Venue News: Formula One Bids for Olympic Stadium; Proposed Oilers Arena Over Budget

Compiled by Karen Hogan, Associate Editor, Sports Video Group

A Formula One circuit in and around Olympic Stadium is one of four plans being considered for the future of the London Games’ centerpiece. The London Legacy Development Corporation announced that a possible F1 circuit was one of the bids. The others are from newly promoted Premier League soccer club West Ham, fellow east London club Leyton Orient and the UCFB College of Football Business…

…Some Edmonton city councilors are seeing red after costs for a proposed city arena to house the Oilers came in $35 million over budget. Arena project executive director Rick Daviss told reporters the much anticipated, updated cost estimate comes in at a whopping $485 million. That’s $35 million — or around 8% — over the city mandated $450 million budget. Officials are already searching for cost savings, and have eliminated around $8.5 million by nixing certain items from the design proposal. They’ve cut the Oilers Team store and eliminated several food and beverage facilities. They are also considering changing the exterior finish of the building to stainless steel instead of zinc…

…Yankee Stadium’s entry onto the international soccer stage will be with matches that feature three of Europe’s top clubs — Real Madrid, A. C. Milan, and Chelsea — and Paris St. Germain, which aspires to world renown under its Qatari ownership. Staging soccer games at baseball stadiums while a home team is on the road, or at football stadiums during the off-season, is an obvious way for teams to add revenue. Yankees executives look at their matches — for which the stadium will be rescaled to a capacity of up to 40,000 — and see a profitable formula, as they do for concerts and college football games like the Pinstripe Bowl…

…Quebec City is working on an arena that will be open for operation by 2015 in hopes of luring an NHL franchise back to town. Seattle continues to try and reach an agreement with investor Chris Hanson to eventually build an arena there that would be suitable for both the NHL and getting an NBA team back. The Toronto suburb of Markham is getting its own arena that would be NHL-ready. Those are the very obvious reasons why Quebec City, Seattle, and Markham are 1, 2, and 3 when discussing potential relocation of teams in hockey. Las Vegas might soon be in the conversation. In similar fashion to Seattle, Las Vegas would like to get an NBA team in town. There has actually been discussion of Sin City getting pro basketball after the league has had events in Vegas including the All-Star Game.  Getting a new building up in Vegas has been a conversation for some time. The latest proposal which seems to have some steam building would put a state-of-the-art building with a capacity of nearly 20,000 right on the Las Vegas strip.