nation on the planet where driving out of town to large shops/restaurants is completely normal, not sure why anyone would expect anything different
Not that difficult to understand. It's a big country. Not every restaurant you want to go to is going to be within walking distance
@@timboslice150 I can’t stand the “Americas just too big to be built like a normal country” argument. It’s patently false. The vast vast majority of Americans live in urban and metropolitan areas. States like California and New York are, at the state level, denser than countries like Spain or Germany. That is a statistical fact. Obviously at a more micro local level, you start to see a real difference in density between the US and Europe, but when it comes to population clusters, we are no “bigger” than Europe. The vast vast majority of Americans live in the Northeastern Megalopolis, Southern California Metro, Texas Triangle, Great Lakes Conurbation, the Bay Area, the Florida Conurbation, the Piedmont Area, and the Pacific Northwest metro cluster. All of these regions have comparable densities to Europe. Is it true the Alaska and Montana are really big and really undeveloped? Certainly. But that’s no excuse for the fact that most people live close to each other, and we still don’t have a proper transit system or walkable streets.
Same issue here in New Zealand unfortunately
@@pjkerrigan20 Sure all of what you said is true, but all of Europe was built basically before America was even discovered. Every city in America is designed with car in mind and its hard to find a city in Europe built after cars were invented. The “Americas just too big to be built like a normal country” is more like "Americas just too young to be built like a normal country. Especially in the west. Not saying the fact they have a terrible public transit system isnt their fault, cause it is, but its less of an issue not to have one.
@autkev7112 Everything you just said applies to modern China as well and yet they have extensive high-speed trains. Everything was built from scratch over the last century.
its mainly to do with that European Cities grew organically over hunderds and possibly thousands of years based on humans where US cities were planned by a group of architects and built for cars over the course of a couple decades.
I was just posting basically the same thing at exactly the same time as you lol
Not entirely true. American cities,especially on the east coast were already big and had streetcars and dense city centers before cars became affordable. They were bulldozed for the car, not build for the car.
That isn’t entirely true however. Look at Australia, follows the same trends or car dependency and pre planning for its cities yet its major stadiums are all much better integrated than their American counterparts.
@17Trees33 older U.S. cities along the Atlantic coast were planned before the cars. Land is just very expensive in the major cities, so NFL teams couldn’t viably build stadiums in NYC and Boston and DC proper.
@@chadchadderton while Australia is big and spread out, much of the land is not habitable, so most people live in the major cities. The same applies to Canada. Both nations are more urbanized than the U.S., in the sense that a higher percentage of the population lives in a few major metropolitan areas.
As a Canadian, it's always fun watching Europeans try and understand american culture.
I like these guys videos but it’s always annoying to me listening him to talk about the US. Like his serious approach to “the European mind could never comprehend this” comment as if it isn’t literally a joke was so cringe lol
@@StaySqueezy12he’s a internet dwelling liberal
@@MarDuBronx well he's not a liberal because he's not an American
@@MarDuBronx -- says the internet-dwelling conservative. How droll.
@@LordZontar the only internet s*** I have on my phone is RUclips. And sometimes I login to twitter on the browser. This guy is active on both (and fair enough he gets paid to be an internet dwelling lib) and I’ve seen more than enough on both platforms especially twitter to see he’s a radical heavily indoctrinated dumb lefty. I laugh at both radical sides but the left is more silly and funny and stupid I have to admit.
Your commitment to releasing videos on my lunch break Alfie is truly outstanding
Chicago has done a great job of keeping sports venues easily accessible, the only except would be Rate Field which does look more "traditionally American" in it's placement and car-centric environment.
Tell that to the Bears when they are trying to tear down Soldier field for basically 30 years now
@@fanpackers4people that drive from the suburbs complain about the drive there. They won’t take public transport with the poors
@@samelmudir that’s not why the Bears want to tear down Soldier field. It is tiny by NFL standards but the problem is lake side property is obviously much more expensive than suburban property.
Even though it’s surrounded by parking lots, it still is connected to the L and Metra trains.
There is literally a redline stop named for the Sox ballpark. It’s infinitely more transit friendly than Soldier Field.
The city of Cleveland is currently in a tug-of-war with the owners of the Browns (American Football) to keep the team in the city and not, as proposed, shipped out to a suburb called Brook Park. The current stadium is right on lake Erie, adjacent to downtown and has light rail service on game days. It looks like they'll probably be moved but I don't think anyone in Cleveland thinks it's a good idea (besides the actual owners of the team) to go from a prime area in the city to a dystopian parking lot across from the airport, many miles from the city center.
Part of the reason for the differences are the big differences in sports structure in the USA and Europe. The NFL has 32 teams across the entire country and there is no promotion/relegation to and from lower divisions. New York City, with a metro population of over 20 million has two NFL teams. London, with a metro population just under 15 million has 17 professional football (soccer) teams with as many as 8 (in the 1989-90) season being in the top flight at the same time. There are currently 7 teams participating in this season's Premier League in London and an additional 2 in the 2nd tier EFL Championship.
