Yankee Stadium
Yankee Stadium is a baseball stadium located in the Bronx in New York City. The stadium is the home ballpark for Major League Baseball’s New York Yankees as well as the home venue for New York City FC of Major League Soccer.
This article is about the stadium that opened in 2009. For the original stadium, see Yankee Stadium (1923). For other uses, see Yankee Stadium (disambiguation).Address
The Bronx, New York City, U.S.
August 19, 2006
April 2, 2009 (workout day)
April 3, 2009 (exhibition game)
April 16, 2009 (regular season)
US$2.3 billion[7]
Tishman Speyer/International Facilities Group, LLC.
M-E Engineers, Inc.[9]
The stadium opened in April 2009, replacing the original Yankee Stadium that operated from 1923 to 2008; it is situated on the 24-acre (9.7 ha) former site of Macombs Dam Park, one block north of the original stadium's site. The new Yankee Stadium replicates design elements of the original Yankee Stadium, including its exterior and trademark frieze, while incorporating larger spaces and modern amenities. It has the sixth-largest seating capacity among the 30 stadiums of Major League Baseball.
Construction on the stadium began in August 2006, and the project spanned many years and faced many controversies, including the high public cost and the loss of public park land. The $2.3 billion stadium was built with $1.2 billion in public subsidies[7] and is one of the most expensive stadiums ever built.[25]
Yankee Stadium became the home field of the MLS expansion club New York City FC in 2014, which is owned by City Football Group and the Yankees. It will be an interim venue for the club until a soccer-specific stadium is constructed. It has also occasionally hosted college football games, including the annual Pinstripe Bowl, concerts, and other athletic and entertainment events.
History[edit]
Planning[edit]
New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner began campaigning for a new stadium in the early 1980s, just a few years after the remodeled Yankee Stadium opened. Steinbrenner at the time was reportedly considering a move to the Meadowlands Sports Complex in New Jersey. New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean in 1984 authorized the use of land for a new baseball stadium in the Meadowlands, but the state legislature did not provide financing for the stadium.[26] In a statewide referendum in 1987, New Jersey taxpayers rejected $185 million in public financing for a baseball stadium for the Yankees.[27] Despite the rejection from New Jersey, Steinbrenner frequently threatened to move as leverage in negotiations with New York City.
In 1988, Mayor Ed Koch agreed to have city taxpayers spend $90 million on a second renovation of Yankee Stadium that included luxury boxes and restaurants inside the stadium and parking garages and traffic improvements outside. Steinbrenner agreed in principle, but then backed out of the deal. In 1993, Mayor David Dinkins expanded on Koch's proposal by offering his Bronx Center vision for the neighborhood, including new housing, a new courthouse, and relocating the Police Academy nearby.[28]
In 1993, New York Governor Mario Cuomo proposed using the West Side Yard, a 30-acre (12 ha) rail yard along the West Side of Manhattan and owned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, as the location for a new stadium for the Yankees. However, Cuomo lost his re-election bid a few months later. By 1995, Steinbrenner had rejected 13 proposals to keep the Yankees in the Bronx.[29]
In 1998, Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer proposed spending $600 million in public money to add dozens of luxury boxes to the stadium, to improve highway and public transportation access, and to create a Yankee Village, with shops, restaurants, and a museum. Steinbrenner rejected this as well. That same year, Mayor Rudy Giuliani unveiled a plan to relocate the Yankees to the West Side Yard for a $1 billion stadium. However, with most of the funding coming from taxpayers, Giuliani tabled the proposal, fearing rejection in a citywide referendum. The West Side Stadium plan resurfaced in December 2001, and by January 2002, months after the September 11 attacks, Giuliani announced "tentative agreements" for both the New York Yankees and New York Mets to build new stadiums. He estimated that both stadiums would cost $2 billion, with city and state taxpayers contributing $1.2 billion.[30]
Michael Bloomberg, who succeeded Giuliani as mayor in 2002, called the former mayor's agreements "corporate welfare" and exercised the escape clause in the agreements to back out of both deals, saying that the city could not afford to build new stadiums for the Yankees and Mets. Bloomberg said that Giuliani had inserted a clause in this deal that loosened the teams' leases with the city and would allow the Yankees and Mets to leave the city on 60 days' notice to find a new home elsewhere if the city backed out of the agreement. At the time, Bloomberg said that publicly funded stadiums were a poor investment. Bloomberg's blueprint for the stadium was unveiled in 2004, at the same time as the plan for the Mets' new stadium, Citi Field. The final cost for the two stadiums was more than $3.1 billion; taxpayer subsidies accounted for $1.8 billion.[7]
Ticket policy[edit]
Effective 2016, printed electronic tickets cannot be used at New York Yankees and New York City FC matches at Yankee Stadium. Only traditional hard-stock tickets, and those issued via a mobile ticketing system, are accepted. The team justified the decision by stating that it was meant to combat fraud associated with printed digital tickets. However, it was also believed that the team was trying to specifically hinder the ticket resale service StubHub, which competed against an official resale service run by TicketMaster known as the Yankees Ticket Exchange. The YTE is subject to a price flooring policy, meaning that tickets may only be discounted up to a certain amount. Although StubHub was the official ticket resale partner of Major League Baseball at the time, the Yankees, as well as the Los Angeles Angels and Chicago Cubs, had opted out of this agreement.[121]
Owing to the Yankees' ownership of the team, New York City FC announced on March 11, 2016, that its matches would also be subject to this policy. At the team's March 13, 2016 home opener, although the team stated that they would be phasing in mobile ticketing by introducing additional verification steps for printed tickets before the policy takes full effect in April, reports indicated that the stadium was turning away fans with printed tickets, leading to long queue lines, as well as few attendees inside the stadium itself.[122][123] In an interview with WFAN radio, Yankees COO Lonn Trost explained that the measures were to help combat ticket resale, arguing that the team did not want fans to purchase "premium" seats at bargain prices, because they would be filled by "someone who has never sat in a premium location [before]".[124]
On April 3, 2016, an episode of the HBO news-comedy series Last Week Tonight aired, where host John Oliver responded to Trost's remarks, arguing that he was "saying that rich people couldn't bear to sit next to people who aren't as rich." As a further satire of Trost's arguments against discounted resale, Oliver then announced a contest in which viewers were invited to send photos of themselves dressed as if they had "never sat in a premium location before", with winners offered the ability to purchase a pair of Legends Seats from one of the first three home games of the season for 25 cents. The stunt was successful, leading to the presence of several costumed attendees in Legends Seats during the opening games. Team president Randy Levine responded positively to the stunt, thanking Oliver for having bought tickets to begin with, and remarked that everyone was welcome at Yankee Stadium.[125][126][127]
On June 27, 2016, the Yankees announced that it had reached a deal with StubHub for it to become its new official ticket resale partner beginning on July 7, 2016, and allow season ticket holders to sell electronic tickets, rather than mail physical tickets to the buyer. The service will still be subject to a price flooring policy, but the team stated that the new arrangement would provide a "superior, more secure, [and] better experience".[128][129]