Sporting Kansas City's Debut Tonight @ Livestrong Sporting Park | 9pm ESPN2

[|Zach|]

Anyone going tonight?

It should be a really really great day for the organization. The stadium is really impressive...getting some great national attention and being described as the best soccer stadium in the US. I will be out there running around and shooting. I was also commissioned to do the image for the first tickets.

http://i55.tinypic.com/2zz2rlv.jpg

<iframe width="640" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/yLd1-dCil-8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[Fansy the Famous Bard]

Heck yes, picking up my scarves and heading to the members club at 5:00. Please rain, stay away... please please stay away.

[|Zach|]

Heck yes, picking up my scarves and heading to the members club at 5:00. Please rain, stay away... please please stay away.

Ugh. I know. Hoping it is nice out there. It will be good times either way.

[ChiefsCountry]

Heck yes, picking up my scarves and heading to the members club at 5:00. Please rain, stay away... please please stay away.

Sounds like opening night at new Arrowhead.

[vailpass]

Heck yes, picking up my scarves and heading to the members club at 5:00. Please rain, stay away... please please stay away.

LMAO Oh my god.

[|Zach|]

Sounds like opening night at new Arrowhead.

The energy is very similar...but on a different scale. This is a huuugggeee night for this organization a long time in the making.

[ChiefsCountry]

The energy is very similar...but on a different scale. This is a huuugggeee night for this organization a long time in the making.

I agree. Not a soccer fan by any means. Hell I had free Wizards tickets anytime I wanted to for entire summer and never used then. But what the Cerner boys have done to that franchise is pretty amazing. I wish they had more bucks to own of the Big 4 franchises.

[|Zach|]

I agree. Not a soccer fan by any means. Hell I had free Wizards tickets anytime I wanted to for entire summer and never used then. But what the Cerner boys have done to that franchise is pretty amazing. I wish they had more bucks to own of the Big 4 franchises.

It is interesting...the name change and change in how business is done and philosophy addition to hopefully what will be a decent team should change how the organization is thought....from little kids and soccer moms and an empty Arrowhead to a *great* gameday experience of a professional sport.

Teaming up with Cisco and especially with the upcoming Google Fiber installation they have made this one of the most technologically advanced stadiums in the world.

[CHENZ A!]

Can't wait! I too will be in the members club about 6PM or so. Hopefully Ochocinco will come have a beer with me.

[|Zach|]

Portland had a pretty amazing opening night earlier in the year.

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[CHENZ A!]

BTW, cool pic Zach!

I wonder if they will finally unveil a jersey sponsor tonight..

[|Zach|]

BTW, cool pic Zach!

I wonder if they will finally unveil a jersey sponsor tonight..

They won't tonight. But check your rep.

[|Zach|]

Snapshot of locker room.

http://desmond.yfrog.com/Himg614/scaled.php?tn=0&server=614&filename=cymwg.jpg&xsize=640&ysize=640

[DJay23]

Heading back to Kansas this weekend for the first time in 6 years. Going to the USA-Guadaloupe game. We wanted to see Sporting KC but they aren't around when we are. Can't wait to check out the new stadium though. Hopefully I can come home with some SKC gear.

[|Zach|]

Heading back to Kansas this weekend for the first time in 6 years. Going to the USA-Guadaloupe game. We wanted to see Sporting KC but they aren't around when we are. Can't wait to check out the new stadium though. Hopefully I can come home with some SKC gear.

Yea the Gold Cup game will be awesome. I have never seen the USMNT. The merchandise shops will be open with SKC stuff I am sure.

[Trevo_410]

fuck yes can't wait, watching on espn, hope we kick the shit out of these guys

[OnTheWarpath15]

The stadium opening was front and center on the hard copy Post-Dispatch sports section this AM.

http://www.stltoday.com/sports/soccer/article_c1d656c5-2b9f-5906-90c4-52884b900ea6.html

In 2006, the future of Kansas City's Major League Soccer team looked very uncertain.

