[Strange Brew]

Originally Posted by Jay Random

OK, so how does that suck? Weitz says it does.



It's Weitz who is being cynical, and you're agreeing with him.



I am saying that information isn't on the plans, and Weitz, when he claims to have such information, is lying.



Not at all. Steeper pitches do very little (if anything) to reduce the footprint of a seating bowl, and in any case the upper bowl of the Saddledome is quite steep already. Maybe you bourgeois types haven't gone high enough to notice, but I've sat in the top rows of the upper bowl many times and it's a bad climb for someone prone to suffer from vertigo.



And Weitz is stating as a fact that the upper bowl is going to suck, which works directly against the idea of maximizing revenue.

Sigh... No one is lying. Don't know why you're looking for arguments at every turn.

Here is an excerpt from an article talking about the steep pitch at Barclay's: (NY Post unfortunately)

"The steep nature of arenas is meant to bring fans who sit high closer to the action, architects and designers said.

“You don’t want to feel detached from the sport,” said Nader Tehrani, dean of Cooper Union’s Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture. “You want the sweat to hit you.”

Some facilities, like opera houses and medical theaters, are intentionally steep to allow the audience the best view. Soccer stadiums in Europe and South America are “super steep,” Tehrani said, including the famed La Bombonera in Buenos Aires, where the upper deck has a vertigo-inducing 45-degree incline.

The upper bowl at Barclays Center sits at a 36-degree incline.

An arena spokesman called that “standard” for modern arenas, adding that at least nine other NBA arenas had a 36-degree pitch, and three others had 35-degree inclines.
Some experts disagreed.

Most sports venues in the United States typically have upper seating with an incline of 30 to 33 degrees, said James Renne of the Detroit-based firm Rossetti Architects, which designed Red Bull Arena in Harrison, NJ.

The recently “transformed” Madison Square Garden reshaped its upper bowl during a $1 billion, three-year renovation. It improved sightlines, put fans seven to 10 feet closer to the action, and made the area 17 percent steeper. But those changes still only brought the upper bowl’s pitch to about 30 degrees.

At Citifield, which opened in 2009, the upper-level incline is only 32degrees. Red Bull Arena, which opened in 2010, is 33 degrees. Data for Yankee and Metlife stadiums was not available.

Golden 1 Center in Sacramento, where two fans fell in the upper seats last year, has a slope of 34 degrees.

The higher the degree of incline, the steeper the stairs. There also is less legroom, and a feeling that getting to a seat is like walking a tightrope.

With little room to spare between rows, and cup holders which further block the space, fans in Barclays’ less-expensive seats struggle to walk past each other.

“Many fans are not comfortable with a steep bowl. You want more room when you go up higher,” Renne said. “There is a perception about the danger of falling.”

But there is no standard angle for upper-level seating, and building codes can allow for steep seating areas, he said.

Still, inclines of 34 degrees or more can start to feel “too steep,” Renne said. “It’s just not viable to sit in a seat in that kind of scenario or angle. There’s a threshold.”

I don't know what the pitch is at the Saddledome, just seems unlikely you're going to see the new one be less steep from a building built in the 80's. Not counting the nosebleeds which are a unicorn.