I don't disagree at all. Becoming Jersey B was not the best move in terms of franchise identity. However the Jets looked at their season ticket base at the time and decided that a New Jersey stadium was the way to go and the Giants had already managed to have one built for them, twice. The real question is why the Giants are still revered in NYC after essentially moving both the NFL franchises out of town. That was the act of cowardice here.
I was laughing so hard the first time, I didn't notice belichump is the ref. Who head is on brady's opponent?
QFT x 100 Granted he may have saved some $ by splitting the stadium costs, but missed out on the ultimate marketing opportunity to call themselves "NYC's true team"* The ticket base is BS....... it swung one way once, and I bet it would swing back the other faster if they moved back to their roots..... *Although I wouldn't be surprised if Emperor Goodell frowned upon that.....
the jets should have never left queens. and once they did they should have done anything they could to come back. a stadium in queens or yonkers would have been perfect for this team but dipshit woody wanted his west side stadium and then when that fell apart i really dont think he had a plan.
I don't have official articles,stats or specific alternative sites but I do recall the Jets exploring other avenues including Yonkers race way. There were alot of dirty politics involved & I think it got to the point where the Jets hand was kind of forced. Living removed from the whole NY/NJ metro...I find the fact that the Jets play in NJ highly overrated. The team is no longer playing at "Giants stadium". That said..I still hold out hope that one day this team will have a home of their own
The biggest thing working against the West Side Stadium was how many people were against it for different reasons. Not neutral, flat out against it. You had every other franchise owner in the NY metro area working against it. You had the big real estate interests working against it, although some of them were fair weather friends ready to jump in at the last moment if it was going through so they could get their share of the pie. You had the community groups aghast and generally opposed. It would have taken a miracle, and by that I mean Bloomberg and Giuliani working hard for the deal until it passed and getting the unions 100% behind it also, for the deal to go through. If the Jets had made it work it would have been the sports coup of the new century. The Jets would be a $2.5 billion dollar franchise and undisputed most valuable sports property in the world. That of course was another thing working against it.
I wouldn't go to quite that extreme. I don't think the Jets would've been more valuable than the NY Yankees just by moving to NYC while the Giants moved to NJ- unless the Jets also won multiple Super Bowls. The reality is that for the next 30 - 40 years, the Jets will be playing at MetLife, sharing it with the Giants. It just has to be accepted. Anyway, it's not like they moved to Los Angeles or something, where you'd then have to choose between: 1) give up being an NFL fan, 2) root for them despite them being LA's team, 3) switch to being a Giants fan, or 4) finding some other team to root for despite not having a legitimate connection to it. That would be really bad. But instead, they went from playing in New Jersey at Giants Stadium, to playing in New Jersey at MetLife Stadium. That's an improvement in my book. Not the "best case scenario", but how often does the best case scenario happen for the Jets?
The West Side Stadium would have been worth upwards of a billion dollars by itself and the Jets were going to own that in the end. The real estate that the stadium would have been built on is probably in the top 10 most valuable parcels of undeveloped real estate in the country at this point. I'm not putting it in the top 5 because I have no idea what the air rights look like.
I do not recall ANY info suggesting the Jets even looked at Yonkers Raceway, and at the time I think I would have, since I thought that was the perfect solution as an alternative to the WSS. I was paying attention. If I missed that info, it was a big miss on my part. Maybe I did, but... What I interpret happened instead was that Woody was all in on the WSS, and I get that he may well have seen it as a huge play with great upside in value. But imo it was very unlikely it would get done. The community was against it and had the model of delaying Westway to use environmental challenges. Too many fans were also opposed to having a stadium with no tailgating. The nail in the coffin was the notion that fans would ferry accross the Hudson from a parking lot in Union City or somewhere. Woody was too stupid to see it was not going to happen. So the Jets did not explore other options until it was obvious that the WSS was dead, at which time the easy out was MetLife and the Giants. It was this whole sequence of events that made me a Woody hater, so I can assure you I was not taking it lightly and was paying attention. If I missed anything suggesting they really looked at Yonkers Raceway, that is on me. I just never have seen that.
Losing the WSS was a crushing blow. we have the folks at MSG to thank for that for paying off politicians. I do believe the Giants would have come w/ us had that Stadium been built but it would have had a different feel.
PATH was right there at 34th street. The GWB and Holland tunnels would easily have handled Sunday morning and early afternoon traffic to the game and the departures afterwards. The NYC commuter infrastructure was built to handle rush hour on the busiest days of the year. Handling game day crowds would have been no problem. The stadium itself was going to be built with a retractable roof and it would have put NYC firmly in the Super Bowl rotation. It was an unlikely project to carry through to completion but it was a wonderful concept for the Jets and the NFL. I was much more on the build it in Queens or north of the city list but if the WSS had been pulled off it would have made the Jets one of the premier sports franchises in the world.
^it seemed like after the Olympics fell through in New York so did the stadium. We got the Javitz center instead, I think?
look at these renderings, so much better than the tin can: http://atlanticyardsreport.blogspot.com/2008/06/stadium-story-eerie-echoes-curious.html
Most fans, certainly most current fans, want to drive to the stadium and tailgate in the parking lot. Woody and his crowd would have been having their limos drive them down from their uptown townhouses and mansions. I know some fans currently take mass transit to the games. I would venture to guess even those that do are not thrilled by the process. The retractable roof of course is a separate subject. It did not have to be built on the west side to have one. For some reason they did not include one in MetLife Stadium, but that decision was not because the WSS fell through. I don't know what ready made site in Queens would have been as good to go as Yonkers Raceway. Yonkers Raceway is also closer to the Jersey fanbase that would go over the GWB. In any event debating the merits of the WSS is beside the point if hte subject is what alternatives to it should have been looked at. You are right it was very unlikely it was going to happen. A Plan A that is unlikely suggests that Plan B, and C and D for that matter, should be given attention. I don't think Woody gave much thought to anything other than the WSS, and when they gave up on that, they did the deal with the Giants and that was that. It should not have been handled that way. I know you defend Woody on a variety of subjects, but it was indefensible that the Jets acted like they had no alternative to getting in bed with the Giants, again, when the WSS fell through. There were alternatives, and count me as a Jet fan who does not like sharing a stadium with those guys.
Call it like it is/was: SHELDON SILVER is the reason that stadium wasnt built on the site of those semi-dilapidated piers (and the 5,000 constuction jobs that would've went with it). Shady Shelly was too busy trying covering up his boy Lopez' sex scandal by buying his way out of it (with public monies of course)........funny how that $100,000+ "scandal" got brushed under 'the bridge' so quickly....Tubby Christie should be so lucky
Wasn't the WSS going to be built on stilts over a rail yard? Sounds like a 911 waiting to happen. Maybe that's just me.