If I had to guess:
Short answer: the car lobby (and by extension, the oil lobby)
Really has more to do with laws requiring a certain amount of parking spots at a specific venue or any building. It may be a car thing but a lot of old stadiums look like Europe
@@scodo45And who do you think pushed for those laws?
It’s mostly because people in the us don’t want to live in dense urban centers. And there is a far greater availability of land farther out.
Seeing people hate on cars is hilarious.
@@mof5490I personally like cars and always have. One thing I hate though is traffic, air & noise pollution, having to commute long distances on the wheel, accidents and not being able to walk or bike to the city center.
6:58 As a European Giants fan, it did confuse me why other fans mock the Giants and Jets by calling them the New Jersey Giants/Jets - when other teams' stadiums are much more further away from their namesake.
Am an American jets fan.
It’s just one of those things. Stadiums that are miles away from the city they represent is normal (like you mentioned), but it’s not normal for the stadium to literally be in another state.
It’s basically just a technicality that gets used to make fun of the giants/jets.
@ I'm just glad this isn't happening with the sixers. Camden NJ may as well be greater Philadelphia but there's just something about crossing state lines that feels so much more wrong.
The Detroit Lions of the NFL played in Pontiac (the Silverdome; where Trevor Francis played briefly for the Express) from 1975 to 2001. When the team was bad, they were called (by some) the Pontiac Pussycats.
@@kakol20908 it’s just petty banter. People love to joke that the Buffalo Bills are the only “real NY team”. In reality, Giants and Jets are New York sports teams, as in representing the city of NY. No one in NYC or Long Island cares about the Bills, local NYC media does not cover the Bills
It’s a weird state identity thing. Especially NJ’s inferiority complex
I live 30 minutes from the Metlife and I have NO IDEA how we are gonna handle that kind of traffic. It’s going to be an awful experience for all who visit.
They handle it fine for 12 nfl games a year plus concerts and other events
@@georgehenan853the Giants and Jets on their best best best best seasons aren't drawing even close to a world cup audience lmao
@@lordfizzz 80,000 is the capacity of the stadium regardless of what’s going on there. That’s the same amount that f people that go to nfl games there every weekend.
@@lordfizzzhave you seen New York
@@AJ-nf3bn I've lived here my whole life
The video hits home for me as an American as I watch your videos religously during my 30 minute 15 mile drive to work in the morning😂
That’s why I like wrigley in Chicago . They even have seats on top of buildings just outside of the buildings that you can watch the game from
A big reason you didn't really cover on why the parking lots are so big is because the owners make TONS of money on the fans parking in those lots, so they are (almost) encouraged to make the stadiums more inaccessible and reliant on car transportation because they stand to make even more money. This even manifests in owners intentionally tanking public transportation projects to their stadiums, like in the case of SoFi Stadium, because the project would eat into their bottom line, even if it would be a net benefit for the fans as a whole
Yikes. This sounds properly awful
This is a very good point. Parking is so freaking expensive at these places. You're right, big miss not covering that aspect. If you ever want to know why Americans do something, just follow the money.
great point. concerts here are the same way.
Yet people still attend these things and likely pay an annual salary just to experience the corporate entertainment life for one game.. That boggles my mind.
@@apropercuppa8612 its because a lot of Americans make a lot more money than most Europeans. Its not a financial burden to frequently go to these games when Americans make, on average, around $20,000 more per year than Brits. I paid close to $1000/yr for 2 supporters section season tickets to my local MLS side, which would be an outrageous sum for the quality of soccer compared to the EPL, where the prices outside the big 6 are roughly equal, but it didn't feel as big of a purchase because I made around the average US salary at the time.
Fenway Park is one of America's best and most authentic stadiums in my opinion. My dad and I used to go once a year and it has this intimate and authentic feel that I haven't ever gotten visiting Foxborough or any other stadiums for that matter. My trip to Anfield had the same feeling. Say what you will about John Henry but he has good taste.
If you haven’t already, you should try to visit Wrigley on a nice summer day. In my opinion, it’s the only ballpark experience better than Fenway. The neighborhood is a lotta fun, similar to the area around fenway, but the ballpark was really gracefully renovated a few years ago, so it’s like a more polished Fenway experience. I guess there’s an argument to be made that more polish would worsen the Fenway experience, but trust me Wrigley is a real treat.
What about college football stadiums?
Should be 'Why are America so dystopian?'.
Also, overdependency on cars are just horrific...
