Little Caesars Arena

**Towne Cluber** · July-08-17, 08:10 PM

It would be very interesting to see who is [[still) bankrolling Robert Davis. Like Kwame, one has to wonder whether he stole/hid far more than is generally reported.

**248lurker** · July-09-17, 09:46 PM

First the follow-up from 313WX's post: Judge won't block the voluntary dismissal of the suit against the DDA et al. Link: http://www.detroitnews.com/story/new...rop/103508182/

Originally Posted by Towne Cluber

It would be very interesting to see who is [[still) bankrolling Robert Davis. Like Kwame, one has to wonder whether he stole/hid far more than is generally reported.

This has been a good question for a while. Years ago, Davis made an unsuccessful attempt to start a new high school sports association, and he received a significant sum of startup money for that. I've always wondered what happened to that money.

**Atticus** · July-10-17, 07:12 PM

The cost to file most of these lawsuits is insanely low. Like, only $100, which is practically nothing in lawyer dollars. So it really becomes one of those you only have to win once out of 50 tries to come out in the black.

**1953** · July-11-17, 09:31 AM

Davis created his nonprofit in 2016. That costs, maybe $1,000. He will have to file a form 990 soon; that will be available for all to see on www.guidestar.org when he does. I've checked -- he hasn't yet. He will also need at least two other board members, which will be listed on the 990. He doesn't appear to have created a website for his nonprofit.

1953

**Malcove Magnesia** · July-12-17, 04:33 PM

The roof made the UK news today.

**SammyS** · July-12-17, 04:54 PM

Originally Posted by Malcove Magnesia

The roof made the UK news today.

If they had of followed the news from months ago, then they would have been let down slowly.

**313WX** · July-12-17, 04:57 PM

I like the the roof personally.

Everyone's going to know they've arrived into Detroit when they see that humongous Pizza Pizza man.

**Cincinnati_Kid** · July-12-17, 07:32 PM

Originally Posted by 313WX

I like the the roof personally.

Everyone's going to know they've arrived into Detroit when they see that humongous Pizza Pizza man.

Right. And everyone in a uproar, that the winged wheel isn't on the roof, should remember that, the Pistons will play there as well. So I think the Little Ceasars logo is perfectly correct. It's not just for the Red Wings.

**Zads07** · July-12-17, 09:39 PM

Look, this shouldn't be news, but it is because people don't pay attention to the news. The change was announced at least over a year ago when Olympia said the rendering was just that, a rendering and announced the LC logo atop the arena, when they named the arena.

I'd much rather see the Winged Wheel up there with the LED lights around, but we were fooled by a rendering, simple as that. Nothing can be done now but to complain about it apparently.

**Towne Cluber** · July-12-17, 09:56 PM

"Startup costs" could be considered 'low' but how is Davis affording an attorney? What about his living expenses?

Whatever happened with the mental exam that a judge ordered Davis to take?

**EastsideAl** · July-13-17, 02:36 PM

Davis is ridiculous, but he isn't wrong about the expenditure of public money for billionaires' sports arenas, and especially on that stupid Pistons HQ.

**emu steve** · July-17-17, 11:21 AM

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/spo...est/103767962/

Texans think things are bigger in Texas. Not video boards in arenas.

**401don** · July-17-17, 11:35 AM

Originally Posted by emu steve

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/spo...est/103767962/

Texans think things are bigger in Texas. Not video boards in arenas.

Every new stadium has to outdo the other, often just for the sake of being the biggest. Hopefully this won't be nearly as gaudy as the Comerica Park scoreboard.

**EGrant** · July-17-17, 12:17 PM

Anyone have the dimensions of the scoreboard from The Palace? The screens that ran the length of the court seemed much bigger.

**emu steve** · July-17-17, 01:19 PM

Originally Posted by 401don

Every new stadium has to outdo the other, often just for the sake of being the biggest. Hopefully this won't be nearly as gaudy as the Comerica Park scoreboard.

Interesting comment.

My favorite thing about Comerica is the new scoreboard.

I saw some rankings of MLB parks, and the raters [[pro baseball writers) had Comerica ranked higher than I do.

I think most agree on #1 [[AT&T in S.F.) and #29 and 30 [[ Oakland and T.B.). Toronto is bad too. I'd rank Comerica around #15. To me, it doesn't compare with Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Fenway, Yankee stadium and a bunch more stadiums which aren't unique, but very good [[e.g., Nationals Park). Wrigley gets high marks for its history.

I would love to visit Marlins Park if there were 30K people present.

Wish I had been out in San Diego last month and visited their park. A winning team might help.

EDIT: Here is a writer with 3 decades of experience. His views:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.63c68c9be05d

**SpartanDawg** · July-17-17, 01:24 PM

Originally Posted by EGrant

Anyone have the dimensions of the scoreboard from The Palace? The screens that ran the length of the court seemed much bigger.

two of the four screens in the palace are bigger than the screens in this arena. I forgot the dimensions but I had looked it up in the past. Having said that I like having all four sides have equal size screens, and these will be marvelous to look at still'

I think in overall square footage LCA screen bigger than the Palace, again because it's 4 Large screens, vs 2 xtra large and 2 small screens like the setup was in the palace

EDIT: SEE NEXT COMMENT THIS IS WRONG. LCA NEW SCOREBOARD IS LARGER THAN ALL SCREENS PALACE HAD

**SpartanDawg** · July-17-17, 02:49 PM

I was wrong EGrant, looked it up

The palace new scoreboard had four screens:
2 along the sidelines that were 42 x 24 1080p HD
2 along the baselines that were 27.5 x 16 720p HD

The new LCA scoreboards are:
all four are 43.5 x 28 ... i'm assuming all are at least 1080p HD although that hasn't been stated.

