New York's Lavish New Stadiums Spark Outrage Among Baseball Fans
March 31, 2009
Two of the most expensive stadiums in American history will open this week, in a lavish £1.7 billion facelift for the Yankees and the Mets, New York’s two major league teams.
Planned in more affluent times, the replacement of the landmark Shea and old Yankee stadiums with buildings designed to pamper corporate customers has angered fans and non-fans alike.
The projects received hundreds of millions of dollars of public money, as well as lucrative sponsorship deals with banks now being bailed out by Washington.
But ordinary fans must now compete for fewer cheap seats, while many question who will patronise both stadiums’ luxury restaurants and who will buy their front row tickets costing £1,800 per game.
At the new £1 billion Yankee stadium, which opens in the Bronx on Friday, the players’ locker room covers 30,000 square feet and TV screens are built into the mirrors found in the mens’ toilets.
March 31, 2009
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