Halford & Brough in the Morning - What Makes A Good Stadium?

Episode Date: August 27, 2025

In hour two, Mike & Jason do some What We Learnds, the boys discuss what makes a great stadium (3:00), plus they chat with stadium architect Dan Meis (26:00), who recently designed the new Everton FC arena in Liverpool. This podcast is produced by Andy Cole and Greg Balloch. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

Thank you. 7.03 on a Wednesday. Happy Wednesday, everybody. Halford, Brough, SportsNet, 6.50. We're already halfway through the work week, bud. Well, almost. A half hour to go. Not that we chart it like that.

But then it's smooth sailing. We got back from vacation on Monday. And as we were walking out after the show on Monday, I turned to Brough and I'm like, it's almost Friday, bud. Just keep on trucking. You are listening to the Halford & Brough show on Sportsnet 650. Halford and Brough of the morning is brought to you by Sands and Associates. Learn how a consumer proposal reduces your debt by up to 80% with no more interest.

Visit them online at Sands. Dashtrustee.com. We are now in hour two of the program. Hour two is brought to by Jason hominock at Jason. If you love giving the banks more of your money, then don't let Jason shop around to find the perfect mortgage for you. Visit them online at jason. Dow Mortgage. We are coming to you live from the Kintech studio.

Kintech footwear and orthotics working together with you in step. Greg, looks like you have something to say. Well, you guys are talking about wishing it was Friday already. Yeah. Next week. Yes.

A short week, my friends. Yeah, I know. We get Monday off. I'm excited about it. No show on Monday. Yeah. Gonna do no labor on Labor Day. Zero labor.

Why don't we stop suggesting that we don't like coming to work? Is that even a suggestion at this point? Glaringly obvious. Every morning. Stadium talk. We asked the listeners prior to going to break. What makes a good stadium? Why are we talking about this?

You might ask, well, coming up at 730, Dan Meese, noted architect, designed such facilities as the Staples Center and Safeco Field. I wonder if he can even keep track of all the places that he's built that have undergone all these name changes. One of the questions I want to ask him is, what is it like to see your vision turn into a reality? Right.

Like you imagine a massive building. and then a bunch of people build it. Yeah. It's incredible. You just tell them what to do. Yeah. I want this big thing over there. Okay, boss.

Okay. My work here is done. So we ask the listeners, what makes a great stadium. And, I mean, it obviously depends on what the sport is. Like, you know, we always talk about the baseball stadiums that we've gone to and the one in Pittsburgh with the incredible. view of the city. It's right on a river there. You see the bridges. You see the downtown of Pittsburgh. PNC Park. It's incredible. And then, you know, you can't recreate this necessarily,

but going to historic stadiums like Fenway and Wrigley, you appreciate just the unique things about the ballpark. I mean, Fenway's got to be the most unique ballpark or even stadium in North America. Yep. And I'll like, oh, well, we ran out of space here, so we just built a giant wall. And it stayed like that forever. Yeah. But in terms of, since the white caps want to build a new soccer stadium, I think it would start for me with everything that BC place isn't, right?

And that, I think, starts with intimacy and being on top of the pitch. Intimacy is a good place to start. You should ask Dan if he's been to BC Place and if so, what he thinks of it. Yeah. Look, there are worse stadiums than BC Place. Like, Montreal has one. Right.

You know, the Big O. Yep. But so one of the features of this new stadium in Liverpool, it's Everton Stadium, but it's in Liverpool, is they've got, I think it's the South Stand. It's super steep. Like they allow, there's a certain, there are laws about this, like how steep

the stand can be. Yeah. And it is right at that limit. So if you go on and you can Google some stuff on or go on to YouTube and find some videos of the stands, like it's almost like a scary

situation. I don't know if any of the listeners here have been to Husky Stadium. I have. Husky Stadium, the upper deck, very steep. And it's actually, I've sat at the top of Husky Stadium, and you're walking up the stairs you're like are we there yet

can I get some oxygen here but if you think about BC Place it's not steep at all so if you're sitting in the top deck you're way away from the field you feel very far away

you feel far away from the field and it was fine I mean I sat in the top deck for the messy game there and it was fine I mean there isn't like a bad seed in the house There's not one where you've got, you can't see the field or anything like that, but it's not intimate. And I also think because BC Place has to accommodate a CFL field,

it's almost like, you know, those stadiums in Europe, or I guess even Edmonton, I don't know if, Edmonton, I don't think it still has like the track. Yeah. But they're so far away because they're also like, we're all certain doing track and field here. Sure. So you're way far away.