It had outlived its time at Arrowhead Stadium, which was far too big for its small crowds, which routinely ranked near the bottom of the league in size. The league had begun moving to soccer-specific stadiums, but Kansas City had been unable to get a deal for one.

Team founder Lamar Hunt was looking to sell. Commissioner Don Garber flew to Kansas City to meet with the players and brief them on the situation. Possible relocation sites were being bandied about.

But a local ownership group emerged and a local municipality with a thriving tax base stepped up.

Tonight, the newest crown jewel of MLS stadiums, Livestrong Sporting Park, a regular Taj Ma-Soccer-Ball, opens in a national telecast on ESPN2 at 9 o'clock when the home team faces Chicago. Then, with a new $200 million stadium to play in, the U.S. national team will make its first trip to Kansas City in a decade Tuesday to play a Gold Cup match against Guadeloupe. Soccer has found a home in Kansas City, and it's pretty sweet.

"This cements the team here for good," said Robb Heineman, CEO of Sporting Kansas City, as the team long known as the Wizards rebranded itself this season.

FINDING A HOME

St. Louis has the soccer history, but Kansas City has the soccer team and now a stadium that is, for the moment, as good as it gets in the world of soccer. There are amenities galore for players and fans, rich and poor, and it is a venue the team hopes will serve as a regular stop for the U.S. national team.

"It's one of the best stadiums I've ever seen," said Sporting KC assistant coach Kerry Zavagnin, who joined the team as a player in 2000 and has been there ever since. "To see it get to this level, to see ownership commit to this, it's something that not only players and staff can be proud of, it's something the whole city should be proud of."

Of course, right about now anything might look good to the team. Sporting KC has the worst record in MLS, with just six points from 10 games — all those on the road while waiting for the stadium to be finished. Though the abundance of home games to be played favors the club, it has a lot of catching up to do.

"It's been tough, a very long road trip," midfielder Graham Zusi said. "There's no getting around it. We expected to come out a little better than we did."

While wins have been out of the norm for Sporting recently (the team didn't make the playoffs the past two seasons), any semblance of atmosphere at its games has been missing throughout the franchise's history.

The team played its first 12 seasons at Arrowhead Stadium, but its crowds were lost in the NFL stadium's vast size.

When Arrowhead began renovations in 2008, the Wizards moved across the state line to Kansas, where they set up shop a few blocks from their new home in a minor-league baseball stadium that houses an independent league team.

"Without a doubt, we've been very nomadic," Heineman said. "It's been a long journey for our fans."

On the bandwagon

The enthusiasm now appears to be there. The team has sold 11,000 season tickets, up from 3,000 last season. Fans now have a stadium (capacity 18,500) with seats pretty much right on top of the field, stands built with a steep pitch to keep everyone close. As with other new stadiums, a canopy over the seats keeps the sound in.

After Cliff Illig and Neal Patterson, who head health care information technology company Cerner Corporation, acquired the team in 2006, the threat of moving declined. But efforts to find a home still struggled. Plans to build a stadium on the Missouri side of the market didn't come to fruition, and Wyandotte County in Kansas stepped up with $150 million in bonds for a stadium, thanks to the tax revenue accumulated from the lucrative shopping area that grew around the Kansas Speedway, the NASCAR facility that sits across the street from Livestrong.

"Basically, the whole stadium is funded off sales tax," Heineman said. "If there wasn't vibrant business out here, we wouldn't have been able to build the stadium. This truly is a community partnership."

The neighborhood around Livestrong, an area called Village West, calls to mind the project Jeff Cooper had proposed in Collinsville when he was pursuing an MLS team in St. Louis, right down to being a 20-minute drive from downtown and in another state. The stadium is surrounded by shopping areas, a hotel and restaurants. Part of the idea is to make MLS games part of a day of activities: Go shopping in the afternoon, wander across the street to a soccer game at night.

