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New Stadium / Arena?

I'm confident a professional soccer (football) team, in the CPL (which I think is a more realistic option), can succeed here given it has strong ownership and a purpose built soccer stadium to play in, with an 8-12k seating capacity that can be expanded in the future should we eventually get an MLS team. We're a city with fairly diverse GMA population of 1.3ish million, of which many prefer soccer over other sports to watch and participate in. No reason why we can't support at least a CPL team
 
To strengthen your point, I’m pretty sure the latest numbers have Edmonton CMA at 1.631 Million for 2024. No doubt we could support a CPL team but Im not sure anyone is gonna build that size of a stadium.

My dream is for Alphonso Davies to bring a team here. MLS would be perfect but likely wouldn’t even be possible until he retires. I know it’s probably never happening but don’t kill my dreams!
 
The MLS is aggressively trying to expand, but they have at least a half dozen markets in the US they are very interested in. Edmonton is far enough down the priority list of MLS that it's a near zero chance we would get a team any time soon. On the CPL side of things, Winnipeg recently lost their team because they couldn't make it work playing in a CFL sized stadium. So for Edmonton to get a professional soccer team it would need a new stadium of probably max 10k capacity.
 
We've tried soccer here numerous times...maybe the demographics have changed since our last team but I just don't see a soccer team doing well here.

Hoping to be proven wrong but our track record here speaks otherwise.
 
The Trappers were VERY popular and them leaving was the doing of MLB and the Eskimos franchise.

The teams since have been unaffiliated to any major league baseball teams, which took away some of the luster.

The Riverhawks are marketed correctly and it's the cool thing to do. I hope that continues.

And like I said, I hope soccer does well here but the track record doesn't show it will.
 
_urbanite said:
We're a city with fairly diverse GMA population of 1.3ish million, of which many prefer soccer over other sports to watch and participate in. No reason why we can't support at least a CPL team
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I'm assuming you refer to the immigrant population. The problem with supporting a CPL team is that this population prefers to watch top tier soccer only (ie premier league like myself) and/or their home team from 'back home'.

Without a doubt though, the potential is there. I think the best way to attract fans is to have a youth academy as part of any CPL team in the city. Families may be more excited when there is potential for their kids to maybe play, and it will produce homegrown talent that fans can also get behind.
 
Given that MLS is going to a July - May schedule, I think there is even less of a chance of a team ever coming here. They are already making some accommodations for Toronto from what I understand (longer road trips before/after the winter break), it would be even worse for a Edmonton team.

Ideally we would get a stadium better suited for soccer and a CPL team.
 
IMO, MLS is a no go right now, esp with the new sched change. Part of the reason soccer didn't do well here was because Clark Stadium was/is/may never be a good venue for pro sports. They really should try and bring a CPL team here though.

But I really don't think we need a new stadium, but more so a complete rethink of Commonwealth (45k capacity, retractable or closed roof, better suite and higher end options, better concourses, better people moving, enhanced link to transit, better parking, better loading areas). Massive site for an urban stadium, lots of creative potential. Need year round activation, not 20-40 nights a year for such a large piece of infrastructure.
 
BrettB said:
While there are definite advantages of a roof, it cost the BC government more than $500 million to replace the roof at BC Place, and that's a stadium built to accommodate a roof. Not sure Edmonton taxpayers would want to foot that bill.
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It would probably be cheaper to build a new stadium for 25-40k people with a roof (I feel like, something more like Toronto has would probably be better long term) than refurbish the Commonwealth.
 
BrettB said:
While there are definite advantages of a roof, it cost the BC government more than $500 million to replace the roof at BC Place, and that's a stadium built to accommodate a roof. Not sure Edmonton taxpayers would want to foot that bill.
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I agree and I think that's probably why its a non-starter here, but i think that entire reno cost 500 million which upgraded multiple areas of the building, and that roof structure was a lot more complex than what Commonwealth needs. The longer we wait, the less we will get for they money we will need to spend. BC Place is a destination venue in BC, similar to what Commonwealth is (maybe not to that level) in AB. The closed roof provides a lot more activation potential for tours etc throughout the year.
 
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