way. But if I imagine a new white cap stadium, and let's say it's at the racetrack at the P&E, first of all, I want to cover, but I still want to somehow be able to see the view, the mountains,

which could be a challenge, but you know, that's the architect's problem. Get it done. But make it intimate. And I remember, I've told the story a few times on this show, I remember when they were talking about renovating BC place and they were talking about how it's going to be the largest something supported roof in the world or whatever.

I'm like, is that what we want? Right. For CFL and MLS, we need to have it intimate. It's not an 80,000 people league. No, no, no, no. This is a stadium where you should have, you know, 30 to 40,000 seats at most, and it should be intimate. And I think that is really where BC Place falls woefully short.

And I know they tried to address this by putting up the sheets or whatever. But it just looks, it looks, frankly, I think it looks worse when those things are up there. You also have to explain it to the lay people about what's going on. They're like, why are there so many sheets over those top seats? You're like, well, they can't fill this entire place. That's a big ask of MLS. It's going to be interesting when we talk to Dan because when you talk about soccer-specific stadiums, those things mean very different things in North America and in Europe.

Like, for example, he did a soccer-specific stadium for Everton, which is a 54,000. Yeah, it's big. It's big. If you look at the most recent history of MLS and you look at the stadiums that have been built, and this is what we're talking about, the Vancouver Whitecaps and their proposed stadium at the racetrack you go to energizer park in st louis geotis park in nashville and lower dot com field in columbus they all are between 20 000 and 30 000 cap they are all open air open roof and i mean some of the locations and climates have something to do with that but they're

all incredibly intimate the fans are hugging the touchlines and the end lines yeah You feel as though that you're right on top of the action. And that's important because for those that have gone to BC Place, it can be a very sterile environment, in part because you just feel like you're disconnected from what's happening on the field and what's happening on the pitch. You know, I know that there's atmosphere in the south side where they're singing and dancing and chanting,

but even that feels removed from what's going on on the pitch. And as the excitement and energy grows and builds, you want to have that sort of cauldron-like feel where everything's really tight to the action. And it just doesn't have it. But it would be great for a future build. So I went to the Coliseum, the Pacific Coliseum,

for one of the P&E summer concert series. You saw the Counting Crows. I did. And I got there. I was like, wait a minute, I don't like the Counting Crows. It was a good show. It was fine.

A long December? Come on. Yeah, it was true. It was long. and like is this over yet and I went in there and I was with my buddy who I've been going to hockey games with for decades

and I was like man I miss this place for hockey like not that I dislike Rogers Arena but I loved going into the Coliseum and best the heart of downtown and being right in the heart of downtown and being able to see the rink like right away and I don't know why I like that but the Colosseum was a great

rink for hockey. It really was. But terrible amenities. Yeah, because it's... Because it's old. Because it's old. I mean, the suites are hilarious. There's like the string of eight suites right at the top.

I was like, what if we gave the suite holders the worst seats in the house? Ah, beautiful. And dangled them above the arena dangerously. Dalviore texts in and he says, I think regardless of sport, the thing that makes a great sports stadium is good sightlines. The main reason I actually... really like Rogers Arena is that no matter where I'm sitting, I have a really good view of the entire game. All the extra fancy stuff is cool, but it's all frivolous if I can't see the

game the whole time. Yeah, Rogers Arena is a great hockey rink. I think it's getting a little bit tired. Oh, they can add stuff to it, though. I'll give him credit. How many restaurants can you put into a hockey rink? We'll find out. But, and that stuff, and we're actually going to talk to Dan about this because I noticed on his website there's a section called revenue mining so his company will go into a stadium and be like hey that space over there isn't really doing much for you what if we were to do this well you know what ever you know what everton has well hold on a second okay and that's the issue with the white caps in bc place like that that that that explains it in a nutshell.

The white caps can't do that because they don't control the stadium. They can't mine it for revenue because it all goes to BC Place. That is so much of the game now. So much of the game is catering to VIPs, very wealthy people. And you see that with the Canucks of what they're doing at Rogers Arena. They aren't doing much in terms of, of like, let's really appeal to the blue-collar workers, right? It's all about what's going on with the champions club.