It’s a big country. Shit train systems or no train stations in most cases. Cars is the only way to travel for most people
Most Americans are too obese to use public transport
So-called greatest country on Earth has a less developed transit system than the poorest EU country
All the while Lausanne, a city of less than 150 000 people, has 2 metro lines spanning 28 stations
@@Ben-po8kfhere we go again with the classic “America is too big for good transportation excuse. Not sure if you’re aware, but this excuse has been overused by Americans for decades despite the fact that it’s literally not true. China, India and even Russia are all huge countries with better nationwide transportation infrastructure than the US. There is no excuse other than the fact that Americans and Canadians have dug themselves so deep into car-dependency and are now in a position where they cannot fix it.
I keep seeing Americans use this whack excuse. I swear if I see another American say this I will lose it
@@Ben-po8kfbro we have heard enough of that nonsense from Americans, your country isn’t too big for transport. You know it’s bad when freaking India has better train services than you
Stop saying the word “the” before the names of American stadiums. Us Americans don’t to that because it sounds weird. The Polo Grounds is the only exception.
I learned something new today lol
When he called it "The Shea Stadium" I was like WTF?!? 🤣🤣🤣
I grew up 5 minutes away from Gillette stadium. Whenever our football team scored a touchdown I could hear the cannons going off. Although the loudest I've ever heard the stadium was a Rammstein concert.
Also most cities in the us only have one team in each major sport so it’s not weird for the one team to be located anywhere in the metro area where it’s convenient. The 49ers moved to Santa Clara because they already owned the land next to their practice facility that was being used for parking for the great America theme park. In Europe the teams tend to be associated with a certain neighborhood because there are multiple teams in a metro area.
Yeah. Neighborhoods don’t have teams like in England. Usually a state or big city has a team
Exactly. Like when he mentioned New England being located in Foxboro, I was like, um ok…. Foxboro Mass is IN New England so yeah that tracks hahaha
An example from this side of the Atlantic of a team building itself a new home next to its training facility on land it already owned was in fact briefly mentioned in the video: Barnet FC's Hive Stadium.
sure. But it is definitely weird from an European perspective, and something traveling Europeans wouldn't necessarily expect
I am a New Jerseyan whose wife is from Birmingham. MetLife stadium is an absolute eyesore. I hate that oversized air conditioner. I am jealous of my wife getting to grow up near a stunner like Villa Park.
I wouldn’t be too jealous depending on how close she actually lived to villa park it’s not the best of areas but then again compared to Newark I’d rather live in Aston
Greatest stadium in all of football!
@@ScarletKnight-mq5cz yeah MetLife they tried for Allianz arena and came with that…. It’s a shame since they did well on the other stadiums
American football is a physically demanding game, so there is only 17 games in a season so owners make tickets prices about $100 and resellers make them even more expensive. Football games aren’t for the people in the city they are for suburbanites with disposable income and a big car. There is only 1 fan owned club in the nfl so the owners just decide build stadiums where land is cheap in the suburbs. The nfl is not an accurate view of American fan culture, college and high school football is.
Plus that one fan owned club was grandfathered in with that structure and it's now forbidden for other teams to use that model
We have thousands of high school football teams, hundreds of college football teams, but only 32 pro football teams. None of them are franchises that can be moved and have no owner. Elite D1 football schools have about as much popularity as either the MLB or NBA (more than NHL or MLS), while the U.S. only has 154 pro teams in 5 different sports anyway. Compare that to the number of pro teams in Europe who are usually owned by somebody. Yet what do most foreigners always talk about?
@@Savalatte it's difficult to compare different models. And this video specifically is about the World Cup stadiums.
One thing to consider is that the NFL teams play 8 or 9 games at home every year, and the games are schedualed months in advance, so people can actualy schedule for a long comute to see the games. In Baseball, where every team plays 82 games at home, the stadiums are way more integrated in the city centers, usualy. If my soccer team played only 8 home matches every year, it would not be such a assle to drive 90 minutes to the stadium.
Not all. The MLS stadiums popping up all over the country have character and beautiful modern accoutrements.
The new Cincinnati Stadium wouldn't look out of place in England with all the residential brick housing around it. Hell, a good chunk of MLS stadiums are downtown or near the city centre.
That dosent fit his narrative
@@nollienick1121 it's talking specifically about the World Cup stadiums. He mentions other venues aren't like this. Stop whining
@@maciejbala477 I didn’t make a 35 min video on something I know nothing about.
As a European who spent a year in good old St. Louis a while back, i completely agree.
The creator of this channel is some sm ug spoi led brat wannabe comm ie with an agenda.
While there are plenty of bad things and bad examples in North American pro sports culture, there is plenty of good as well.
Like this thread mentioned, MLS so far has been a small but linear success story with almost all teams playing in a purpose-built "soccer" specific 25,000 stadium, and the majority even plays on real grass, most are accessible within the cities.
Some exceptions of course, or like NYCFC still in the process of building one, but overall they follow this pattern.
MLS also has seen very very little in terms of teams being relocated, a handful (?) has folded, but their team names have not been touched.
And let's not forget the abundance of great Ballparks the US has, many of whom are located very much in the city centre.