"We wanted it to feel like the area had grown up around the stadium as opposed to the stadium coming last," Heineman said.

International flavor

Once the stadium construction was approved, Heineman and his group toured South America and Europe, looking at stadiums, choosing what they liked and didn't like. The intimacy of the stadium was something Heineman saw at La Bombanera, the home of Argentine club Boca Juniors in Buenos Aires. They also picked up ideas from NFL and NBA venues. Before parading onto the field, players will gather in an area amid a floor-level public dining area. In a tribute to European stadiums, players and coaches won't sit on a bench during a game but in comfortably padded seats that look as if they were taken from the first-class section of an airplane. Sporting KC's locker room includes a food service area where players can get custom-made energy drinks made for them before, during and after games.

What's in a name?

Instead of selling the naming rights to the stadium, the club gave them to the Livestrong Foundation, the cancer-research charity started by cyclist Lance Armstrong. Amid the light blue upholstered seats outside the Victory Suite in the northwest corner is one that's bright yellow, the team's salute to Armstrong and cycling's yellow jersey; he is expected to be in attendance tonight.

In naming the team for a charity for free, the team gave away a source of revenue that is vital to many clubs. And while there's community spirit behind it, it turns out it also might pay for itself.

"We now have a number of sponsors who are aligned with Lance's foundation that are interested in expressing themselves here," Illig said. "Those are sponsors we probably would not have been able to do something with on our own."

With game time approaching, Heineman has a decision to make: Where does he want to be tonight when the first game there begins?

There's the club where the player procession begins, there's the members club, the Victory Suite or the Terrace Bar, a standing-room-only section in another corner where the front row is about 20 feet from the field. Wherever he ends up, he'll no doubt feel like many associated with the team: that he's finally found a home.

[rocknrolla]

God damn WMBA!

[DaFace]

Cool. I might tune in just out of curiosity.

[teedubya]

As I said on FB, great job Zach. That is a great picture. Congrats. I'm gonna tune in.

I hope it's a 1-0 barnburner of excitement!! :-)

[KurtCobain]

I hope it's a 1-0 barnburner of excitement!! :-)
LMAO

[teedubya]

That is cool how both teams come out of the same tunnel, at the same time. The stadium looks amazing.

[KurtCobain]

It's a beautiful sight to see.

[Toadkiller]

I wish the fans in KC were like the fans here in Portland. These fans in Portland just chant and sing the entire game and are very loud, just awesome to see. Wish KC had that.

[Demonpenz]

I love KC

[SPchief]

BS

[Demonpenz]

start/offsides/off

[SPchief]

Fucking refs hate KC

[Saulbadguy]

DISALLOWED?!

[KurtCobain]

Fucking refs hate KC

Fucking refs hate everybody.

[Demonpenz]

They are wearing throwback powder blue to remember the 1985 royals

[SPchief]

Oooh a fight

[Al Bundy]

It's a great looking stadium. I saw it when I was over there for the race last weekend.

[SPchief]

Flop

[HonestChieffan]

What are the alternative uses for the place? This will be like the abandoned dog tracks.

[SPchief]

What are the alternative uses for the place? This will be like the abandoned dog tracks.

I'll defer this to Zach, but on the news they said they can expand seating to 25 k for concerts with a stage on one of the ends of the stadium

[Saulbadguy]

What are the alternative uses for the place? This will be like the abandoned dog tracks.

I think they will have a steady following. Hell, they get enough dumbass rednecks like you to fill up Cabela's and Nebraska Furniture Mart on a daily basis.

[HonestChieffan]

I think they will have a steady following. Hell, they get enough dumbass rednecks like you to fill up Cabela's and Nebraska Furniture Mart on a daily basis.

How often do you go to those places?

[rocknrolla]

I think they will have a steady following. Hell, they get enough dumbass rednecks like you to fill up Cabela's and Nebraska Furniture Mart on a daily basis.

LMAO

[DaFace]

It's somehow fitting that this game is (most likely) going to end up a 0-0 tie.