And these people, the amount of money they're spending on per game basis could be 10 times, 20 times what the guy who's sitting in the upper deck is sitting. And that's where the focus is for better or worse. I mean, I think it's for worse, but it's for better for the teams and the bottom line. I think that that line of thinking, or yeah, I know catering to the, the boojie, the guys that got all money. Have you ever seen the food prices at in the sweets? Yeah, it's ridiculous. It is $100 for chicken strips.

It's insane, right? It almost should be illegal. Like, you've got this like, you're trapped in the suite and the kids are like, we're hungry. Well, that's going to be $400 to feed them. There are no chicken strips for you. So at Everton, the stadium that. Dan Meese, our next guest was the architect for, they have an e-bar, which is the ability for supporters to self-serve their own beers. I watched it in real time. The other day, they did a little

vignette on it. And they used the technologies that through pass and walk-through technology that Amazon had, the more you walk in and everything scanned and then you walk out. And I'm not saying do that because I'm sure there's some logistical headaches. I'm not, we can ask Dan, I'm not sure if he even knows the intricacies. I would miss the blank stares of the Pavco workers, though. This is what I'm saying, though. Like, you know, someone like, when you have to repeat yourself six times

and the POS system's down and they don't take cash, there are, as you get more like modern, like you start to realize that the fan experience and the state of experiences we know it probably could be altered in a significant way and streamlined a lot, right? And you're talking about,

I mean, a big, look, a big part of the common person's experience going to, let's just say BC plays for any event, be it a lion's game or whitecaps game, is the dread of having to get up and go somewhere because you have to stand in line for something. And this is the most primitive human experience where it's like, how have we not been able to fast track this? Why do I need to have the possibility of missing some of the action that I've paid for to stand in line? I just want to drink. Yeah, because I've got an employee that either can't do his job or it's not. not enough employees to handle the crowd that we have. That to me is something that every stadium build should be looking at and saying this is something that we can do not for the high-end ticket buyer that's spending $50,000 a night

on a suite, but the person that's getting in the door and is, you know, this may be the one or two times they're coming here, how can we make this experience as good as possible without spending a ton of money to do it? I mean, all they're doing is fast tracking these things and with like the, the just walk out technology that Amazon's put into some of the stadiums. I think one of the challenges at Rogers Arena too is they fit it in between the viaducts, right?

Yeah. And they've been adding stuff, right? Adding restaurants here and there and it's kind of taken away from the space to congregate. I think that's another important part of a stadium. Yeah. Where can fans congregate

and catch up with friends or whatever? You know, I know there are some areas at Rogers Arena. where people do congregate, but it's, you know, it's really tight. It's tight. Yeah. Yeah. I went to the minor league ballpark in Nashville when we were there a few years ago.

I think I've talked about this on the show before, but they have a guitar shaped bar in the outfield. I mean, it's not designed at all to watch baseball. Like, you know, going out there, you're decreasing your view of the game. Because they realize it's minor league baseball and nobody cares that much. But it's got, it had a jugs gun that you could pay to. get your pitch a jugs gun the time the the the the radar gun for if to pitch a jugs

gun I didn't know what's called a jugs gun yeah I thought it was something else no yeah oh I mean radar gun but it's that's that was the company was jugs oh I didn't I haven't Dolly wall is listening he's like Muxin Jugs Muggs yeah I want to look up the gun I want to buy one what's their website

Jugs.com try it see what happens Check it out lady do it on a work computer see what happens so what you'd go out there and They're like naturally built in cool stuff. Like so all these groups of like stags and just dudes hanging out. Yeah. It would be like, okay, we're all going to line up.

And whoever throws the lowest on the gun has to go buy around for the. And it becomes like a secondary sport. Like it's way more interesting than the baseball game that's going on. By the way, if we were to ever design a stadium, it would turn into Homer's car real quick. Pretty much. Yeah. How many horns can we put on this? It would be like, and we want a jugs gun area.

The goal song is Le Cuccaraj. Is it on repeat? Jugs is singular G, by the way. It's just like a jug, not J-U-G-G-G-S. It's jugsports.com if you want to check it out. I assumed it was a double G. I can't believe no one's heard of the Jugs gun. I've heard of a radar gun.