Some have absolutely stunning views ( Pittsburgh 😍, St. Louis 😍 , San Francisco 😍 & many more ) from the inside not a single European stadium can provide, because skyline and skyscrapers are super duper rare over here.
He also didn't mention ballparks like Fenway Park, Wrigley Field or Dodger Stadium.
Absolutely on the same level as El Bernabéu, Camp Nou, San Siro, Anfield, Westfalenstadion!
Why do i keep harping on about Baseball?
Because it is the traditional American game dating back to the very early beginning of the 20th Century.
The first World Series was played in 1901 (?) - Baseball is the original traditional American team sport - not Football!
Football might have overtaken Baseball since the 1990s (?), but the faux comparison is extremely disingenious.
The first UEFA Champions League predecessor was only played in 1956, the first Premier League in the early 1990s!!!
And i haven't even mentioned old stadiums like the Polo Grounds in NYC or others.
Last but not least, check out St. Louis - stadiums for all 5 major sports ( although they currently only have 3 out of 5 sports represented ) are centrally located and within walking distance of the City Hall and its main sight - the Gateway Arch.
Some other cities like Detroit or other Midwestern cities are similar.
I could also go on about the Forum in LA or MSG, or how the recent trend of new arenas and super stadiums is even in the US a trend that only really got started in the 1990s but only really in the last 15 (?) years has really started to reach absurd levels.
Sorry for the ra nt.
Thanks for reading. 😁
From Germany with ❤
American here, Went top the Argentina vs Chile Copa America group stage game at metlife as iI usually only live a 20 minute drive away from the place. I took me 2 hours and 30 minutes to park my car and start walking to the stadium. It was an absolute fucking nightmare and that is honestly the average game day experience for professional sports here. Leave 4 hours early if coming to the World Cup here.
Levi's Stadium has light rail that drops you off right outside the lot. 20 minute trip when I went to Copa this summer as well.
14:16 Stoke catching strays again 😢 but to be fair the location of the stadium is horrendous
I have no idea what we were thinking.
When we built it we forgot to add a road to get to it from one way lol
we could have built it in a much better place to be honest, i live in stoke and i have to drive to get to the stadium because of the A500 and A34, i get not wanting to build it in Hanley but putting it right in a industrial park and next to the giant incenerator plant which you can see from the stadium, its uglyyyy
I don’t care what anyone in Chicago claims, the stadium where the original Soldier Field is now is not very old. It’s a new stadium built on top of the old.
@@msk1170 yeah it wasn’t a good example. Lambeau would have been better.
NFL teams typically play at home 8 times a year and the games last for 3+ hours. MLB stadiums and NBA arenas are typically more accessible because they play far more frequently and team owners want to reduce barriers to attendance. Travel time is less of a concern when it is infrequent (mostly on Sundays) and part of a day long event. Pub culture makes more sense for frequent matches that are < 2 hours.
College football is far more analogous to European club soccer but the European mind cannot comprehend college sports.
The New England Patriots are actually an example of trying to maintain consistency between name and location. They were the Boston Patriots in the 1960s, but they could never find a suitable stadium within Boston, so when they moved to Foxborough they changed their geographic descriptor from Boston to New England, which is a regional name that applies to 5 entire states. They could move to Hartford, CT (they almost did) or Burlington, VT or Portland, ME and still be in New England.
They're halfway between Boston and Providence. Why NOT "New England Patriots" to mollify the Rhode Islander fans?
Flyovers go hard asf bro idk what kind of crack you’re on to think otherwise
does he not realize that an hour drive here in the US is considered short?
Do you not realize that a 10 minute walk is better than an hours drive, even in America?
Do you not realise that's the point? A European hour isn't metric you know? They are both 60 minutes.
They only understand Extra large food.
Do you not realise that is exactly THE problem
@@iQKyyR3Knot at all, you europeans wouldnt survive a week in the florida humidity or arizona heat
I will say this… huge difference between college football stadiums and NFL. College football has some of the best and most beautiful stadiums in the world. Amazing atmospheres too.
Day 15 of asking for a video of the 7 greatest lower league players of all time.
In England or world-wide?
@gabriellabankova5539 either. It's up to Alfie to make the rules to keep it as interesting as possible. Making it worldwide allows him to give some more interesting players, probably someone most have never heard of before thrown in
Mick Gooding. Or Phil Parkinson. Or Michael Gilkes. Yo'u're welcome.
@@NudgerThe Robin Friday
What about doing it your effing self ?? Move it
Very lucky to live in Baltimore and have both of our stadiums downtown and walking distance from my apartment. This is absolutely not the norm
Things feel a little dystopian compared to European stadiums based on a few factors. #1 being how North American Sports operate differently than European sports. Your clubs were mostly likely formed in specific neighborhoods, hence stadiums being kept in a specific area of that city/town. Our sports don't operate like this anymore, with a few notable exceptions (Yankees in the Bronx, Mets in Queens, etc.). The teams are meant to cover a large geographic area because of fan interest, but mostly due to territorial rights in TV distribution. While the San Francisco 49ers play in Santa Clara, the fans come from all over the Bay Area and Northern California. Having the stadium in Santa Clara opposed to San Francisco isn't a big deal because a large majority of the fans travel large distances anyways. It's not the right way to do things but just the reality of the situation.
