Across The Pond - Toronto Stadium

A busy football week in Toronto!

On Tuesday, the City of Toronto (owners of BMO Field) and Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment (MLSE), the owners of Toronto FC and other franchises in the city, who are also the exclusive custodians of BMO Field, announced they had completed Phase 1 of the work for the upgrades to the stadium for next year's World Cup.

Due to the continuing MLS football season as well as the Toronto Argonauts CFL season, Phase 1 was largely concentrated on unseen stuff other than 4 new video screens, measuring 30 feet x 50 feet with a resolution of more than 5 million pixels. Stuff like a new video control room, executive boxes in a currently under-utilised part of the stadium, and new kitchens for new and existing hospitality suites etc. There is also a new super lounge that was made by combining 4 current individual suites into one. They expect to use this for international delegations and world leaders who may visit to watch their teams during the World Cup. Now that Toronto FC are officially eliminated from the playoffs, and there are only two home games left, the second phase will begin in earnest next month.

Phase two of the $146m upgrade will see 17,000 temporary seats added, 10,000 in the North part of the ground which is currently relatively open due to the requirements for the CFL Toronto Argonauts and 7000 in the South area which currently has a single tier stand and is known as the 'supporters' section'. The capacity for the stadium at the end of this will be 45,000 but these seats will almost all be removed after the world cup with the stadium reverting to a 30,000 capacity after that. Only the executive suites and some seating at the North end will be retained as they turn that north end into a general admission area with rooftop patio for TFC games.

As part of phase two, the stadium will also get new dugouts, a new playing surface (thankfully) and the entire Wi-Fi, sound and lighting systems will all be upgraded to meet FIFA broadcast standards. Overall the city is on the hook for the lions share ($123m) but MLSE are also paying $23m and had previously ploughed $100m into renovations in 2015 after the original stadium was built in 2007 for a cost of around $62m. I will be honest, as nice as it is in some areas, it does not feel like you are sitting in a $160m stadium right now! Here's hoping that the additional $140m+, which is apparently still on-budget elevates the experience.

As a resident of Toronto, my biggest fear is transportation to and from the events. The city is quoted as saying the expected bill for transit, increased policing, and emergency coverage for hospitals etc is expected to top $40m but it lacks specifics. They would only say they have a "fulsome mobility plan" when it comes to traffic. That makes me really nervous. Toronto traffic is a mess at the best of times and there are little to no details on how it's going to work. A stretch of the 401-highway running east to west across the northern suburbs of the city is officially the busiest highway in North America, even busier than the notorious LA traffic and it is a running joke in Toronto when driving is that you are always an hour away from Toronto. That is only going to get worse next year for the WC.

One little snippet that also fills me with dread in the press release from the club and city said "Don't expect to find any parking near the venue" (which is not a surprise) but also that a new streetcar stop will unload passengers just east of the current stop. A streetcar, even the large double (articulated) ones, carry at most a couple of hundred people so if that's the braintrust at work it's going to be a cluster**** of epic proportions.

Getting to BMO Field this weekend will be a good test of the current state of traffic and infrastructure. Lionel Messi is in town with the Miami FC circus of supporting acts, so the stadium will be filled to near capacity with thousands of fresh crisp new Argentina and Miami shirts, and I almost certainly guarantee that it will be a s***show!

The TTC (our subway and bus operator) will undoubtedly have some lines closed and shuttle busses running. Streetcars will be overloaded and as for parking near the stadium, the touts will be wanting $50-$100 for a parking spot instead of the usual metered $5 charge. I will be attending with my son so for us (who live in the suburbs) its going to be a drive from home to the subway station and park there (15mins), then the subway downtown (35 mins), and depending on any scheduled closures which happen every weekend somewhere, we will either take a streetcar to the existing stop near the stadium (30mins) or may need to take a second subway line and bus to near the stadium (45mins).

There are three new transit lines in various stages of completion around the city, but it is likely that only one of them might be operational next year and the most useful one - the Ontario line - which actually terminates near the stadium, is not slated to open until 5 years after the World Cup!

On the ticket front, perhaps more movement next week ... We should begin to find out if volunteer applications have been accepted and the results of the ticket lottery for VISA customers should drop in the mailbox to tell us if successful or not. Fingers crossed.