Yeah, just a radar gun. Okay, let's do a real quick what we learned here because we do have to print off some submissions and we got some business to take care of And some people did send some what we learns into the Dunbar Lumber text line. So we should take care of business right here. Also, AJ just texted in, too. What did he say?

Jugs? No, he was, no, before that. He was talking about Jay's friends freaking out. And then it was like, ha, ha, ha. Yankees are coming. And I was like, okay. So anyway, what we learned is human edition brought to you by noted texter, AJ from AJ's pizza on East Broadway.

Our favorite pizza, the white Vesuvio, featuring roasted mushrooms, housemade Italian sausage, and extra cream. me ricotta only at AJ's pizza order online at AJ's dot pizza okay well speaking of Jay's fans freaking out what we learned from Chad and Colonna classic Chad in Colonna that is awesome I'm picturing Chad right now he says I learned I'm not emotionally ready for playoff ball as yelling he's not hitting his spots with the game on mute when Hoffman was melting down while my wife was having friends over didn't result in a win share your anecdote from yesterday.

You were getting texts about the Jay's bullpen for the first time and maybe ever? I had texts from multiple friends complaining about the Jay's bullpen

and I'm like am I the Jay's expert? Wait, I can vent to you about the Blue Jay's bullpen? Yes. I was like, who's Hoffman?

My feed was littered with Hoffman's slander yesterday. A lot of people. Part of it again has to do with the fact this is an incredibly slow sports week and the Jay's

have taken more than center stage in large part because they've been playing so great. But also, that was a big meltdown yesterday. Like, you have closers that can't get it done, but that one, you could see from the moment that he stepped on the bottom, you're like, he didn't have it. Well, I was going to say, it seems to be with Hoffman, you can tell immediately, oh, it's good Hoffman or, oh, it's bad Hoffman.

And I think maybe going forward, the best course of action is to just get him the heck out of there once you see he's having one of these kind of out. His first pitch? Nope. Out. Don't like that. Caden the Greenskeeper, what we learned. I was going to read this one.

I like this one. This was almost a hot take. Travis Kelsey would have proposed after the Super Bowl if they didn't get stomped by the Eagles. 100%. You think so? 100%. That's not a hot take, obviously.

100%. That's what was going to happen. Yeah. I don't know what. Maybe, I don't know what he had to wait for. The Pro Bowl is the Pro Bowl after the Super Bowl? He did it during the Dodge Bowl at the Pro Bowl. Why didn't he wait to the end of this year?

Sorry? Why didn't you just wait to the end of this year? That is a good question. Another go. That is a good question. because they're everything is you know the everything is aligned right now for the chiefs the chiefs are going to be back I'm going to tell you the script right now the chiefs are going to be back in the Super Bowl they're going to win the Super Bowl and Travis Kelsey I think is going to announce his retirement and maybe the fact that Taylor Swift is pregnant after they win the Super Bowl that would be my that's the script right now okay that's one of the best parts a lot of things that have to happen people yeah yeah big up old Travis Kelsey tweets and just like flooding my timeline

with all this squirrel bread one is so good I mean every word is a spelling error like it's just like amazing I love it so much do we have any listeners that took pictures of their own proposal because we had to talk about this one because Josh hired a photographer for his proposal

and I did not I didn't even remember it being a thing in my books a little bit I don't remember it being a thing until recently I don't need to have a photo of... Is that for the gram? I guess. Yeah, I guess it's a social media thing. Is that young people? Can you not just take a

photo after? People being so into themselves, like Josh? So, what, did Josh have to hide the proposal and the photographer from his pending fee? Actually, that'd be kind of fun, right? Who's that guy standing over there? And if I... Taking pictures of us. That bush just sneezes. Why did that bush just sneeze?

If I recall correctly, it was like a, it was an overcast day and he wanted to do like a walk at the beach. And it was like, well, Do we go or do we, and they're obviously need to coordinate with this photographer. So it was like, it was a big stressor for him. And I was like, I didn't even do that. Like, it wasn't even a thing when I proposed. I mean, A for effort.

I guess. He's trying, you know. And I'm sure the, the gesture was like, well received. Like, they got married. So it worked. She said yes. But it is. Isn't the best way to propose when you find out if she's pregnant or not?

