Soccer in Nashville

[MLBrumby]

Seems like a bland nickname to me. Is there a King City somewhere? 

[MidTenn1]

14 hours ago, MLBrumby said:

Seems like a bland nickname to me. Is there a King City somewhere? 

Oh yeah...….KINGston Springs!! I am officially naming it the King City of the Harpeth. Catchy, huh?

[PruneTracy]

Sources: Chicago Fire mull name change, return to Soldier Field

[DMilner]

https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2019/04/09/fairgrounds-racetrack-operator-breached-contract/3405543002/

Appears the racetrack operators should’ve kept quiet. 

[nashvylle]

I really want all the uses at the fairgrounds to succeed 

[PaulChinetti]

Didn't they not pay last year also? I swear I remember reading almost exactly the same article. 

Seems like they want everyone to give them a hand when they can't even do the bare minimum for their contracts. 

[titanhog]

4 minutes ago, PaulChinetti said:

Didn't they not pay last year also? I swear I remember reading almost exactly the same article. 

Seems like they want everyone to give them a hand when they can't even do the bare minimum for their contracts. 

And didn't the city just give them the contract to keep running the track OVER the group out of Bristol who actually know how to run a track and actually have NASCAR connections?

[volsfanwill]

Sthe state of NASCAR in general is not great right now. This past Sunday Bristol had over 120,000 empty seats for the spring race. Here is an article about it. 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/davecaldwell/2019/04/08/nascars-dented-image-absorbs-yet-another-big-hit/amp/

[PruneTracy]

3 minutes ago, volsfanwill said:

Sthe state of NASCAR in general is not great right now. This past Sunday Bristol had over 120,000 empty seats for the spring race. Here is an article about it. 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/davecaldwell/2019/04/08/nascars-dented-image-absorbs-yet-another-big-hit/amp/

The problem I think is the same as in most other pro sports: no one cares about the regular seats anymore. I can tell you from experience that drinking in the RV lot is a million times more enjoyable than getting sunburned on the metal bleachers. Something unfortunately not easily fixed at Bristol, unless SMI wants to add a ton more luxury boxes and party decks.

There's still a hundred ways to fix NASCAR though and eighty of them involve MOAR DIRT

[Tennessine]

5 minutes ago, volsfanwill said:

The state of NASCAR in general is not great right now. This past Sunday Bristol had over 120,000 empty seats for the spring race.

I'm glad more Americans are figuring out that cars driving around a track is not a real sport 

[PaulChinetti]

A lot of work done as of late, one building almost completely closed in, halfway through the roof on the second big building. The between building getting finished. This other long skinny building in the corner, I'm not sure what it is going to be maybe stables or something?

[nashvylle]

I can't help but wonder why we couldn't put the flea market somewhere like 100 Oaks Mall. 

[Bos2Nash]

Many spectator sports have seen a downturn in event attendance. With more and more options available for viewing and sport packages, its much nicer to not spend the money on an event and have better views of said event. While I disagree with many of the changes Nascar has made over the years, from a revenue standpoint they have not seen a down turn in their revenue streams so they are not hitting the panic button yet. I think they have been trying many different things to change the whole model of the sport including how they will pursue the next title sponsor to the sport (Monster Energy is only through the end of this year). The state of Nascar isn't sad, its more in a state of flux. 

[donNdonelson2]

3 hours ago, nashvylle said:

I can't help but wonder why we couldn't put the flea market somewhere like 100 Oaks Mall. 

100 Oaks is now full of Vanderbilt Medical Center Clinics! Has been for ten years or so.

[nashvylle]

10 hours ago, donNdonelson2 said:

100 Oaks is now full of Vanderbilt Medical Center Clinics! Has been for ten years or so.

yes I know, and that's great, but I wish some of that parking was used for this flea market. 

[smeagolsfree]

Have you ever tried to find a parking space there for a doctors appointment? Its pretty full most of the time, and Vanderbilt probably would not allow it on the weekends as there would be too much set up involved prior.