To me as a native San Franciscan, that shot of Camp Nou nestled into the cityscape looks like what I would imagine if they had expanded Kezar Stadium (in the middle of the dense Upper Haight) to mega-size instead of drastically downsizing it after moving the Niners down to Candlestick Park. That was NEVER going to happen, and just the thought of it seems absurd. Now they play at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, about FORTY FIVE miles away from old Kezar Stadium and the city of SF. I hate the fact that it's so far away now, and like many San Franciscans, I don't even drive at all! Getting there on public transit from my place in the city on gameday can take well over two hours each way (and I'm on the southern side of the city).
By the way, the fact that the distance between Kezar and Levi's is greater than the distance between Anfield and Old Trafford is mind-blowing. Yikes. 🤯😬
On the flip side, at least the Giants are closer and you don't have to drive out to Candlestick... although, I do miss the Stick...
@@therealking6202 I'm from the Excelsior, so Candlestick was actually closer to me than the current Giants ballpark, but it's still much easier to go to games on public transit now. I grew up going to the Stick though, and I definitely miss being there (with a blanket, a thermos of hot chocolate, and a Roxie sandwich, of course). So many great memories! 🧡🖤
@@dex1lsp Ironically, I'm from the South Bay, so the Stick was closer for me, too! 🤣🤣🤣
Sorry if I sound like an American asshole but you said the commanders don’t play in Washington DC but a different state but Washington DC isn’t a state itself cheers mate
oh, trust me, compared to many other commenters, you don't sound at all like an "American asshole"
April fools video idea: "footballers i'd let my wife have an affair with"
If my wife had an affair with Paolo Maldini I’d apologise to her
I raise one better "Footballers I'd cheat on my wife with"
I was surprised years ago when I first looked at American towns and cities at how many car parks there are.
I love how Lambeau Field is the almost complete opposite of this. It's so built into the neighborhood, almost like most PL stadiums
especially since it’s not in a large city and owned by the fans (to my knowledge) despite still having one of the largest fan bases in the nfl
I am an American whose family had season tickets to the New York Giants for generations, but who has completely abandoned American football. This video covers a big piece of what turned me off. Meanwhile, I spent 3 weeks in London last spring and my AirBnB was on Loftus Road. I walked to a QPR match from my flat, saw club staff coming and going around the neighborhood all the time, and it made them feel like "my" club. I follow every match now. (What Marti has accomplished on the pitch in that time hasn't hurt either.) I hope English football is always played by hundreds of clubs representing sections of cities and little towns in 100+ year-old stadiums.
My family had Jets season tickets for many years, but we gave up not long after Metlife was built. Having to drive to the Meadowlands from Long Island was brutal, but we put up with it because of the gameday experience and the friends we made. Everything changed with the new stadium, and we just couldn't take it anymore.
Is it really so hard to comprehend that they need the parking because in the US most teams are the “local team” for an area the size of entire EU countries, meaning that more people need to drive to the games because it’s not nearly as feasible to use public transport when you are driving 4+ hours to the game and you never leave your home state? Take Minnesota for example. It has one NFL team, it is bordered by 4 other states, 3 of whom don’t have an NFL team. Then think about the fact that MN isn’t a particularly large state and realize that it is bigger than England and Scotland combined. Sure other teams are more closely packed but not anywhere close to what it’s like in Europe. Going to an away game in the NFL is more akin to going away in the UCL than the EPL when it comes to distance and travel.
Ever heard of "rent a bus"?
@ who rents the bus? The fan who doesn’t need the space or the team who would just send them out randomly? The space bing covered would be like man city sending busses to London, Newcastle, Liverpool, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Bournemouth, Norwich, Aberdeen. If a bus holds 70 people the team would have to send 100 busses to transport just 10% of the stadium capacity.
This is actually somewhere that Europeans should get off their high horse imo (as a Brit who dislikes much about America especially rn). Yes the Metlife looks terrible, but it's not the be all and end all of American stadiums - many of which are fascinating. Wrigley Park is so embedded in the city landscape that there's literally seats on the roofs of houses across the street that you can buy tickets for, Coors Field has a forest in it and there's so many MLB grounds where exploring the stadium is as much part of the experience as the game itself. College football (🏈) stadiums are often the epicentre of campuses, surrounded by departmental buildings and in view of dozens or hundreds of classrooms each with unique pre and post-match traditions and even though Arrowhead and the like may look soulless out of season, on a gameday they're absolutely electric - it genuinely looks like the Kaaba in Mecca. And is being herded by police into packed, sweaty boozers segragated from the opposition fans really much less dystopian than sharing a barbecue and a drink outdoors with your family and the away fans? I'm not sure. Not to mention many newer European grounds are as concreted as the US examples Alfie mentions (Coventry, Reading, Stoke, Shrewsbury, Wigan and Le Mans from personal experience). Having experienced a range of both, I think its fine for different continents to have different match traditions and practices, and for their stadia to reflect that - why not embrace it rather than put the other down?