Right. Yeah. All right. We're doing this. let's go down to the courthouse uh no like i i had been told an anecdote once that um the same situation um the bride and the groom prior to get a prior to the proposal had like orchestrated a photo shoot and like they both kind of pretended that it was going to be a surprise even though they knew that there was going to be a photo shoot because they wanted to have the

expression of surprise the true social media that one that one to me is a too far. It's like, what, are we living in some sort of alternate reality? Like, everyone knows what's happening here, right? Like, but, you know, whatever. Jay with a good idea to ang, this would be a really great way of angering all the old Super Bowl football fans in the States is make their wedding the halftime show of the next Super Bowl. That would be pretty good. Get married in the halftime show. Yeah. You got 15 minutes here, boys. Yeah, right. We're going to do a communion. Yeah. Bort, I think, represents our listener base. He said, true story. last night while I was out on my boat on the lake

there was a wedding proposal going on up on the rock bluff with the photographer all while I enjoyed watching while taking a pee. Nice. That's our listeners. Was that Bort? That's Bort. Bort also texted in twice that every good stadium needs to have a urinal trough.

Which is true. Or a wall. He's a big peeer. Big pee guy. Big P guy. All right, what better way to go to break? We got to go. You're listening to the Alfred Abref Show on Sportsnet.

50. 7.32 on a Wednesday. Happy Wednesday, everybody. Halford and Brubb, Sportsnet, 650. Halford and Brub in the morning is brought to you by Sands and Associates. Learn how a consumer proposal could get you on the road to being debt-free in just two weeks. Visit them online at Sands-trustee.com. We are now in our two of the program with the midway point of the show.

Andy is working on getting stadium architect Dan Meese on the program. hopefully he'll join us soon a lot of stadia talk today our two of this program is brought to by Jason hominock at Jason dot mortgage if you love paying too much for your mortgage then don't let Jason shop around

to find the perfect mortgage for you visit them online at jason.morgage while we're waiting to get Dan on the line I wanted to read this text from J.R. in Rossland he said I stand with brough

I'm early 40s and have no idea about Pokemon and proud of it. Yesterday was by far the most I've heard about this from all the nerds out there. Also, I'm guessing DeBrasse started collecting so we have something in common with his linemate who I'm just assuming collects Pokemon.

There was a lot of big reveals yesterday in our deep dive into the Pokemon world. The DeBrasque one was that he just started this five months ago. Did you see the video? He had an inordinate amount of cash. Yeah, yeah. On hand. Yeah, he looked like you just came back from the casino.

seen over something. In a world where we're so less and less cash dependent. I didn't think, like, I'm like, do you not have tap? But I think maybe, just maybe that video was shot for viral purposes. I don't want to take away from the journalistic integrity of Daily Hive, but maybe,

just maybe, that wasn't necessarily as authentic as we made it out. Well, Jake wants to be the very best, the best there ever was. And so this is how you do it. All right. Producer Arash left us a little gift, too, bro. I don't know if you saw this. Yeah, we got a pokey. Some Pokemon cards.

on cards. Oh, I like my whole package. Let's table that for now, shall we? Our next guest is an American architect designed several facilities that you know, including Staples Center,

Safeco Field, and most recently Everton's Hill Dickinson Stadium. Dan Meese joins us now on the Halford & Brough Show on SportsNet 650. Good morning, Dan. How are you?

I'm well. How are you guys? We're good. Thanks for taking the time to do this day. We appreciate it. So for the listeners that might not be familiar

with all of your work and the things that you do, can you tell us a bit about what it is exactly that you do, and some of the projects that you've been working on, including your most recent one in Everton? Well, yeah, it's kind of an unusual specialty for an architect, I guess, but for about the past 30, 35 years,

I've designed only stadiums and arenas, concert venues, things like that. You mentioned kind of the highlights, staples, now crypto.com, a couple of NFL facilities, including Lincoln Financial and what was Paul Brown Stadium, now Paycourt, I think the names change all the time. But obviously, the most exciting one for me right now is the new Everton Hill Dickinson Stadium. What made that so exciting for you?

