Ten Cities That Do Sports Venues the Best (and Some Terrible Ones)

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One problem is that our policy makers will happily throw out public money to build new sports stadiums, but they will turn around and say that we cannot afford better public transit

Piling on here, but Cincinnati and Pittsburgh should definitely have been on this list. The way the parking lot is completely hidden underground with an entire neighborhood built on top of it between the Reds and Bengals stadiums in Cincinnati was completely brilliant.

"Serving all five boroughs: Manhattan, the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, and New Jersey" That's some top-notch Staten Island shade and I am here for it

Shocked Pitt didn’t make the list. All three major sports venues are literally walkable from downtown. The minor league soccer stadium is as well. PNC and The place formerly known as Heinz Field are also on the light rail line and are very well-integrated into the North Shore.

Ah yes, the five boroughs of NYC - Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, The Bronx, and New Jersey 😂

Best thing about the Vancouver downtown stadiums (aside from Skytrain being right there) is the urban Costco across the street with their food court facing the street and open to everyone. Before the game you can get a Costco hot dog for $1.50 or a cheap slice of pizza and scarf it down just before entering the stadium so you won't have to pay >$8 inside the stadium for a similar "meal".🤪

How is Pittsburgh not on this list? Acrisure Stadium is shared by Pitt and the Steelers and is right beside PNC Park, a bridge's walk away from downtown and each has its own light rail station. Highmark Stadium, home of the Riverhounds, is likewise but on the opposite side of the Monogahela from downtown, again with its own light rail stop. And PPG Paints Arena is only a ten minute walk from downtown.

The design of Seattle's Climate Pledge Arena is quite unique, and it's the Nokia of NHL arenas considering its age! I know Detroit is the Motor City, but kudos to them for actually moving their teams out of the suburbs. Downtown Detroit has improved a lot, not to mention the food culture is great! They're definitely on the right track. Also yeah, sports complexes with multiple venues may sound like a good idea on paper, but once it's all said and done, is a huge sea of parking really worth it? Especially in a very urban environment like Philly? It completely ruins the city's charm. Add housing and restaurants to fill in all that parking, and then it would integrate perfectly. Historical mention for Jersey City and the demolished Roosevelt Stadium which was built in 1936 and demolished in 1985. It would be a very important in 1946 when Roosevelt Stadium hosted the Jersey City Giants' season opener against the Montreal Royals, marking the professional debut of the Royals' Jackie Robinson. In his five trips to the plate, Robinson got four hits, including a three-run homer, scored four runs and drove in three. The Royals had a 14-1 victory. This is why there is a statue of Jackie Robinson at the Journal Square Transportation Center. Nowadays, the site is the private Society Hill, but NJCU has an athletics complex there. JC still has an armory that has been used for track and field, basketball, and boxing by JSQ.

Surprised Denver didn't at least make honorable mention. The MLS stadium is an F, but the other three are all walkable from downtown and transit accessible.

Cleveland OH being left off this is kinda odd. Especially considering the criteria. All three major sports arenas are located in or near the downtown area. All three are accessible via rail transit, all three are close to or directly connected to decent parking.

A little surprised to see Pittsburgh passed over completely. All of their professional sports arenas are right there downtown. Steelers and Pirates stadiums are a fairly short walk away from each other.

I am very surprised at Pittsburgh not even meriting an honorable mention - especially given it's historical overrepresentation in @CityNerd content!

I'm curious as to where Cleveland is on this list. I would think the venues wouldn't rank spectacularly, but also none of them overly poorly. Back when the Cavs were in Richfield, definitely, but since the late '90s I would think it's at least decent.

I'll be that Toronto guy you predicted - BMO field is surrounded by some parking but that parking also serves the exhibition grounds, multiple conference centres, a small minor league arena, a concert venue, public parklands, and several other facilities. It's also served by regional rail and soon to be served by the subway. It's also hard to imagine a more accessible arena than Scotia Bank - it's attached to Union station so anyone in the region can take a direct train to the game, and it also has great subway access

Stadiums might be the urban planning thing Houston got right. 3 are downtown and the NRG and Astrodome are connected via light rail.

