Quote:
Originally Posted by Cappy
I didn't realize they were demolishing Madison Square Garden, Barclay's Center, Met Life Stadium, Yankee Stadium, Citi Field, Radio City Music Hall, Apollo Theater, and the other major venues to host events in the MTA of New York.
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When Barclays Center was built with private money, I suppose you said you didn't realize they were demolishing Madison Square Garden, Met Life Stadium, Yankee Stadium, etc., etc. When
Billboard magazine reported that Barclays surpassed MSG as the highest-grossing venue for non-sporting events in the United States, they were obviously lying, because clearly there can only be enough business for one arena in a town. I defer to your superior knowledge.
Clearly
one large venue for all events, indoor and outdoor, ought to be sufficient for the City of New York; and all the venues that exist are perfectly interchangeable and any business done by one must necessarily be robbed from another.
Obviously there can be no business for an 18,000-seat arena with an NHL team for an anchor tenant, when the Islanders could just as easily play hockey games on the stage of the 1,500-seat Apollo Theater, or in the 6,000-seat Radio City Music Hall. And clearly an outdoor venue like a baseball park is perfect for all the kinds of events that are held in indoor arenas. This must be so, or you would not have mentioned those places in your list as if they were the same kind of venue as a hockey arena.
The fact is that none of those venues are as easily accessible to the three million residents of Long Island outside NYC as the Belmont arena will be. And there is not enough arena space in the city to hold all the events that could profitably be held there. MSG is host to about 350 events per year, and Barclays Center approached 200 in its first year,
before the Islanders moved there. The management of Barclays are turfing the Islanders out, in part, because they can make more money by holding other events there on the 40-odd nights that the Islanders have been taking out of their schedule. Both Barclays and MSG are turning away numerous events, which the owners of the Belmont group hope to book and make money on.
Why, it's almost as if a metropolitan area of 20 million people can furnish bigger crowds on more occasions, and at higher ticket prices too, than a provincial town of 1.4 million. Who ever would have guessed?