I would recommend any Europeans visiting America to go to MLB games. The grounds are phenomial and have great fan culture. I am a Yankees fan and have been to many games. The vibe with all the bars and restaurants next to the stadium is what I imagine the UK pub culture being similar to. You guys might not like baseball but it is the best fan experience in American sports. It is fairly common for baseball fans to try and visit all 30 MLB stadiums as all are incredibly unique. Whereas if you have been to one NFL stadium you have pretty much been to them all.
For real he has a lot of good videos about interesting topics but then he just goes and gives biased talks about how much better it is where he’s from and how much worse it is in America. Maybe he should come to the United States and take in our sporting events and have his own personal lived experiences then give his takes.
Wow. A normal good take from a European. Nice to see.
I agree. Why the fuck does this matter to anyone but the USA.
@@josephsimmons7351 the only thing about it that would put me off is baseball being extremely boring 😂
@@maciejbala477 bro we are soccer fans we have no right to call baseball boring lol
I'm sure this comments section will be peaceful and not hostile at all 🙃
😂 yeah I've already seen glimpses of this
Stamford Bridge is no older than the oldest sports franchise in America. The Altlanta Braves were founded in Boston in 1871, the Chicago Cubs have been playing bad baseball in Chicago since 1870 and if we want to consider Canada as America, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats (as the Hamilton Football Club) were also founded in 1869 (as the Hamilton Football Club) and are still playing.
I noticed that too
You've confused stadium existence with franchise existence there big chief
Eurotrash hate the fact that the National League, founded in 1876, is six years older than the English Football Association.
That's what Alfie said though. Stamford Bridge is older than any singular American sports franchise, which is false @howgoodistravel
Don't forget the NFL (Glendale) Arizona Cardinals formerly of Chicago, St. Louis and Tempe/Phoenix, having been established in 1898 they actually predate Chelsea FC.
Your next video should be on why Hull's pitch is so shit
And the best thing about this. The one good USA stadium example he uses (Solder Field) is in the early stages of being replaced either with new stadium in the same location (Which is not happen due to the city of Chicago being broke and the state of Illinois not willing to put money up for it) or moved out to the suburbs almost 20 miles away from the city.
To a location that is arguably much easier to access via public transportation however.
Selling match ticket ✖️
Selling parking ticket ✔️
It’s expensive too over 10 pounds at the minimum
I feel like so many people miss this with American city layouts (Americans included), where suburbs are still identifiably part of the city despite being under a different government or name. As bad as the Niners' move to Santa Clara was (Very Bad), it still kept games within the broader Bay Area and in a faster growing area, so not completely unfounded
The Los Angeles dodgers are rivals to the Yankees but Tottenham and crystal palace are too far away to be rivals 😂 which is basically like driving from Lisbon to Moscow 😂
@@TheGreenCouncil True but for 50+ years it was the Yankees in the Bronx and the Dodgers in Brooklyn so it’s more a residual rivalry as they were the two top side in late 40s-50s
CityBeautiful and NotJustBikes channels would both love this video.
the word “tailgating” is used in both contexts in America. you can tailgate the person in front of you while driving as well as while parked at a college gameday
But can you tailgate the person cooking in front of you?
Most shocking is the price of a beer in these gaffs
And the piss foam they serve you in its stead
Not to mention the state of that beer
That's intentional to cut down on consumption during games and the problems it can cause.
how about the price of a beer at a Premier League game? oh my bad they aren't allowed to have one.
@@rwalker0130 can in the concourse. Works out just over 6 dollars in U.S.
Important to note solider field is being torn down and the Bears are getting moved out to the suburbs
The reason why all those flyovers are done at NFL stadiums and oherwise is for the pilots of those planes to have practice hours.
Yes, I'm dead serious.
Those practice hours would be spent at air bases otherwise, and they would rather use their marketing budget to fly those cool looking and sounding planes over stadiums to get young people in the door to serve.
Nah mate I'm British but having a B2 flyover at a sports stadium would be epic are you kidding?
you'd have to borrow ours ;)
What’s dystopian is not being able to drink at your seat while at a game .
You can drink at your seat in most leagues, just not England. You can drink at Rugby ganes in UK.
It was with good reason (as was implementing segregated seating between fanbases). It's also slowly being reversed - they're trialling allowing drinking at your seat in the women's leagues soon
cool video to watch as a canadian urban planner (btw toronto’s stadia are actually in the downtown core). good research alfie!!!