I live in Ottawa. Currently our NHL arena is in the middle of a giant suburban parking lot, 25km from downtown in the extreme west end of the city. It sucks to get to by bus, and if you drive it can take up to an hour just to get out of the parking lot. There's nothing around there but box stores and car dealerships. It just sucks. Luckily the Ottawa Senators are in the process of being sold, and the new owners will almost certainly be moving the team downtown to an area right at the nexus of our developing transit system. Most of the city and fanbase are pretty excited about that, though there is this vocal minority who's popped up recently, who want the arena to stay where it is. I'm finding it funny going through their arguments, because it's like a bingo card of anti-urbanist myths. Like they can't understand where everyone will park, or that a good many people would choose to take transit by choice. One guy even told me that transit is for poor people, and it's unethical for those of us with means to invade their space just for a sports game?

I'm curious to see where Pittsburgh would have stacked up on this list...PNC Park and Heinz field both have bus and ferry service and awesome downtown views. UPitt shares Heinze field. The Penguins arena is nestled right in downtown. The River hounds have a stadium built next to Station Square on the other side of the river from PNC Park....

Montréal deserves a dishonorable mention because of the Bell Cenrte. CP Rail had begun process of exiting being a railroad in Canada in the 1980s. After selling off what it could of its Québec trackage, it then splt the remaining tracks into separate company (while CP Rail held onto real estate below tracks) hoping it would go bankrupt and ease the Transport Canada decision to allow tracks to be removed. Part if its wet dream was to get trains out of Windsor station so it could turn this into real estate development. Commuter trains had already been transfered to government who was paying CP for use of tracks so CP could't stop the trains or remove tracks, but the real estate apetite was greater. Meanwhile, the owners of the hockey team wanted to have an area with more high-priced suites and said the perfectly fine Forum at the Atwater métro was inadequate. As a result, CP rail struck a deal with the government whereby in exchange for CP Rail promising to keep its head office in Montréal, the government would allow redevelopment of Windsor station, preserving only the historic landmark building. And to make sure the trains could NEVER EVER return to the station, the new hockey areana was built below, at and above track level (unlike Madison Square Gardens that was built above.). So your video has factual error because trains do not pass under the area, the arena provice an impassible obstacle and trains stop outside on outdoor uncovered platforms. There si a small heated space within arena building that allows one to walk from the remaining platforms to an outside passage to the street. If you look at intersection of de la Montagned and ave des Canadiens 45.4959254 -73.5708728 on street view, I dare you to find any signage to find where the entrance to the the station called Lucien L'Allier is. From Windsor Station, there was direct acess down to Bonaventure station and walking from Peel to the downtown core was fast. Now peoople have to walk from de la Montagne. Oh, and part of CP exiting Québec was selling the whole complex to a shopping mall company (Cadillac Fairview) who developped every inch it was allowed, including the condoes over the outside passage to the train platforms (but condo won't allow any signage to entrance) and office towers, all designed to forever prevet the use of Windsor station as a train station ever again. The owners of the Canadiens promised the new arena would generate lots of revenues and pay taxes. CP Rail promised it would keep head office in Montréal. As soon as all approved and the tracks were cut off from Windsor station, CP Rail annoucned it was moving its head office to Calgary, and the owners of the hockey arena went to city to declare the arena would lose money and they needed subsidies/tax break. Meanwhile, Montréal forever lost a key transport infrastructure downtown. Unlike other cities where 2 railways built a very large "Union station", Montréal had retained disctinct midsize CN and CP stations downtown, leaving only the CN station now, and worse, the REM construction not only stole the tunnel, removed electrification of all tracks (it was 25kvAC) so it could put 1500vdc on its 2 tracks, but also placed its 2 tracks on track 9-10, forever preventing re-opening of tracks 5-6, 7-8 that were west of 9-10. Those had been closed sicne late 1980s after the big VIA rail cutbacks but with plans to increase services, the lack of tracks is now a major problem. (it was part of reason the Amtrak Adirondak train took so long to restart post pandemic because the owner of Central station is now another shopping mall company who would rather lease floor space to shops than run a train station. On a positive note: when the Allouettes vacated the former sports facility called Olympic Statium to choose the Molson Stadium they organised transit very well with frequent shuttle buses betwen métro and the stadium as well as having guides to help those walking to stadium take the right paths to it. Very customer focused aproach to make them enjoy the experience of the game.

What about Cleveland (NFL, MLB, NBA) and Pittsburgh (NFL, MLB, NHL)? All are in or adjacent to their downtowns.