Toronto BMO Field Renovations | ?m | ?s | MLSE | Gensler

Automation Gallery said:
They did have the opportunity years ago to grab Varsity or Lamport and reno them, but now where is the cash to build one.
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Toronto is definitely a problem area for professional football and seems hopelessly out of touch with the rest of the nation. Every region of the country seems to be on the verge of building bigger and better football stadia. Toronto remains a football 'Siberia'.

Shockingly, it may end up being the rest of Canada having to prop up football in the nation's biggest city. The 25,000 die hards aside, I hope Torontonians get serious about contributing to this nation's sporting culture instead of continually looking south. It's gotten beyond ridiculous.

The continent's oldest professional football team deserves a proper home.
 
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Toronto deserves props for being a football "Siberia". I don't need an excuse to overindulge on junk food and beer. The Argonauts should of stuck with Rugby.
 
maestro said:
Toronto deserves props for being a football "Siberia". I don't need an excuse to overindulge on junk food and beer. The Argonauts should of stuck with Rugby.
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^HUH? If you don't want to go to a football game thats fine, but last time I went to a argo game I don't remember being force fed beer and junk food...

Also to my knowledge the Argos never played rugby, the team was started by the Toronto Argonaut Rowing Club in 1873(?) hence the nick name boatmen, but I don't recall every hearing the football team played rugby
 
Rugby and football weren't separate sports at that time. The split happened gradually starting in the 1860s. Both sports have the same roots as soccer and Aussie rules football.
 
Aussie rules.....man, I had plans for this week-end but now I'm seriously resisting the urge to go chill at my buddy's place and watch Aussie rules on Setanta at 3am

that's if their season's on right now...I don't know much about it except that it must be one of the most interesting sports I've ever accidentally come across all bleary-eyed and drunk on gin at 4am.
 
maestro said:
Toronto deserves props for being a football "Siberia".
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How is abandoning an integral part of this nation's sporting heritage an accomplishment to be celebrated? If Toronto one day abandoned hockey, should we give Toronto props for that too?
 
They could just as easily add the new signage above a wider section of seats and the group sales suites all the way across, but above or below the stands. The way they have them divided left-middle-right doesn't look so great IMO.

I'd rather see 12 rows that go all the way across, than 17 rows that form this skinny section of stands. Not a fan.

I would have done the 10~15 rows of seats all the way across with group suites up above, then retain some sort of beer garden up there also, right under the scoreboard.
 
Marko said:
They could just as easily add the new signage above a wider section of seats and the group sales suites all the way across, but above or below the stands. The way they have them divided left-middle-right doesn't look so great IMO.

I'd rather see 12 rows that go all the way across, than 17 rows that form this skinny section of stands. Not a fan.

I would have done the 10~15 rows of seats all the way across with group suites up above, then retain some sort of beer garden up there also, right under the scoreboard.
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Maybe but they are fitting these seats in where they can. It is not like they have a blank slate to work with. The group sales suites and the beer garden are in place realities that are already built and paid for. The challenge here was to add seats at as low a cost as possible.....the cost had to be kept low for the reason that they did not want to go back to the city (as owners of the stadium) and ask them to pay for (or contribute to) the expansion. At $2mil, I guess, MLSE can justify just footing the bill for this on their own....even though the city ends up owning it.

So, they are left filling in the gap between the group suites....and it kinda works.
 
EnviroTO said:
They should re-orient those screens rather than accepting that new seats will have obstructed views.
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But, again, the screens are there....fixed in place and there to face the 20,000 original seats.....any changes to the screens would change the cost of this minor expansion and might put the expansion at risk or, alternatively, force MLSE to ask the city to anti up....which would, in turn, put the expansion at risk......if those seats have an awful view/proximity of/to the screens people can elect not to buy the seats.
 
isaidso said:
Toronto is definitely a problem area for professional football and seems hopelessly out of touch with the rest of the nation. Every region of the country seems to be on the verge of building bigger and better football stadia. Toronto remains a football 'Siberia'.

Shockingly, it may end up being the rest of Canada having to prop up football in the nation's biggest city. The 25,000 die hards aside, I hope Torontonians get serious about contributing to this nation's sporting culture instead of continually looking south. It's gotten beyond ridiculous.

The continent's oldest professional football team deserves a proper home.
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That's a relevant point, but football aside, Toronto is well connected with basketball, a sport invented by a Canadian. Where are Vancouver, Montreal, and Calgary's NBA teams? Also, look at Toronto FC, a brilliant connection of Toronto into part of the multicultural Canadian nation's sporting culture.
 
TOareaFan said:
But, again, the screens are there....fixed in place and there to face the 20,000 original seats.....any changes to the screens would change the cost of this minor expansion and might put the expansion at risk
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How expensive can moving two small signs be? They only need to be moved back about 25 feet. Surely the cost of four metal columns to support those small signs pales in comparison to the cost of adding all those seats.
 
EnviroTO said:
How expensive can moving two small signs be? They only need to be moved back about 25 feet. Surely the cost of four metal columns to support those small signs pales in comparison to the cost of adding all those seats.
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Not sure what the cost would be but things they would have to consider is that it is an added cost to the cost of the seats (not an "instead of" cost) so it increases the total cost of the project and no one (not you not I) can know what was/is MLSE's maximum investment they wanted to make into what is, essentially, someone else's stadium. Also, moving them back may impair the visibility of the screens to the 20k people that they were intended to be seen by in the first place....if it did, then it would impair the revenue generation ability of the ads on those screens.

They are squeezing seats into a small opening in the stadium.....like anyone else that does a reno they are trying to get the most buck out the least investment......I am pretty sure they would have looked at and considered many options and this is, obviously, the one they settled on. Like I said, if no one wants to sit in the seats because they can't see those boards...they don't have to.
 
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