[Jamie Hall]

19 hours ago, volsfanwill said:

Sthe state of NASCAR in general is not great right now. This past Sunday Bristol had over 120,000 empty seats for the spring race. Here is an article about it. 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/davecaldwell/2019/04/08/nascars-dented-image-absorbs-yet-another-big-hit/amp/

2

Actually, it would seem this bodes well for smaller tracks like Nashville, where there's not a need to try and sell 120,000 tickets -- or even 50,000. During the NASCAR televised coverage Sunday, there was a conversation about  Nashville as a potential pickup for the Cup series (which surprised me) in the coming years, and they mentioned that the Bristol ownership group plans to keep working with Metro as long as there's hope for a deal. It's no secret that NASCAR is headed for some big, much-needed changes in a couple of years, including with scheduling, and there's a lot of speculation that they'll turn back toward some of the smaller tracks, and Nashville seems to be in the thick of it. Obviously the biggest obstacle here is figuring out how to finance the upgrades to the track.

[PruneTracy]

21 minutes ago, Jamie Hall said:

Actually, it would seem this bodes well for smaller tracks like Nashville, where there's not a need to try and sell 120,000 tickets -- or even 50,000. During the NASCAR televised coverage Sunday, there was a conversation about  Nashville as a potential pickup for the Cup series (which surprised me) in the coming years, and they mentioned that the Bristol ownership group plans to keep working with Metro as long as there's hope for a deal. It's no secret that NASCAR is headed for some big, much-needed changes in a couple of years, including with scheduling, and there's a lot of speculation that they'll turn back toward some of the smaller tracks, and Nashville seems to be in the thick of it. Obviously the biggest obstacle here is figuring out how to finance the upgrades to the track.

The problem with the Fairgrounds Speedway is that the track layout itself (low-banked half-mile) is unremarkable. The Superspeedway in all of its cookie-cutter badness at least has a concrete surface that throws a metaphorical wrench in the car setups. Arguably much of NASCAR's decline in the past decade comes from overscheduling cookie-cutters, well that's not going to change if they go from a dozen races at 1.5-mile D-shaped ovals to a dozen races at half-mile ovals. The locals will enjoy it, just like they enjoy it at local races, but to the TV crowd it's just a replay of last week's race. Short-track excitement can only take you so far and part of the reason they remain the more popular races in the current schedule is that there are only a few of them.

(Now if the Fairgrounds Speedway went back to the 60s-era 35-degree banking, that might be different)

I think ultimately NASCAR is going to have to move to more varied tracks and locales. Part of that means experimenting with new tracks and reconfigurations of existing tracks (or DIIIIRRRRRTTTTT). But in Nashville's case, where you have an opportunity to take advantage of a very popular destination, you could do something that has never been done at the Cup level.

(Hey, if we can cut down cherry trees for a draft, we can manage this)

[PaulChinetti]

I can remember watching Nascar with my Grandpa back in the day and the most interesting tracks to me where always the road courses. Watkins Glen, I think was one. 

[nashvylle]

um... this image looks awesome. Not sure if it's legit, but does have Populous at the bottom....

https://nascar2nashville.com/?fbclid=IwAR0TE-eoixNZ0qMvbcV1wqCCJAFYTYBHapq8CqnIxOIKPNhFl8rOzU9LD-c

Edited April 10, 2019 by nashvylle

[PaulChinetti]

Hot damn, I would be all about that. That looks awesome!

[MLBrumby]

Looks great. No doubt a price tag of MILLIONS that Formosa does not have. How much would they be on hook for?  And of course, the 'anti anti anti' crowd would be against it too.

So is that close to the final design of the soccer stadium?  And are those residential buildings already 'green lighted'? 

[nashvylle]

1 minute ago, MLBrumby said:

So is that close to the final design of the soccer stadium?  And are those residential buildings already 'green lighted'? 

No idea. The guy who is leading the lawsuit against the MLS stadium is the one who posted this petition on facebook, and I have no idea where he got this image. Perhaps from Fermosa has it and gave it to him.

 

[PaulChinetti]

12 minutes ago, MLBrumby said:

So is that close to the final design of the soccer stadium?  And are those residential buildings already 'green lighted'? 

Surely non of the design for any of those things are done yet, since we are still so far off from ground breaking. 

[nashvylle]

2 minutes ago, PaulChinetti said:

Surely non of the design for any of those things are done yet, since we are still so far off from ground breaking. 

they are schematic I'm sure.