Well, you know, first of all, English football is certainly a game of its own, you know, for the fans in any particular town in the UK. a, it's a generational, almost a religion-like passion for the clubs they support. And Everton was one of those clubs that started in the late 1800s and, you know, has a pretty incredible history, but had struggled the last few years. So it was a fan base that was really sort of desperately hoping for turnaround and they've got a new owner and now a new stadium. And the entire process was.

It was unique for an architect. I was engaged with the fans through Twitter, which was something I've never done before. So I felt like I had 70,000 collaborators on a daily basis, pretty wild. It was built on the docks on a historic site. Did you, like, what were some of the, I know you're an architect, not an engineer,

but what were some of the engineering challenges? Did you have to, you know, fill in? Like, did you have to, like, build over water? or what was going on there? Yeah, it's pretty incredible. And I mean, it was something we realized from the very beginning that was going to be a very challenging site. Not only was it an existing dock full of water,

but it was a UNESCO World Heritage site at the time. And historic England was very sensitive to the fact that the whole Dockland area, Liverpool, was sensitive. So we had to design it in a way that it really kind of preserve the dock, but build it in by dredging the Mercy River and making a buildable site. So it was a large engineering challenge and took a significant amount of investment in time just to get it to be a buildable site. But, you know, it was a bold choice by the club because they realized that they were going

to end up with a building, you know, right on the sort of front door of Liverpool as all the cruise ships come in. and while it wasn't the easiest place to build, they knew that it would have a long-term impact. Well, it is a spectacular stadium. I've actually been monitoring the build of it just because I thought it was such an interesting project. What does it feel like when you see your vision of a stadium come to life

and you see 50,000 supporters there and they had the blue flags out there and the blue smoke going off? And you're like, that's, that was in my brain once. Yeah, it's an emotional experience, and it's pretty hard to describe. It feels surreal, as you can imagine, because, you know, I remember sketching it on napkins and small pieces of paper and ideas about how this building would sort of feel like it grew out of the dock, and it was a very early idea that it would have this brick base and then something more contemporary for the roof that was supposed to represent the idea of this sort of blue wave of fans. And so it starts as a sort of little idea, but then, you know, over years of seeing it grow, it still seems kind of magical that one day you walk in and, God, Sunday was amazing. You know, not only hearing the roar of the crowd, but the way the team played and knowing that the building attributes to that,

it's an unbelievable experience. You know, I'm really lucky that I get to do this as a job. Tell us about, is it the South Stand that's very steep? Yeah. Tell us about building that and why that's so important to the experience. Yeah, a lot of buildings today reference the yellow wall of Dortmund. That's pretty famous in Germany just for having this kind of wall of fans that really does make it a super intimidating place to play

because it feels like the fans are right on top of the goal. So very early in the discussions with Everton, And there was a lot of discussion about the fact that, you know, they weren't like a London club. They weren't fancy. They were, this was a hardworking historical club that really cared about the experience of football. And they were coming from a 133-year-old stadium in Goodison that was, for all of its challenges and age, it was still one of the great places to see a football match. So we concentrated very early on making the stance. as steep as they possibly could be by code

because it makes you feel like you're literally sitting on top of the pitch and keeping the pitch right at the edge or the stands right at the edge of the pitch so that that wall of fans is they become that 12th man and they really do affect, you know, the play on the pitch. You know, you say that you wanted to build a stadium for the supporters who aren't fancy types or as they'd say in England, posh. But the sports world is more and more catering to the high net worth individuals, the VIPs. How has that changed your job?

Yeah, it's obviously the business of sports has just grown exponentially and, you know, across all sports. And it's certainly true in English football that to maintain a competitive club, you really need to drive those kind of revenues. And most of those revenues come from the premium fans. So what we have to do is find a way that you can create unique experiences that those premium fans want to pay more money for, but not give up the experience of those real hardcore supporters on top of the pitch. So in Everton, it means that a lot of that stuff is kind of behind the scenes. You know, it certainly has its clubs with its views to the river and the concourses. it has a kind of unique approach that there's kind of a club experience at every level in the building

and people can even buy into it on a weekly basis to try it. And that helps create a new kind of premium customer. It's not like an NFL building where, you know, you just put in suites everywhere and take up the best seats right next to the to the field with the VIP customer because that really changes the experience in the bowl itself. So it's a big challenge because we have to kind of find a way to do both and particularly in English football

because it's got to be football first in most cases. We're speaking to Dan Meese, a stadium architect most recently designed Everton's new stadium in England here on the Halford and Brough show on SportsNet 650. Dan, if I was to ask you what makes a great stadium,

is there one universal answer? Is it too difficult to answer given how many different situations and scenarios there are across the globe. Well, I think there is one consistent thing, and it is this idea that, you know, it's the fans that make the stadium. We as architects get a lot of attention, and, you know, these are big buildings often with public investment and their icons on the skyline and all of that.

