Facility Notes: Baseball Club Rakuten Eagles Plans To Increase Stadium Capacity

Pacific-League winning baseball team Rakuten Eagles announced its project "to increase crowd capacity at Kleenex Stadium to 28,120 seats in anticipation of the club reaching the Japan Series for the first time ever." The expansion project, which got under way in August, "has already added about 2,000 extra seats." Another 1,155 seats "are scheduled to be installed, if the Eagles reach the Japan Series" (KYODO, 10/1). ... A "burst underground pipe, and not heavy rain or an intense match schedule, was primarily at fault for the turf fiasco at the Hong Kong Stadium" that threatened the Barclays Asia Trophy and ManU's exhibition game this summer. Hong Kong FA Chair Brian Leung Hung-tak said, "The true story is that a pipe from the underground sprinkling system had burst. Unfortunately, this was right under the center circle and no one knew about it for a long time" (SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST, 10/1).