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

SubHuman said:
I heard John Tory on radio say he was at the Canada/Ecuador game last night and he noted that the northern gates now being shut off had huge line-ups to enter the stadium at the other gates.
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They were better than the Shield matches in the summer. Not surprising Tory would try to peddle this.
SubHuman said:
There has been MLS Cup games (2016 and 2017) at BMO Field in December, and CONCACAF Champions league games in late February, but they probably would want to avoid them as much as possible.
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MLS Cup matches won't struggle to sell tickets regardless of weather. CCC matches will be moved to the summer now that MLS has opened its schedule, unless they plan on blocking CCC with Leagues Cup.
SubHuman said:
TFC used Rogers Centre three times in 2012-13, no longer possible with field level seating in permanent baseball configuration.
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I agree that the seating makes it unlikely but, genuine question: is it impossible? I haven't done any measuring. These teams have the same owner now - TFC at Skydome wouldn't shock me if it's ever possible.
SubHuman said:
There was a Canada/USA World Cup qualifying match in Hamilton on a Sunday afternoon in January 2022, I think because it wasn't practical to get the grass at BMO Field ready.
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Correct, it's also why CMNT played at Commonwealth. Natural grass, even heated, can't be guaranteed to be in good shape in the winter. Pitch this week after snowfall was in near perfect condition but that's not the norm for deeper winter. Helps when it's above freezing for the days leading up.
 
ericmacm said:
IMO I think with this change, it might be time to start planning for something a little more enclosed in Toronto. BMO Field has a lot of character, but its open design is going to be a big vulnerability with this change. A larger version of Allianz Field in Minneapolis seems like it would strike that perfect balance on cost and providing more of a complete enclosure on the sides without going all the way for something fully enclosed like BC Place or Stade Olympique. Other northern teams like Chicago Fire and the Columbus Crew either have or are planning open-roof enclosed stadiums as well.
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Thank you. Honestly. I am glad someone finally said the obvious part out loud, because I am losing my mind reading the takes in here.

“They can just play at SkyDome!”
No. They can’t. They couldn’t even before the baseball specific renovations. The sightlines were garbage, the field was a shoebox, and half the seats might as well have faced Mississauga. Now it is even worse. How is this still a suggestion anyone says with a straight face?

“They can just play part of the season on the road for six weeks!”
Why? Why would any serious league treat its teams like that? That is not a solution and losing home field advantage for a chunk of the season doesn’t help anyone.

And meanwhile TFC already has a “soccer specific stadium”. A stadium that looks like it was assembled from the clearance section of IKEA. I am not talking about the pitch. I am talking about the stands. The north stand does not even exist. It is 2025 and there is still a giant open gap like someone forgot to finish the stadium. The south stand looks like something out of a high school football field, all bare metal and temporary vibes, completely embarrassing on TV. The west stand looks bizarre with the roof. It does not connect visually to anything else and feels like it was bolted on from a completely different stadium.

Nothing feels cohesive. It is just a patchwork of mismatched renovations taped together over fifteen years! And now with MLS switching to a winter season we are supposed to just accept this half finished wind tunnel of a stadium forever?

Why is everyone in this city allergic to the idea of having a proper, fully enclosed, winter proof soccer stadium? Why is the default reaction always “let’s inconvenience the team” instead of “maybe we should fix the obvious problem”?

If Toronto doesn’t want to do it, sell the damn thing….the market and the demand is there. So stop pretending the solution is SkyDome or endless road trips. Fix the actual stadium. Finish it. Winterise it. Make it look like it belongs in a major league city instead of something that came flat packed with an Allen key.

Nobody is asking for a 100,000 seat stadium….but FFS, make it make sense.
 
Since it opened in 2007, I've been at BMO Field several times during November, December, and March, and never once while sitting there watching a game had a thought along the lines of "they really need to fill in those corner parts of the stadium".
Somehow I doubt supposedly blocking the wind would make any difference to anyone --
except the small number of people here very strangely obsessed with hating BMO Field because it has 'gaps', or Rogers Centre because it doesn't have similar gaps.
I've never heard of anyone pulling their hair out over the 'gap' at one end of Gillette Stadium.

Mihairokov said:
I agree that the seating makes it unlikely but, genuine question: is it impossible?..
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I don't know if even a small, Yankee Stadium-like arrangement would fit, but also having to change or cover the base paths with some kind of new and temporary artificial turf set-up would almost certainly be too expensive and complicated for the limited number of times it would get used.
 
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SubHuman said:
Somehow I doubt supposedly blocking the wind would make any difference to anyone --
except the small number of people here very strangely obsessed with hating BMO Field because it has 'gaps'
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Since I brought it up last page, I’ll restate that I am happy with the current appearance and fan experience at BMO.

There are definitely some match days with dreadful weather (I was at the March 29th match vs. Vancouver, 0° freezing rain and strong wind gusts) but lack of attendance is less to do with weather, more so quality of play.
 
Saw this evening on Bluesky

IMG_0318.jpeg
 
6ixGod said:
Why is everyone in this city allergic to the idea of having a proper, fully enclosed, winter proof soccer stadium? Why is the default reaction always “let’s inconvenience the team” instead of “maybe we should fix the obvious problem”?

If Toronto doesn’t want to do it, sell the damn thing….the market and the demand is there. So stop pretending the solution is SkyDome or endless road trips. Fix the actual stadium. Finish it. Winterise it. Make it look like it belongs in a major league city instead of something that came flat packed with an Allen key.

Nobody is asking for a 100,000 seat stadium….but FFS, make it make sense.
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I saw the Canada-Jamaica world cup qualifying game like 3 years ago - sat in the upper East stands, way towards the south side. Wind blowing off the lake. Agreed that it can get absurdly cold. At the same time, the fact that you can see directly south is part of the appeal of the stadium, so I'm not sure how you circle that square.

I know it's city-owned, but I'm sure if there was a business case, MLSE would pay for the upgrades like they did with previous rounds. My point is that most things on this forum are about government cheaping out, but I suspect if a private company wanted to do it, I'm sure they could
 
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narduch said:
Except now when you look south you can witness the abomination of what they've done to Ontario Place
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True. My normal seats are on the West side, so I usually just look at Budweiser and marvel how cool it is there are so many things going on in the city at once...

But that view won't include the soon-to-be-parking garage
 
SubHuman said:
I don't know if even a small, Yankee Stadium-like arrangement would fit, but also having to change or cover the base paths with some kind of new and temporary artificial turf set-up would almost certainly be too expensive and complicated for the limited number of times it would get used.
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I don't think this would be tenable whatsoever, just as I don't think MLS could reasonably fit within the new seats in an arrangement that anyone would be happy with.
6ixGod said:
Thank you. Honestly. I am glad someone finally said the obvious part out loud, because I am losing my mind reading the takes in here.
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I'm trying to figure out if this is a passive-aggressive post about my post; it'd help if you simply quoted the person you disagree with.
 
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