[Bugeater]

It's somehow fitting that this game is (most likely) going to end up a 0-0 tie.
And that's why soccer is stupid.

[ArrowheadHawk]

What a huge letdown on opening night.

[BWillie]

Have no idea who the ppl are that go to these games but its apparently going to make a killing. I just want to know when the casino is going up

[ChiefsCountry]

What are the alternative uses for the place? This will be like the abandoned dog tracks.

College football and concerts.

[Trevo_410]

really sad performance 2day tbh. i think chicago got to our players heads earlier on with the fights and shit and tealb, kamara weren't really in good form because of that. worhtless red card from neilson was very unlucky and the no call penalty kick really proved this game was destined to be a 0-0 tie. I did however like Zusi's, bravos, sapongs performances. that french bastard at our centerback position is one hell of a bruiser/bullshitter as well.... lol

[stlchiefs]

really sad performance 2day tbh. i think chicago got to our players heads earlier on with the fights and shit and tealb, kamara weren't really in good form because of that. worhtless red card from neilson was very unlucky and the no call penalty kick really proved this game was destined to be a 0-0 tie. I did however like Zusi's, bravos, sapongs performances. that french bastard at our centerback position is one hell of a bruiser/bullshitter as well.... lol

Robbed on the non-call in the box. Can't say I was impressed with Bravo, he missed a great ball in the 6 in the 1st half and pussed out again in the 2nd a couple of times. Bunbury had a terrible touch tonight. Sapong was a great sub and was working his butt off out there. Kronberg put himself in a bad position for that red, he was too far out not to keep coming and when the ball bounced over his head, he knew he had to touch it or it was an auto goal.

[penguinz]

really sad performance 2day tbh. i think chicago got to our players heads earlier on with the fights and shit and tealb, kamara weren't really in good form because of that. worhtless red card from neilson was very unlucky and the no call penalty kick really proved this game was destined to be a 0-0 tie. I did however like Zusi's, bravos, sapongs performances. that french bastard at our centerback position is one hell of a bruiser/bullshitter as well.... lolUnlucky? His teammates should beat the shit out of him in his sleep. He has to know where he is on the field. Was not even close to still being in the area.

[Deberg_1990]

I hope it does well, but i must admit, i find Pro Soccer incredibly boring to watch.

They obviously feel that KC is a ripe soccer market to invest that sort of dough in a new stadium.

[gblowfish]

Ooooh....nil to nil. Riveting!!!

[Dayze]

I watched probably half of it.

I know jack squat about soccer, so I didn't really know what was going on, but figured I'd give it a try watching it.

It just seemed like neither team was able to work the ball downfield; seem like a lot of big kicks to no man's land, and the other team would pick it up. Back and forth. Is this part of the game? Seriously asking, as I don't know. Plus, I don't know any of the rules, other than you can't touch the ball with your hands etc (that's what she said)

I guess I can see now why the announcers who yell "GOOOOOAAALLLLL" are so excited, because, frankly, other than a goal there isn't alot going on. Perhaps that's part of the excitement?...anticipation of getting a goal etc.

I'll probalby try to watch a few more to see if I can pick up any strategy etc. I will say, those dudes are in some serious shape. Holy hell. Field looked great, didn't realize it was that big. Stadium looked cool from what I could tell.

I'll give a few more games a shot, simply because of the local team etc.

[Fish]

Wow.... I hate to pile on.... but all day I hear on the radio how this grand opening was going to be the most exciting thing in KC since the invention of sex... and they end up with a 0-0 game? Seriously?

[RockChalk]

Highlight of the game for me was the guy who ran onto the field dressed as a cow. He even scored a goal around the 81:00 mark, then did a pretty sweet fist pump as he ran around the pitch.

[DeezNutz]

I watched probably half of it.

I know jack squat about soccer, so I didn't really know what was going on, but figured I'd give it a try watching it.