But none of that matters to what happens on the floor or on the pitch. and the company I work for just completed the Intuit Dome for the L.A. Clippers, and they've done a similar thing to what we did at Everton, where there's kind of a wall of fans. It's already proven that that's already proven that's affecting the free-throw shooting of the opposite team. So that's the thing that I think can be universal. If you can keep the fans as close as possible to the action

and the real fans, not turn it into a bunch of luxury boxes, you're going to affect that home pitch, home field, home floor advantage in a way that, you know, you might not do in a different building. Is there any way to make building these stadiums cheaper? Yeah, you know, it's amazing even to me. You know, I've been doing this for 30 plus years. And, you know, some of the early buildings that I worked on NFL buildings that cost a few hundred million. And now you don't see an NFL building for under $2 billion. And in just the span of that time, it seems crazy.

And it's largely driven by all the things that we've been talking about, that the building's got a lot bigger because you need all these other spaces in the building that drive revenue. So the best way to make a building less expensive. And look, Everton, I think the numbers are somewhere around 750, 750 million pounds for a brand new stadium, that's pretty modest compared to what we're seeing and any other major professional league. So a lot of it is about trying to keep it focused around the event

and really minimizing all the extra real estate you're creating. Or bells and whistles like retractable roofs and retractable turf, the more that you can keep it to its basics, that's the best way to make them affordable. So, Dan, we've got an MLS team here in Vancouver called the White Caps, and they play at a stadium called BC Place, which is owned by the province and controlled by the province. And the White Caps would like to build a new stadium here, but Vancouver's pretty tough to find the land in, and it's an expensive project. And I notice on your website, you've got an area called Revenue Mining. and I'm just wondering if you could explain what that is and maybe what that says about the importance

for these teams to control their own buildings. Yeah, it's really critical. I mean, I think throughout sports, and again, it's just kind of a reflection of where the business has gone. The teams that are merely tenants really do struggle to drive the revenues because so much of the experience is driven not by the ticket sale.

It's everything else. It's food and beverage. It's parking. It's controlling the sponsorship, the ad revenue, all those sorts of things. So it is becoming almost imperative for the club to at least have a major ownership in the building so that they can capture those revenues. I forgot the first part of your question. Sorry, it's about revenue mining and what you might do.

Let's say you go into a stadium and they say, all right, mine some revenue for us. Yeah, yeah. So what that's referring to specifically is more often in renovations, where we look for spaces that are either not utilized at all or severely underutilized and turn them into revenue producing spaces. And a great example, the Seattle Seahawks Stadium in Seattle. We did some design for the renovations of that building.

And there was an area that's under what's called the hawk's nest in the end zone that literally you come up from the plaza and it was an open area that you could look onto the field. But it was just a circulation area between that concourse and the seats above it. And so what we did is put in a kind of club-like bar atmosphere. And it was just capturing space. You know, we didn't have to build much. We just had to kind of build the bar. And all of a sudden, what was just a circulation space and highly unused became a place that people love to hang out because you can get food and drink and look at the game. That's the kind of thing.

In crypto, or it was at Staples at the time, we found an area where the Zamboni was parked. And because during the basketball games, obviously, the Zamboni is not necessary. So we turned that into a kind of pop-up club. that's another example of just, you know, finding an unused place and mining some revenue out of it. That's fairly new, this whole area where people can congregate during the game. I mean, new being, you know, 20 years or whatever. But how much time do you spend on things like that? Because, for example, when I go to a regular season baseball game down in Seattle,

like I like the Mariners, but not enough to sit in my seat and watch them for nine innings. I want to go somewhere and hang out. Like, is that more and more a focus? And maybe how, maybe a question is, how important is having an area for people to congregate at a stadium? Yeah, yeah, it's critical. And I have to say, it was probably one of the early things, you know, in my career that I felt like we helped innovate.