I’m a NY Giants fan who lives in Brooklyn, it takes me about 1-2 hours to get to met life
I'm out in LI the drive home after an inevitable Giants loss is torture
In Seattle, Lumen Field is in the downtown area and very accessible via public transportation. But it is certainly an exception
28:11 - This is Memorial Stadium in Baltimore, MD. The Raiders never played there as a home stadium. You might have been looking for the Oakland Coliseum, where they actually were until after the 1981 season.
Good catch. I was wondering...(I'm from the Bay)
In the spirit of Ryuzaki
Day 20 of asking for an in-depth video on Bodø/Glimt, who just recently became champions for the 4th time in 5 years, and who only got promoted back to Eliteserien as recently as 2017
Furthermore, they now regularly compete in Europe, have kept their successful trainer Kjetil Knutsen, and are on course for a new modern stadium that will replace Aspmyra
It was my birthday a few days ago. Don't make me wait for my next birthday before you make this video 😢
Cheers 🇳🇴
Alfie, your anti-USA bias is showing
Tbf Anti-US bias is well deserved these days hahaha 'The Land of the Free to be conned and duped'
@@reyzahra he says on a us app.
Some Americans agree with him in the comments, though. But yes, definitely a European/British perspective on it. I'm sure Alfie would agree he is biased, as everyone is. Point is to just enjoy it and accept people think differently, while agreeing/disagreeing
My American mind can’t comprehend the enjoyment of population density. Every time I travel and visit “walkable” areas, I hate it. I definitely prefer the space of the USA. I love sports but I don’t want a stadium near my house.
Same. It’s a cultural difference most Europeans don’t seem to understand about the US.
Most of us don’t want to live all the time in high-density urban areas. I’m very happy living in the suburbs, even if it means driving quite a bit. Our infrastructure could certainly use some improvements, and I’m all for that, but we’ll always be a more individualistic and car-centered culture than in Europe. There’s no reversing the suburban boom of the 1950s at this point. We just have to manage its growth and connectivity better.
Any foreigners who visit Houston for the World Cup next year are gonna be in for a major shock if they don’t plan ahead. 😂 That’s a huge city that is extremely unwalkable. You simply have to have a car to get around.
@@michaelstein7510Exactly. Like I enjoy having a yard and not seeing stores or people going to work when I look out my window haha
Same here. I don’t mind visiting for a day or two but I hate it. Idk just so much commotion and tons of just noise.
definitely fun to hear different perspectives lol. It's not like I like population density either. I'd prefer a place with a smaller population too, as an European, and live outside a major city rather than in one. But I also commute everywhere via public transport, rarely by car, and everywhere is "walkable" if you want to.
also, having to drive by car is something I'd consider inconvenient. That's another difference. Having to drive anywhere feels like a chore. Sure, if you can't avoid it, by all means, do it. But I'd much rather walk to a nearby grocery store than have to drive or commute to it. It's the same with anything else that I want to access. It's interesting you guys find driving everywhere comfortable. Not judging, just find it to be a foreign concept
As an American football fan and an urban planner, this is the niche content I desire
agreed 😂😂😂
It’s crazy but during Covid in the states we weren’t told we had to stay in our houses and didn’t have cops guarding the asspaper in supermarkets.
we also aren't getting arrested for facebook posts
Taxpayers subsidize us football stadiums, but that doesn't give us a break on ticket prices, and the profit is all privatized. Say it with me: privatize the profits, socialize the losses
Great video. For non-americans out there, it was 100% spot on. Traffic and cars are a huge part of us professional sports experience almost everywhere
Our side of the pond, it's considered bad form to refer to a stadium by the brand name of its naming rights owner. It's better to call a stadium by it's geography (Foxborough), team name (Nationals Park), or the many quirky exceptions like a person's name or nicknames like Mile High, Arrowhead, or Candlestick Park.
For the sake of clarity for any non-americans reading, anyone in the replies insisting we actually do use brand names is trolling. It's sort of a big inside joke here.
It's also the case in Europe, so it makes. There's many teams who have "sponsored" stadium names but you don't use those, and instead use the ones that existed before that, at least if they are distinctive
Especially since the sponsors routinely change. PacBell Park I mean AT&T Park I mean Oracle Park I mean...
This is a banger of a video! I didn't expect to find a video combining my to biggest interests, transportation and sport, but I'm somehow not surprised that if anyone would do it, it would be you. One of the many reasons I'm subscribed
Alfie must have avoided mentioning the Astrodome Complex out of pity...
If sport is a reflection of society then why shouldn’t their stadiums reflect the material conditions of its people?
It's just economics. American football stadiums are huge because there are only eight or nine home games a season. There is a lot of demand for tickets and is why you rarely see empty seats. Its just less expensive to build in the suburbs. As a fan of the Packers, the restaurants and bars near the stadium are enormous to handle the crowds, but are barely full at all on non-game days.
Baseball stadiums are smaller, because there are 81 home games, and are usually built much closer to the city center. And these days, almost all new NBA and NHL arenas are build in the city center.
