Fort Report

Ok, that looks like an odd request.  I’ll get to it in a second.  First, I think I figured out what I want to do with this blog space.  A few months back, I thought I was going to be moving out of the area for a sweet job outside of Kansas City writing the training program for a new generation coal plant.  But alas, KCP&L acted rather peculiarly incompetent with the specialty firm that I was going to work for and pulled the contract, so I decided to use my GI Bill and get some schooling to help build upon my navy experience .  I know for sure that I’ll be in RI for the next two seasons, so I thought I’d start blogging specifically about The Fort.  I was thinking about designing a rating system for each home game, make some suggestions, and talk about everything from attendance to coordination to security relations.  The original idea for this blog proved shallow, but this could be a good little niche.

(Sidenote to the whole job thing: After I had applied for my GI Bill payments, ordered my old transcripts, tracked down my medical records, paid my application fees, took the testing where I reverse engineered all the calculus I forgot in the last 16 years to place as high as I could, designed a class schedule that would fast-track me to another degree when I’m done, and recopied 1/3 of my A-School notes so I can challenge a few courses, I got a call from my friend at that energy firm.  KPC&L called them up out of the blue and wanted to know if I was still interested and if I could start immediately!  We both chuckled.  Way to go, KCP&L!  Good luck raising rates 25% due to your wind offsets.)

So I’ll be here for the next two seasons at the very least.  I’m going to renew my season ticket, but dropping the extra one I had.  So, I should be making every game and will be in The Fort.  Hopefully I can use this blog space to help make it better.  Maybe use it to plan displays, pass along new song lyrics, etc…  Before I get to the title of this post, let me say a few things about the state of The Fort:

The Fort took a bit of a step backwards this year.  Sure, the $200 deal (which I love) had to have added to the number of season ticket holders.  I’ll probably write a future post on this subject, but it clearly didn’t add to the already existing numbers going to games for a number of reasons, a lot being economically-related.  Especially worrisome is the fact that more people came to see the team play during a cold water hurricane during the 2007 playoffs than were there on a stunning autumn afternoon in 2009.  The 2007 conference final had a completely packed, standing and singing section 143 on three business days to sell tickets.  On a week’s notice in 2009, section 143 was half full.  People just weren’t as excited as they were in years past, and that has much to do with the team’s malaise.  However, what used to be a coordination problem from too many “pedestrians” occupying lower-middle rows and not singing, turned into similar or worse noise with more of the regulars close together.  On the plus side, the flag situation has been resolved, and that will only get better.  Some of the younger people are stepping up and leading chants.  That’s always good to see.  But it was clearly a down year, something that can’t be ignored.  I’ll elaborate on all of those issues in the future.

Getting back to the point of this post, I wrote a little diddy back in May about what I think the team should do with Gillette Stadium.  I heard rumblings that the team would consider covering up some rows in The Fort, bringing the fans closer (not that it matters much with 7k people in the stadium).  I hope that’s not just hot air.  Here’s something else I think they should do:  Shift the field closer to the north, 7.5 feet to be exact.  I’ll explain the benefits to this, but first, why 7.5 feet?  Take a look at this picture:

Now squint, you stupid jerk!  Anyway, 7.5 feet equals 2.5 yards.  The center circle goes to the 40 yard lines.  The Patriots logo extends nearly 2 yards past the 45’s.  If you were to move the field, you don’t want that yellow circle touching (thus cursing forever) the Elvis Pats symbol.  I’m a Patriots fan, I can understand the inevitable freakout that would cause (even with the team reducing the number of gridiron games to two this year).  There’s also the question of space.  The field turf is cut off in the corners:

I think there’s enough room on the carpet.  If not, the sidelines may have to be brought in a foot or two.  7.5 feet will be short enough not to make the goal line cutting through the thick white endzone line.  It’s also not far enough to screw up the seating arrangement.  The centerline would then be around the 2nd or 3rd seat in section 109, not the middle of the row between sections 109 and 110.  So, the field can be moved.  Now, I’ll explain why they should do this:

With Giants Stadium being retired, it appears we will now be the league leader in distance from the endline to the endline seats.  I’m estimating it’s a good 35-40 feet from the stands to the goal line.  Getting the fans closer to the field will provide a greater home field advantage.  Moving the goal closer will also move down the row at which you see most of the action over the goal post.  If the plan is to tarp off a number of rows, this could be important to those in sections 142 and 143.  And better sightlines doesn’t just apply to The Fort, but all the sections that stretch to the west (where La Barra is located) as well sections 101-103, the primary seated Category 3 sections.

The area of the stadium this would obviously hurt would be the south end.  However, those seats are empty for most games of the season.  The only time you see a good number of people there is when there are large groups.  I would imagine a 7.5 foot move shouldn’t be a large enough change to matter for single game, younger fans.  Worried about what that does to the Cat 2 sightlines on that side?  Make section 115 Cat 3.  These things can be worked out.

The point being, you get the game closer to the most vocal and most regular fans in the lower cost seats without messing with the fans in the higher priced seats.  Security should still have enough room to patrol behind the north goal.  The positives surely outweigh the negatives here.  It’s value added to tickets that are already back to $20.  With the trend in attendance indicating they don’t have to worry about selling too many south end seats, I don’t see any reason why the team can’t do something like this.    It doesn’t even have to be 7.5 feet.