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Lessons from the road: Quakes learn from former home fields

The San Jose Earthquakes know a lot about stadiums: The MLS team has played home games at seven of them since first taking the field in 1996.

“We’ve learned a lot because of the fact that we’ve been vagabonds,” said Dave Hoskin, the team’s director of operations. “We had to play a lot of big games in a lot of stadiums in the area, which has been a challenge but a lot of fun. You have to make things fit. It’s not a standard day.”

The San Jose Earthquakes’ new stadium is taking shape in Santa Clara.
Photo by: DON MURET / STAFF
The past didn’t go to waste, though. The Quakes’ front office paid close attention during all those years crisscrossing the region, Hoskin said, and those lessons were applied to designing their new $70 million soccer-specific stadium, which is scheduled to open in March.

One example is the 12 sideline suites situated just above field level. At Buck Shaw Stadium, the team’s most recent home in Santa Clara, there are no suites, so the Earthquakes set up chairs on the field and marketed them as premium seats. They were so close to the action and became so popular that the team and 360 Architecture, the stadium’s designer, decided to bring the same concept to the new facility.

For the new 16,000-seat stadium, all premium seats are sold out, including the dozen suites going for $100,000 a year, Earthquakes President Dave Kaval said.

Are we home yet?

The San Jose Earthquakes have played home games at seven Bay Area stadiums since their debut in 1996. After their new stadium opens in March, they’ll continue to play a match each year at Levi’s Stadium.

Spartan Stadium, San Jose State University
Buck Shaw Stadium, Santa Clara University
O.co Coliseum, Oakland A’s
Stanford Stadium, Stanford University
Levi’s Stadium, San Francisco 49ers
Cagan Stadium, Stanford University
Kezar Stadium, San Francisco

Source: SportsBusiness Journal research

The collection of food trucks that will set up in the Epicenter Fan Zone, a section of lawn space behind the scoreboard bar in the north end, also was modeled after Buck Shaw Stadium. Because that venue did not have many concession stands, the Earthquakes brought in several food trucks to pick up the slack and offer their fans some variety, Hoskin said. Years later, as the food truck craze caught on in the Bay Area, those meals on wheels will play a key role for shaping the fan experience at the new building.

The food trucks will park on a circular path behind the scoreboard bar, leading to the Quakes positioning the Epicenter for non-game-day events. The two-sided video board allows the team to book watch parties for road games, movie nights and other festival-style events.

“It creates kind of a village green for San Jose, which we like,” Kaval said.

The seating bowl itself has a steep 34-degree rake, the highest for a stadium in North America, creating some of the best sight lines for soccer, he said.

In the north end, the 650-capacity supporters section is all standing room, the first new MLS facility to open without seats for its rooters groups. The section features a “safe standing” railing system to prevent supporters from pushing against each other toward the pitch. It’s modeled after the protective railings some European stadiums installed as a safety precaution following the Hillsborough Stadium tragedy in 1989.

The stadium roof is a nod to designs at the homes of English clubs.
Photo by: DON MURET / STAFF
By creating an SRO space exclusively for their hard-core fans, the Earthquakes give them a safe place to spread out and cheer with no worries about damaging seats. Kaval grew up in Cleveland, where his family has held Browns season tickets since the 1940s, and the supporters section reminds him of their seats in the original Dawg Pound at old Municipal Stadium.

“If you come to one game and want to sit with the supporters, you buy a ticket and come right in that section,” he said. “That’s pretty cool.”

The intricate, spiky roof design is a nod to European stadiums such as Craven Cottage and Loftus Road. In San Jose, the difference is the “flying buttresses” along the stadium’s exterior, Kaval said. Those structures support the cantilevered roof, eliminating the need for structural columns in the seating bowl, which lead to obstructed views.

To date, the Quakes have sold about 8,000 tickets for the stadium’s inaugural season, about 3,000 more than this year’s total. The goal is to get to 10,000 season tickets and reserve the rest for groups and single-game buyers.

“We have a thriving youth soccer market, people who want to come for one to two games, and [group sales] are a great way to plant seeds and create fans for a long time,” Kaval said. “It’s something important and we want to keep that in place.”

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