We NEED a colab with "Not just bikes". with a similar theme as this video ,it would be a top tier crossover
Bottom tier.
It's also worth noting that the league structure for the NFL is part of what allows stadiums to be located as far away from large urban areas as they are. The NFL season is only 17 games long plus a few playoff games if you're lucky, which makes the distance much more tolerable for fans, only having to make that daunting trip a few times a year if you can afford it. MLB (baseball) by contrast plays a brutal 162 game schedule over 6 months, which is why their stadiums resemble the European model more closely. Taking a 2 hour drive to watch baseball 162 times in 6 months would be an insane thing to ask even the most die hard fans to do.
Most of the suburban stadiums have the car parks not only because of car culture, but for the reason that cities were already built and land prices within cities are exorbitantly high, so building in a suburb reduces those costs. Unlike Europe, there’s large gaps between major cities in the US and pro teams are really regional (New England Patriots being the only one to really have that in-name). In the days of starting suburban stadia, it was seen as a plus to build next to major highways and build the infrastructure to suit the stadium and keep even worse traffic and overloading into the main city.
The better comparison between European Football stadiums is with American College Football. Don't think that's a step-down, not at all. The biggest stadiums in the USA are all college football (the University of Tennessee, Michigan, Ohio State, Alabama, Texas, Texas A&M and many more, dwarf almost all NFL stadiums).
My university is the University of Oregon, and it's short walk from campus thru a small woods and over the Willamette River to a very nice, beautiful stadium, Autzen Stadium.
As someone from North America (Canada specifically), I find it so refreshing to hear about stadium placement from a European point of view.
Although, being from Montréal, all our stadiums are in the city and easily accessible by public transport which kind of gives me both point of views.
Love the more than footy content. I'm really happy that proper urban systems thinking has reached more popular spheres. Long time follower, just wanted to share some appreciation. (Architect academically interested in urban studies)
Tailgates are a perfect example of American individualism vs itself. We don’t have bars and restaurants near our stadiums because of the need to sustain a culture built around individual car ownership over public transport, so we simply bring the equipment to make our own bars and restaurants to the stadium and have a good time anyway. Then a Bills fan breaks a plastic table by falling through it and we all have a good laugh watching it the next day.
I don’t think bills fans are laughing right now
@ Unfortunately none of us are. Plastic table stocks are in shambles.
It’s like the best of both worlds. I like having a yard and living in a somewhat low density environment but on the weekends, I can hang out with people on the one day I want to be social lol
@@adcole09 tailgating as a practice is also a lovely way to ensure that our streets and highways get a sudden rush of thousands of drunk drivers, usually well after dark. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had fun at tailgates. I even once ate thanksgiving dinner at a tailgate. But god what a ridiculous practice
@@StaySqueezy12 this is the exact attitude that has led to suburban sprawl engulfing rural areas across the country, building sprawling towns that cost multiple times more money and physical resources to maintain than denser areas. I’ve spent the majority of my life living in sprawling American suburbs, and it strikes me that most people who “like” that experience are the victims of Stockholm Syndrome
Excellent video Mr Sevens!
I went to see union berlin play and you walk to the stadium from the train through a forest, we even seen a swans nest with eggs in it with a little cardboard sign stuck onna tree asking people not to touch it, was a really nice walk and then at the ground was very easy to get food and beer and the atmosphere was amazing, those american stadiums look like hell on earth
As an American it’s embarrassing we re-elected trump, but unrelated, we use cars to get most places and it’s easiest to have a huge parking lot right outside the stadium
Someone needs to help America discover public transportation
It’s seen as too commie for most states
American cities are too spread out.
@@georgehenan853STOP. If I hear that size excuse one more time I’m gonna lose it. Stop using that excuse
It’s considered “woke” so that’ll never happen 😊
@georgehenan853 and China's aren't? China is a similar size to the US and has public transport linking its most far flung cities. So does Russia actually
I have never heard a person be so warm and so cold at the exact same time
it's called "being British"
Africa is always ignored on these conversations of cultural or geographic differences between America, Europe, Asia or Australia. That’s a significant part pf the world you know Alfie🤔
It’s because Europeans don’t know it exists. lol
@@nollienick1121 more like Americans. We actually know geography
@@maciejbala477 do you? Israel is in European competitions.
RFK stadium was in Washington DC, Candlestick Park was in San francisco, presumably for financial reasons when the new stadiums were built they moved away from their city centre base
The total destruction of American cities in the US in favor of the private automobile was one of the worst decisions of domestic policy in the history of the country. Obviously not THE worst, but it's definitely a top 5. Our stadiums are only a small reflection of it
Usually love all your videos but you seemed bitter in the intro? Not a good look to be hating on American sports lol
nobody lives in the city centers in the usa anymore.
Forgot to mention that Miami's Hard Rock Stadium also went massive renovations recently (despite being opened four decades ago).