It just seemed like neither team was able to work the ball downfield; seem like a lot of big kicks to no man's land, and the other team would pick it up.


They're trying to play the ball to the corners to set up a cross into the box. Essentially, you want to stretch the field. Use the width, which helps if you switch the field (move ball to the other side). All about opening up space for a run (player coming out of the back into space for an offensive opportunity).

The problem is that we're watching lackluster talent. Check out a game from the European Premier League as a point of comparison.

[Dayze]

They're trying to play the ball to the corners to set up a cross into the box. Essentially, you want to stretch the field. Use the width, which helps if you switch the field (move ball to the other side). All about opening up space for a run (player coming out of the back into space for an offensive opportunity).

The problem is that we're watching lackluster talent. Check out a game from the European Premier League as a point of comparison.

cool; thanks.:thumb:

[Deberg_1990]

The problem is that we're watching lackluster talent. Check out a game from the European Premier League as a point of comparison.

If thats the case, then maybe the MLS should tweak the rules to help compensate? Smaller fields perhaps?

[DeezNutz]

If thats the case, then maybe the MLS should tweak the rules to help compensate? Smaller fields perhaps?

What I'm saying is relative, of course. There's some damn good talent in the MLS, but it's just not the European Premier League, nor will it ever be.

I don't think making big changes would be wise, though, because it threatens the integrity of the product. It would be kind of like lowering the goals in the WNBA. Yeah, the games might become more exciting b/c more women would be dunking, but it's not really "basketball" anymore.

[Deberg_1990]

What I'm saying is relative, of course. There's some damn good talent in the MLS, but it's just not the European Premier League, nor will it ever be.

I don't think making big changes would be wise, though, because it threatens the integrity of the product. It would be kind of like lowering the goals in the WNBA. Yeah, the games might become more exciting b/c more women would be dunking, but it's not really "basketball" anymore.

Thats cool.

I think there is definately room in KC for a 3rd pro sports franchise to be sucessful. I do think that MLS will always be niche, but thats ok. Not everything can be the MLB and NFL.

The main problem i think with soccer in America is our top atletes usually choose a different sport because theres so many to choose from.

[DeezNutz]

The main problem i think with soccer is America is our top atletes usually choose a different sport because theres so many to choose from.

I agree completely.

[RockChalk]

http://deadspin.com/5810687/sporting-kcs-first-home-goal-was-scored-by-a-cow

[|Zach|]

Glad people could drop in to tell us it isn't the MLS isn't the Premier League or the NFL. LMAO

The MLS is doing quite a good job. I mean the league started in 1996.

[|Zach|]

It was a good night but it wasn't a good soccer game. The quality of play was sub par for MLS standards. To be fair, these were statistically the worst 2 teams in the league.

[|Zach|]

The non red card was ridiculous. Omar Bravo's big mistake was getting his feet off the ground & not just letting Ristic break his leg. MIGHT have gotten PK w/protruding bone.

[Demonpenz]

mls and dave matthews present "you don't get it dad, tour"

[|Zach|]

mls and dave matthews present "you don't get it dad, tour"

Haha.

[MahiMike]

That's pretty sweet! Good for KC. So glad the Hunt's live in KC.

[vailpass]

Did all you boys get your scarves? I sure hope so!!

[Demonpenz]

BRAVEHEART HAD A SCARF

[vailpass]

BRAVEHEART HAD A SCARF

LMAO

[|Zach|]

Did all you boys get your scarves? I sure hope so!!

Merchandise associated with a sporting event. This is new.

[DeezNutz]

Glad people could drop in to tell us it isn't the MLS isn't the Premier League or the NFL. LMAO

The MLS is doing quite a good job. I mean the league started in 1996.

If you're alluding to me, that wasn't the point I was making at all. I was merely explaining why some MLS games look like complete shit and why this product isn't a statement about soccer more generally.

[|Zach|]

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[kstater]

Nothing says exciting like a 0-0 tie.