Jets and giants aren’t even in the state or city they are named for

And yet, still almost 4x closer than the Santa Clara 49ers.

Nor are the Commanders.

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Remember when the Detroit Lions were in Pontiac?

Ah, yes, the New York Giants playing in New Jersey.

How are they still called “New York” Giants/Jets when they don’t even play in that state?

Bears are about to be second furthest.

While 49ers are far from San Francisco, being in Santa Clara puts them in the heart of the bay area and overall closer to a lot more people than they otherwise would be in downtown San Francisco. It's just the name that's wrong (but of course they don't want to change that due to the team history and brand).

The Silverdome was the shit. Never saw a game there, but lots of concerts

When New Jersey hosted the Super Bowl, the NFL essentially hermetically sealed the state, so that every dollar of revenue generated was spent in New York.

While that makes sense from an economic point of view that’s kind of like saying the packers would be ok to move their stadium to Sheboygan because it’s closer to a lot more people in Milwaukee than it otherwise would be in downtown Green Bay.

Sure that’s probably true. But it’s a betrayal of the heart of the team. It’s not the Bay Area 49ers or the sam Jose or Santa Clara 49ers. It’s the San Francisco 49ers. For the same reason the raiders would never have moved to SF.

Ah yes, the good old Arlington Heights Bears. Yes they will get more space, and an opportunity to improve the Arena how they want it, and better autonomy of their decisions vs going through the Chicago park district… but … well you know what they have a good justification to move.

Santa Clara is not even close to the heart of the Bay Area. SF is the center on the Bay Area. Candlestick was a way more accessible location to all of the Bay Area. The Bay Area isn’t just Silicon Valley.

San Francisco has a population of 815K. San Jose, which is at the other end of the Bay, has a population of 983K. All of Santa Clara county has a population of ~2 million. People in the bay area are heavily concentrated around the south and south east. The city of SF is very sparse in comparison.

Plus, until recently you had the Raiders just across in Oakland which further made a downtown SF team redundant.

they are based in the new york metro area and most of their fans are from the new york metro area. same reason it's called the las vegas strip and not the unincorporated clark county strip

SF is one of the densest cities in the US!

NYC is closer to Jersey's Capital then New York's Capital. The entire area is very confusing.

Because New Jersey wouldn't have gotten those teams if not for the proximity to NYC.

They’re the.. San Francisco.. 49ers.. not the Bay Area 49ers.

Packers played 4 games a year in Milwaukee for 40 years. They only went full time again after Lambeau was renovated in the 90s.

You can say San Francisco refers to San Francisco Bay. Levi’s Stadium is less than 2 miles from the bay shore.

And the 9ers play zero games a year in San Francisco because they built their stadium 40 miles south of the 800,000 person city they are in. Which is roughly 8x larger than Green Bay.

Football (shudder… soccer) fan from England.

My own stadium (St James Park) in Newcastle is the only U.K. club soccer stadium in the centre of the city, and it’s due a revamp due to new ownership.

Any American examples of stadiums that are located downtown but make really good use of the space around it for public square etc?

Surprisingly accurate geospatially

> My own stadium (St James Park) in Newcastle is the only U.K. club soccer stadium in the centre of the city

Surely that can't be right? Ipswich Town and Hartlepool are both pretty much smack in the middle of the city at least going off where Google Maps puts that city centre.

Not to mention all the clubs in London that represent different suburbs.

It isn’t right, there’s quite a few stadiums that are just in or outside the town/city centres in the UK. Maybe right if you literally mean a few streets off the high street: The vast majority would be within the 5 mile range on this infographic aside from the odd stadium built within the last 10/20 years.

I wonder what they used as the city center for these various cities.

TIAA Bank stadium in Jacksonville maybe

Aren’t both Nottingham stadiums in the city centre (judging that on the proximity of hooters to the stadium)

Because Milwaukee County Stadium was such a masterpiece compared to Old Lambeau!

How TF is this being downvoted? It's measurably true. Trenton NJ is 68 miles from midtown Manhattan; Albany is over twice as far.

Also closer to midtown Manhattan than the capital of New York: the capital of Connecticut, the largest city in Pennsylvania, the largest city in Delaware.

The bears play downtown. Why isn’t it in the circle.

Does Green Bay really count?

I mean, on any given Sunday, there's roughly the same number of people at Lambeau Field as there are living in the city of Green Bay.

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Imposter syndrome.

They don’t want the world to know they’re from New Jersey or they’d be seen as frauds off the football field too.

Probably because "Downtown" Chicago is really big. And I guess if you measure the center of it to be in the loop, Soldier Field us pretty far away.

Don't worry, you're soon going to be out in Arlington Heights.

The Patriots are the “New England Patriots,” a region, not just a city. Fun fact: they’re the only NFL team with a name tied to neither a state nor a city.

The Pats’ stadium is in the Boston ‘burbs but roughly halfway between downtown Boston and Providence, Rhode Island. Indeed, the team’s private jet is parked at and typically flies out of PVD.

I’m not sure I agree with you when you say it’s a betrayal to the heart of the team.

I know that football and baseball are different in terms of economics (salary cap, team values, etc), but when the Atlanta Braves moved out of downtown to the suburbs, it has been a major success in spite of all those who said it wouldn’t work. The stadium is now much closer to the majority of fans, attendance has increased, game day experience is much better, and these factors have led to an increased payroll and a better team on the field. All that said, the Braves only moved about 15 miles away vs however far the 49ers are, but I don’t think you can find anyone now (other than city of Atlanta politicians) who would say that it wasn’t the right move.

I guess my whole point is that doing what’s best for the team will pay off in the long run even if it means having a different address.