And we were working with the Cincinnati Bengals and before Paul Brown Stadium and I had never done an NFL building before. I was coming off of what was then Safeco Field and Miller Park and Staples, but I was an NFL fan kind of first and foremost at the time and I'd never done an NFL stadium. But as we met with the Bengals,

Mike Brown said, you know, I guess the reason these NFL stadiums all look the same, I guess they have to be that way. But the fact is we don't sell the corner seats very much. And, you know, it was kind of a light-balled moment. I said, well, if you don't sell them, let's not build them. And there's this opportunity to kind of peel an NFL stadium open.

And what you end up with by not building those corner seats is you have these corner areas where people can congregate. And I don't know how prescient I was about it at the time, but it also became part of the trend that people do want that communal experience. You know, it's like the pub culture in the UK. They're happy to go stand in the street with a bunch of us. other people talking and having their, their pints. And that kind of experience just didn't exist in the older stadiums because you kind of had to sit in your seat. It's always tight in the seat. It's not comfortable to be holding your food on your lap. And so these communal areas have become critical. It's weird because it's not rocket science, but it truly was an innovation

that now you see in every building. And again, it becomes revenue mining because what used to just be kind of open areas are now areas driving a lot of revenue. Dan, before we let you go, you mentioned Cincinnati, and let's tie it back to MLS because that is one of the things that we've been focused on here. The FC Cincinnati Stadium, which I believe only opened four years ago. So it's got a lot of the things that we've been talking about. It's soccer specific.

I think the cap is about 26 to 28K. So in terms of some of the things that we're looking at here, there are some similarities. What were some of your experiences in going through the build and the design of FC Cincinnati Stadium? him. Well, again, you know, I did have a relationship with that owner through Paul Brown because they had originally been with the, Jeff Birding had been with the Bengals. So we had some of those discussions, you know, years before about this idea of the corners and the importance of it.

He also was very intrigued by what we were doing at Everton that was in planning at the time. And so what you see a lot in MLS, there's definitely picking up on the European notion of the sort of wall of fans and really creating that eye energy sort of home pitch advantage of creating a supporter wall. So that's part of it. I think the, again, the idea of trying to create an experience for all is really important that you don't over VIP a place. It certainly has to have things like.

tunnel clubs where the VIP areas where you can see players coming in, those are really important now. And so the MLS is definitely learning lessons from not only the NFL, but also the European soccer teams about the kind of experience that you can create. And I think that was a really important thing to FCC to really be on the cutting edge of what an MLS experience was. Well, we learned a lot today as well. Dan, this was great.

Thanks for taking the time to do this. Very interesting, very informative, and very well presented. This has been great. Thank you very much. Thanks for your time, guys. That's Dan Meese, stadium architect. Numerous stadiums, including, now we can run through them. Everton, FC Cincinnati, Staples, some big-name stadiums.

I was very curious. Safeco, now T-Mobile. Yeah, I wonder, we should have put them on the spot. Can you go through the chronology of all the names of every stadium that you've ever designed? Cincinnati's an interesting one though because it was in that list that I was rattling off earlier of the recent MLS builds

that are soccer specific and they just put in Kentucky bluegrass as their grass for 2025 Can you imagine a new stadium for the white caps Sure can be so awesome You know what we should do We should be the conduit between getting Dan Here

You can get a commission Yeah, could just take a bit off the top I know how politics works It's gonna be a brown paper bag on the side We don't need it anyway I mean And it's important to learn as much about this as possible from our perspective because I think at certain points are continual bagging on BC place might ring hollow if we don't ever try and look at. But we're trying to explain why the situation is not working for the caps.

Like that whole thing about revenue mining. Like that is, that is, I mean, he basically said it is really challenging if you don't control the building. Yeah. And there are so many opportunities to squeeze every dollar out of the place. And that's what ultimately what the end game of sports is, really. Move the poor people over here and bring in the rich people. Some sort of pen in the outfield. You guys can all.

There's not even seats. But. All right. I got a lot more to get to on the Halford and Brow show on SportsNet 650. I got to tell you about the BC Lions before we go to break. It's another season of hard hits. Heated rivalries of nonstop entertainment. Damon. For tickets, visit BCLions.com and get ready to roar as one. I've got to go to break.

You're listening to the Alford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650.