Stupidity is alive and well in Omaha. For those of you who don't follow college sports like some cult religion, Omaha has a contract with the NCAA to host the College World Series (CWS) each year at Johnny Rosenblatt Stadium. Any sane human being who has been to a game at Rosenblatt will tell you that it's not only a pretty marginal stadium with a serious lack of capacity for an event like the CWS, but the traffic getting in and out makes Dodger Stadium in L.A. look like the Autobahn.
Because of the obvious disadvantages that Rosenblatt has over many modern stadiums, the NCAA told the group that organizes the CWS for the city, that either Rosenblatt needs to be improved or a new stadium needs to be built in order to keep the CWS in Omaha on a long-term basis. Considering that the 2 week long event each June brings in millions of dollars to the local economy, you would think that the fine folks of Omaha would be doing everything they could to meet whatever demands the NCAA makes. After the CWS, the next biggest event in Omaha is the North American Stained Glass Convention, and that actually costs the city money because of all the broken windows.
Based on the request from the NCAA, the cost of improvements to Rosenblatt was estimated on the far side of $25 million. Plans for a brand new downtown stadium came in at $30 million. Personally, I don't care what the city decides, as long as the objective is to keep the CWS in Omaha. An amazing number of people have signed and online petition, put signs in their yard, and taken the time to write annoying letters to the editor of the Omaha World Herald. Their message Save Rosenblatt.
Instead of putting a sign in their yard that says "Do whatever the fuck the NCAA tells us to do to keep the CWS in Omaha", these folks love their stadium so much, they don't care what the NCAA says. I hope they like watching the Omaha Royals, because I won't be the least bit surprised if the NCAA moves the series, if more improvements are made to the outdated stadium.
2 comments:
I'm on the same page as you, Midget. My guess is that a large percentage of the people who don't want a new stadium are those blood sucking vampires who take in some undeclared income each year by selling parking spots on their driveways and lawns during the CWS. If they're going to spend the kind of ducats that would be required to get Rosenblatt back to acceptable, then why not go the extra mile and get everything new? It's a baseball stadium for a triple A ball club, for crying out loud, it's not like it's Gerald Ford's birthplace or something...
lol @ minor league baseball
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