The historic brick wall around the field will be torn down and pushed back, and a “minimum number of rows” of seats will be removed to accommodate a wider soccer field.
Since the announcement that minor league soccer club FC Cincinnati would be coming to Nippert Stadium, there has been rampant speculation about potential changes to the seating configuration, locker rooms, video board, and sound system. After averaging over 17,000 fans in its first four home games (which is roughly five times the league average) and setting the league’s single-game multiple times (the latest match drawing 23,375 fans), FC Cincinnati is definitely here to stay, and FC|C is now eyeing a jump up to Major League Soccer sometime down the road.
As part of FC|C’s effort to “raise the profile of soccer in Cincinnati” by attracting US National Team and other high-profile matches, the club wants to both widen and lengthen the field by five yards (James Gamble Nippert Memorial Stadium has been a football field for 100 years – I unequivocally refuse to call it a pitch). As I pointed out on Twitter last Summer, Nippert currently can accommodate a field of 110×70 yards (which meets the minimum FIFA standards for international matches) by utilizing an off-center soccer field that puts the soccer center spot about 5 yards north of the football 50-yard line. This is the configuration that FC|C has, in fact, utilized thus far during the 2016 soccer season, resulting in no changes to the historic brick wall that encircles the Nippert Stadium gridiron. FC|C wants 115×75, which would put the field dimensions in the middle of the range for a standard FIFA/MLS facility.
And here’s the problem: They’re going to get to do it. It’s been revealed that part of FC|C’s contract with the university, they are going to be allowed to remove a “minimal number of rows and lower level seats.” FC|C will be picking up the tab, but it still makes me anxious. Removing two or three rows of sideline seats wouldn’t be a big deal – those seats generally go unfilled for football anyway, because fans in those rows can’t see the game over the players’ backs. But based on the current soccer field configuration of Nippert (and FC|C’s conceptual drawing), it seems to me like a lot of the row and seat reductions may come in the South end zone, which in my mind, is a travesty to one of college football’s most historic stadiums. Those seats do not have obstructed views – on the contrary, they are some of the most unique seats in all of football.
One of the best parts about Nippert is that the stands in the South end zone are at grade level with and in close proximity to the football field. Where else has a 100-year-old brick-and-mortar wall around the field? Where else can you have players fly into the stands Derek-Jeter-style after making catches? (PS – that’s what the kid gets for wearing an Ohio State hat to a Bearcat game) Where else can players celebrate with their fellow students after scoring touchdowns? Where else can the band run directly onto the field in a dead sprint? During my time as a student, I always tried to get as close to the field as I could, especially if I could get a spot in the corner of the end zone that was literally 4 feet from the field. Sadly, it appears that those days will be over sometime in the not too distant future.
And here’s what worse: the rumors that FC|C would fund a new HD-videoboard and new sound system – they’re false. It’s not in the contract. So it makes for an altogether bad deal for the Bearcats football program and its fans in my opinion. UC gets very little out of the deal, other than a hundred grand a year on rent and a renovated visitors’ locker room (the visitors’ football locker room doubles as FC|C’s locker room during soccer season). Sounds like a bad deal to me. UC needs Donald Trump to do their negotiating in the future – he only makes great deals.
The stated reason for these changes is that FC|C wants to bring the field size up to MLS standards. My question is: why is it being done now, then? The MLS has said several times that while FC|C’s strong start attendance-wise is impressive, an invite to the big leagues isn’t imminent – it’ll be a few years, if ever. Ticket prices to see the MLS’s Columbus Crew are more than double the price of the same seats for an FC|C game, and there are no $5 student tickets in the MLS, so it’s going to take a several years of consistent attendance to prove that an MLS franchise in Cincinnati is viable. Averaging 17,000 fans for four games is great, but it’s the perfect storm of the “new/trendy/hip factor,” the Reds not being competitive, and dirt cheap tickets. Can FC|C (which charges $5-$25) charge MLS prices ($30-60 a ticket) and compete with a competitive Reds team in this market after the “new/trendy/hip effect” wears off in three years? Only time will tell. For now, maybe a jump from the USL to the NASL (think “Double-A” to “Triple-A”) is more realistic for FC|C.
So why destroy one of the things that makes Nippert unique on the off chance that the US National team might play a friendly (what the soccer folks call an exhibition game) against Barbados in Cincinnati? Who cares? Let them play that game in Columbus in a real soccer stadium. I think that FC|C’s early success is absolutely wonderful for the city, and it’s great to get more use out of the sparkling, newly renovated Nippert, but let’s stop tinkering with our historic football stadium until the MLS actually says, “Okay, you’re in.”