Toronto Rogers Centre Renovations | ?m | ?s | Toronto Blue Jays | Populous

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The globe sports section mentioned of plan to do a 'major overhaul' of the Rogers Centre. No details. But it would be good if improvement to the exterior could be considered since its the important terminus view along Bremer.
 
It's in relation to the new President being announced today for the Jays. They are rumoured to have secured Mark Shapiro who was the driving force behind the Indian's stadium renovation.

85


"We're really adapting the building to the current sports landscape and the size of the market," Shapiro said.

The plans include:

  • Capping off a section of the upper deck, which sits empty on all but the busiest days, with a platform that will conceal unused seats and create new game-viewing areas.
  • Remaking the Gate C entrance off East Ninth Street by pulling out concrete and opening up views of the ballpark from the street. The gate makeover will eliminate a pavilion and a bar, but the Indians plan to build a two-story, indoor-outdoor bar in right field. To open up the gate, the Indians will move the Bob Feller and Jim Thome statues to another site in the Gate C area. Shapiro said the team also plans to add a statue of Larry Doby, who was the first black player in the American League.
  • Moving the bullpens up into the seating area in center field to give fans a better view of the players during warm-ups. This shift will create a section of exclusive seats in front of the new bullpens and will open up the existing bullpen space to fans who want to stand closer to the field.
  • Expanding the Kids Clubhouse, which opened in 2012, to two levels and renovating the mezzanine. The expansion will eliminate 16 or so suites, continuing the team's ongoing efforts to replace higher-priced, poorly used private areas with spaces that all ticketholders can access. After the renovations, the ballpark still will have upwards of 80 suites - far more than the Indians can fill, and more than many other parks offer.
  • Incorporating five neighborhood-themed areas with food from Ohio City, Tremont and other popular areas of the city.
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http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2014/08/cleveland_indians_detail_multi.html
 
Oh, and all the improvements were paid for by the private sector. If he can pull off the same here, expect many photo ops with politicians taking credit for saving taxpayer dollars :p
 
Tuscani01 said:
Oh, and all the improvements were paid for by the private sector. If he can pull off the same here, expect many photo ops with politicians taking credit for saving taxpayer dollars :p
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Well with the games going the way they are, I am sure more of an economic case can be made for it than previous years.

AoD
 
And much of the same will be on his plate for 2016, the Jays’ 40th anniversary season, with $250-$400 million Cdn budgeted for upgrades.
The monies are earmarked for roof improvement, suites upgrades, fixing the exterior of Rogers Centre, exploring the ability to have real grass grow inside the dome, concourse improvements, new seats, renovating the now-dormant Hard Rock Cafe, and erecting a statue of Jays Hall of Famer Robbie Alomar outside the building.
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I would be happy if they just did the following:

- replace statue of Ted Rogers with Alomar (or another prominent Jay). Ted should be up at Rogers HQ.
- bathrooms, for the love of God and all things holy, renovate the bathrooms. Urinal dividers, please. Or at least space out the damn urinals so that I'm not getting sprayback from the guys beside me.
- change the name to "Rogers Skydome". "Centre" is so generic, boring, and everyone calls it the Dome anyway. Use the accepted and well-regarded existing branding. Jesus, it ain't rocket science, but the big dogs always need to spray their scent on everything.
 
NorthYorkEd said:
I would be happy if they just did the following:

- replace statue of Ted Rogers with Alomar (or another prominent Jay). Ted should be up at Rogers HQ.
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Funny, I was thinking about this today too. I noticed Rogers has installed a base for something at the corner of Isabella and Jarvis. Looks like either a sign, statue, or some form of public are will be going up shortly.
 
This Toronto Sun article is interesting, as it's about Mark Shapiro, there are some details about SkyDome near the end of the article:

"And much of the same will be on his plate for 2016, the Jays’ 40th anniversary season, with $250-$400 million Cdn budgeted for upgrades.

"The monies are earmarked for roof improvement, suites upgrades, fixing the exterior of Rogers Centre, exploring the ability to have real grass grow inside the dome, concourse improvements, new seats, renovating the now-dormant Hard Rock Cafe, and erecting a statue of Jays Hall of Famer Robbie Alomar outside the building.

Right now, Rogers Centre has a statue the late Ted Rogers, former owner of the team, outside its gate but zero of those who played on the artificial turf inside."
​
My idea: have the spitting Robbie Alomar (complete with water feature) stand right in front of the Ted statue.

And Rogers would never allow it to be called "R----s SkyDome" - the whole idea of calling it a generic "Centre" was to force everybody to use the corporate name. Otherwise people would call it "the Dome" or "SkyDome" without mouthing R----s.
 
ShonTron said:
And Rogers would never allow it to be called "R----s SkyDome" - the whole idea of calling it a generic "Centre" was to force everybody to use the corporate name. Otherwise people would call it "the Dome" or "SkyDome" without mouthing R----s.
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That's a shitty excuse. It's still called "the dome" by everyone to this day. Scotiabank kept "Saddledome" in it's renaming of Calgary's arena, and it gets just as much exposure from that move as Rogers does with Rogers Centre. Keeping Dome in the name would've been the smartest move if Rogers actually wanted people to refer to it's own branding of the building.

If their goal was getting their name out there, using a name that not many people are willing to use in everyday speech isn't the right way to go about it. Rogers Centre sounds like it can be any building, and some people do confuse it with the Air Canada Centre. Rogers Dome can't be confused for anything else but the dome.
 
They are also looking at the possibility of a dirt infield before they can have real grass, according to Stephen Brooks, Blue Jays SVP.

Side note, I do think Rogers SkyDome sounds better than Rogers Dome.
 
G.L.17 said:
They are also looking at the possibility of a dirt infield before they can have real grass, according to Stephen Brooks, Blue Jays SVP.