Public roadsides are, by regulatory language, supposed to use the central Federal Post Office Location. Mapping programs use a census block population centroid or a geospatial centroid, given the peculiar boundaries of municipal entities.

I could say that it actually refers to San Francisco de Campeche so the stadium is actually 2,243 miles away.

^(edit: I'm worse at google maps than I am at shitposting right after waking up apparently)

They don't belong close to downtowns. Most days/times they aren't in public use and serve as just a huge obstacle to making a city walkable.

(Edit -- they also are an obstacle to making a city drive-able)

I’ll start by making two disclaimers:

1. I am not remotely familiar with Atlanta geography or culture so please let me know if I make mistakes there.
2. San Francisco geography and cultural divides are very complicated and my opinion is that of a non native (though I’ve been here over 10 years) who has lived in Berkeley, Oakland, and San Francisco and notably NOT in the South Bay.

/disclosures

The big difference I see between your example with the braves and the 49ers is Atlanta is a major city surrounded by Atlanta suburbs. San Francisco is a major city surrounded by mostly water which is then surrounded by several other major cities, notably Oakland and San Jose.

This either cities have their own identities and cultures that are distinct from San Francisco. Collectively those three cities and the other around and in between make up the “Bay Area” so differentiating between a city and the Bay Area can be difficult.

The warriors (NBA) for example recently moved from Oakland. Across the bay into San Francisco. Very controversial. But they justified it by saying they are the “golden state warriors” not the Oakland warriors and they are the bay areas basketball team. Now that is very much open for debate and I’m sure most Oakland natives still have strong negative feelings about that.

On the flip side we have the San Francisco 49ers who are IMO Sam Francisco’s football team. For about 30 years they were not the only game in town and thus not universally the bay areas football team. Though very much open for debate considering the raiders were in LA, then Oakland, and now are gone. So moving them so far away makes me feel not like they are in a suburb of San Francisco but instead in nearly the heart of another city, San Jose. They are 8 molded from downtown San Jose and 40 miles from downtown San Francisco. San Jose is still very much Bay Area and they do not have another football team but I would imagine a large portion of their residents have been raiders fans for years (it’s just as far from the old raiders stadium to San Jose as it was from the old 49ers stadium).

As for being better economically, I don’t think the 49ers ever had attendance issues. They’ve been a very successful team historically I think the major economic driver was the cost to build in SF vs down south. While San Jose is by no means cheap, San Francisco is extremely dense and finding the space to build was probably going to be wildly complicated and expensive. The warriors managed to figure something out but I guess the 49ers couldn’t/wouldn’t.

Seattle's stadium is right downtown next to pioneer square, very central

Washington was nice enough to leave a 1 mile hike from the nearest train station when they built their stadium. For burning off the calories of overpriced food.

It's a Boston team, though. They were the Boston Patriots for 10 years. I think using Boston as the "home city" is a fair choice.

Because they think that being from New Jersey is an insult to the elites in New York. I’ll take the Jersey shore over the South Bronx any day! And so would they!

They are in the Metro area though. The meadowlands is still in the NYC metro area

I admittedly don’t know many details about San Francisco geography and team rooting interests/loyalty, but your response made sense. This past summer I happened to drive by where the 49ers play, and I was surprised at how far away it seemed from San Francisco. But I just assumed it was still in the heart of 49ers country. I guess the real lesson is owners will do whatever they want, fans be damned!

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You can fall down at Lambeau and land downtown Green Bay.

I miss candlestick.

Yes, I agree.

And was conveniently built on top of fill dirt, thus nullifying the argument that something more useful could be put there.

but the Commanders could actually be further, like the furthest on this list once they do the logical thing

and launch that garbage dump FeDex field into the sun

HARD disagree here.

Yes, they aren't in use most of the time, but they don't necessarily create any problems with Walkability.

Ravens stadium and Orioles park are both close to downtown, and they don't affect walkability in the slightest.

RFK used to be near the Heart of DC and didnt affect walkability at all. Nats Park doesn't affect walkability. Neither does Cap1

Its a non-issue, unless the planning team is crazy incompetent.

And for the times that it IS in use, that's not just a sports venue, but an event/concert venue that is easily accessible by foot or public transit.

Yes.

A big philosophy right now is to create the stadium and surrounding areas a "entertainment districts".

Idea being, you develop the entire block as a part of town people come for recreation, and on game day, the games fuel increased profits for local bars and restaurants.

Same thing for concert or festival days.

And all together the bar and food scene helps create a return on investment on the city development effort that the stadium would have asked for anyways. (Meaning, if they are going to do the effort to run subways lines, repair roads, make the area transport accessible, might as well set up business that will benefit from it other than just a stadium)

That in turn also raises the property values of the hotels and residential buildings in the area, because the stadiums and concert stages bring investment in keeping the roads nice and local area clean and pretty, and the nicer retail outlets come in trying to get a piece of that partygoer spending, so then the apts/condos in that area are suddenly in the middle of the hot new nice area

They're calling them "Multi-Use areas or something now. All I know is, the wharf music area (The Anthem concert venue, Union Stage venue), and Nationals Park baseball stadium are all close enough to each other to walk, which means the same public infrastructure supports both, and the same bars, clubs, and shopping outlets benefit from their proximity to them

DC United soccer stadium bottom - National Park Baseball Stadium top

The baseball, basketball and new soccer stadiums are usually much smaller so can be more part of the city, some of the baseball stadiums are very historic (for US). Look at Cincinnati Ohio for examples along the River or Columbus Ohio for newly built stadiums close to city center that were built on an old prison ground (they don’t have NFL but a historic college football stadium).