Reports differ in the DC-Baltimore area on whether
Women's World Cup organizers will make several thousand more
seats available to Thursday's U.S.-Germany quarterfinal
match by opening the upper deck at Jack Kent Cooke Stadium.
In DC, Steven Goff reports that WWC organizers do "plan" on
increasing capacity from roughly 41,000 to meet the ticket
demand, but "one of the issues was how much to charge for
the newly available seats." Under the original downsized
plan, the cheapest seats were $30, and those "have been
listed as sold out for a couple of weeks." WWC organizers
"feared upsetting fans who wanted the lower-priced seats but
had to pay $50 or $75 before the new tickets became
available" (WASHINGTON POST, 6/29). But in Baltimore,
Lowell Sunderland reports that WWC execs "decided late
yesterday not to open" the upper deck (Baltimore SUN, 6/29).
HEAVEN'S GATE: WWC Dir of PR Richard Finn, on the
attendance for the U.S. women's team games: "I think if
somebody had told us six months ago, three months ago, that
in one week we would draw crowds in Giants Stadium of
78,000, Soldier Field of 65,000, then 50,000 at Foxboro
Stadium we would look at them and say that's outrageous. By
no means were we disappointed" (BOSTON GLOBE, 6/29).