Side note, I do think Rogers SkyDome sounds better than Rogers Dome.
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Well, dirt infield is easy to do once the Argos move out. It doesn't need to support any living matter. (no irrigation, special drainage, lighting etc)
 
Tuscani01 said:
That's a shitty excuse. It's still called "the dome" by everyone to this day. Scotiabank kept "Saddledome" in it's renaming of Calgary's arena, and it gets just as much exposure from that move as Rogers does with Rogers Centre. Keeping Dome in the name would've been the smartest move if Rogers actually wanted people to refer to it's own branding of the building.

If their goal was getting their name out there, using a name that not many people are willing to use in everyday speech isn't the right way to go about it. Rogers Centre sounds like it can be any building, and some people do confuse it with the Air Canada Centre. Rogers Dome can't be confused for anything else but the dome.
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It might be shitty, but that's reality. Saddledome is one of a few exceptions, and although financial details were never released back in 2010 when Scotiabank scooped up the naming rights, it was widely believed that the bank paid less for the rights than they would have had it been named Scotiabank Arena or something like that (it helped that the arena in Ottawa, at one time the Palladium, was already at that time Scotiabank Place). At least in Calgary, the municipality owns the arena, and so there is a public owner presumably interested in preserving the Saddledome Olympic legacy. In Toronto, Rogers is owner, operator and naming-rights holder.

While I still call it SkyDome (and hate that it was renamed), it is called Rogers Centre in the media all day, every day. Most people I know call it Rogers Centre - much to my dismay. That's what Rogers paid for (given they bought the place in a fire sale, they didn't have to pay much). No guarantee of the same exposure if it had been called Rogers SkyDome (or Rogers Dome, although frankly I don't think Rogers Dome is all that much better than Rogers Centre). From Rogers' perspective, they did the smart move. As far as I am concerned, they took the lazy route (they might have gotten a lot of goodwill had they kept the SkyDome name, although not sure how long that would have lasted), but I'm not sure how anyone can deny it was the safe, smart choice from a marketing perspective.

Yes, Rogers Centre could be anywhere (as could Rogers Place in Edmonton or Rogers Arena in Vancouver). As far as Rogers is concerned, that isn't the point. The point is that the name Rogers is being said umpteen millions of time a month. Welcome to major sports facility economics in North America. Yuck.

And who confuses Rogers Centre for Air Canada Centre? If they have that problem, calling the place Rogers Dome won't help them.

Albeit next time the City of Toronto or Province of Ontario give any incentives whatsoever for a major sports facility, they should secure a veto over naming rights.
 
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ShonTron said:
This Toronto Sun article is interesting, as it's about Mark Shapiro, there are some details about SkyDome near the end of the article:

"And much of the same will be on his plate for 2016, the Jays’ 40th anniversary season, with $250-$400 million Cdn budgeted for upgrades.

"The monies are earmarked for roof improvement, suites upgrades, fixing the exterior of Rogers Centre, exploring the ability to have real grass grow inside the dome, concourse improvements, new seats, renovating the now-dormant Hard Rock Cafe, and erecting a statue of Jays Hall of Famer Robbie Alomar outside the building.

Right now, Rogers Centre has a statue the late Ted Rogers, former owner of the team, outside its gate but zero of those who played on the artificial turf inside."
​
My idea: have the spitting Robbie Alomar (complete with water feature) stand right in front of the Ted statue.

And Rogers would never allow it to be called "R----s SkyDome" - the whole idea of calling it a generic "Centre" was to force everybody to use the corporate name. Otherwise people would call it "the Dome" or "SkyDome" without mouthing R----s.
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LOL, I was going to mention that the statue of Alomar should depict him spitting in that umpire's face. I was at that game and didn't realize he did that until I was driving home with my dad, listening to the post game show on the radio. Alomar was a great player, but I've always felt he is a jerk, and the spitting incident proved that. I heard a rumour, years ago, that when he played for the Jays, he would invite his dates over to his place (which I believe was in the SkyDome Hotel) and they would watch highlight reels of him. Anyway, I'd much rather see a statue of Joe Carter. Has there ever been a more loved and classy player in franchise history than him? The statue could have him jumping (as he did after his walk off home run in Game 6 of the 1993 World Series) over one of our standard cracked, asphalt patched sidewalks, somewhere near the Dome. That home run is the most notorious moment in the team's history. This image would be perfect in statue form:
Joe-Carter-s-World-Series-homer-toronto-blue-jays-8858791-666-800.jpg
 
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Skeezix said:
And who confuses Rogers Centre for Air Canada Centre? If they have that problem, calling the place Rogers Dome won't help them.
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Happens way more than you'd expect. They are both companies that rely heavily on red for branding. It's easy to confuse the two. I remember Olivia Chow being late to a meeting once because she went to the wrong place, after being told it was at the Rogers Centre.

Just looking at Twitter metrics for one comparison, Rogers Centre has been used 216 times since August 24th vs. Skydome which has been used 682 times. Clearly Skydome is still the preferred name. That's 3 times as many people calling it by its old name than the new name, and those tweets have had nearly 3 million impressions vs. under 800,000 impressions for Rogers Centre.

Scotiabank Saddledome has been mentioned 200 times on twitter during the same time period, whereas Saddledome on its own (removing all tweets with Scotiabank included) has only been mentioned 123 times.

Keeping SkyDome in the name, or even simply dome would have likely lead to way more people using their handle than the old name. Even the media refers to it as 'the dome' quite often. I guarantee "The Rogers Dome" or "Rogers Skydome" would have given them way more exposure than the current name, and judging by Scotiabank's success with Saddledome, I wouldn't be surprised if Rogers ended up with more exposure too had they kept the original name.
 
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