So the new LCA scoreboards are a HUGE upgrade to JLA, and still an impressive upgrade over the palace's scoreboard!

source: http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article...nts-its-triple

**emu steve** · July-17-17, 03:05 PM

Saw some video of LCA including the video board OUTSIDE the arena.

Also noticed that there is an elevated covered walkway from a parking garage to the arena.

Will try to find the video.

EDIT: [[Don't know if this is behind a paywall or not):

http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article..._medium=social

**MikeyinBrooklyn** · July-17-17, 04:12 PM

Originally Posted by emu steve

I think most agree on #1 [[AT&T in S.F.) and #29 and 30 [[ Oakland and T.B.). Toronto is bad too. I'd rank Comerica around #15. To me, it doesn't compare with Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Fenway, Yankee stadium and a bunch more stadiums which aren't unique, but very good [[e.g., Nationals Park). Wrigley gets high marks for its history.

I think an important point to consider is that every stadium really needs to be different, so they are not really competing with one another. Good stadia are unique to their place, time and location. It's like trying to say which car is best. It depends on when you use it, where and for what purposes. Fenway wouldn't work in Chicago, Wrigley wouldn't work in Milwaukee and Nationals Park wouldn't fit in downtown Detroit. That said, you can make accurate and defendable statements about the practical and aesthetic qualities a ballpark might have. Here are a few of mine, about parks I've been to:

Comerica: It's as good as any park we might have gotten in Detroit. It is nicely open and airy, fits into the neighborhood [[looking from inside or out), has a "baseball" feel to it. It could be a little more intimate for my taste, but even the worst seats have a clear view and aren't problematically far away. Personal space, amenities, concessions A+.

Tiger Stadium: Old time baseball charm in spades. No other real assets. It smelled bad. Terribly uncomfortable seating. You had to miss an inning to take a leak or buy concessions. Far away from downtown. Neighborhood had little to offer at the time, except bars. Problematic when you have kids with you.

Camden Yards: Beautiful, intimate, baseball-y charm everywhere. Immediate area is nice to walk around and see/do stuff. Although beyond that Baltimore is not a nice place to visit.

Progressive Field [[Jacobs Field when I last visited). Terrific, modern with a strong dose of baseball heritage. Nice place to see a game, good seats, fits into it's nice neighborhood well.

Nationals Park: Awesome modern exterior [[which I seldom like), kind of plain on the inside. One evening game I spent there did have me blinded by the sun for 3 hours.

[[New) Yankee Stadium: Great, historic looking exterior, cool tradition rich concourse. Inside: Too big, semi-symmetrical, plain, looks like a 1970's multi-purpose park. Did I mention too big? No intimacy or sense you are just off the field.

CitiField: Terrific look, feel & amenities for the Mets' new home. For a lot less money, they built New York's nicest new baseball park. Also adjacent to Flushing Meadows Park, US Tennis Center and lots of mass transit. If you have to visit only one park in NY, make it Citified.

Fenway & Wrigley: See Tiger stadium above, although the parks are notably smaller. Size adversely affects ticket prices and availability. Pretty elitist in those 2 cities. Cool feel to a game, if sometimes awkward sight lines and cramped seats. The 'hoods are nice and teeming with spillover baseball heritage, too.

[[Old) Yankee Stadium & Shea Stadium: Neither one had much going for it. YS had been renovated out of its history in the early '70s. Neither was a great place to see a game, although at least YS was a tad more intimate then.

PNC Park: Reminds me of Comerica in several ways. Open to downtown Pittsburgh, nice old basebally feel, relatively intimate.

US Cellular Field: Nothing wrong with it, but nothing right with it, either. Kind of plain, neither huge nor intimate. And who didn't think of rotating it 180 degrees so that the open outfield framed the Chicago skyline?

RFK Stadium: I have been to this venerable DC sports venue for baseball, football and soccer. It should be home to none of the above.

Olympic Stadium: The Expos had a very cold, East German-y home. No need to see a game there. Although the park isn't why the team moved and morphed into the Nationals, it provided no real reason for fans to go their either.

I've also been to a number of minor league parks, which I generally have found to be terrific places to see games. Was just at a West Michigan Whitecaps game. Very nice facility [[better than I expected for a Single-A team), terrific crowd.

**EGrant** · July-17-17, 04:18 PM

Originally Posted by SpartanDawg

The palace new scoreboard had four screens:
2 along the sidelines that were 42 x 24 1080p HD
2 along the baselines that were 27.5 x 16 720p HD

Thanks for looking this up!

**emu steve** · July-17-17, 05:08 PM

Mikey, tons of good points!

One of the problems with Tiger Stadium is that it was built for another era, before TV, etc. etc. Reminds of Cleveland's Municipal [[???) stadium which seated what 75 - 80K??? 75 years ago a bad seat was better than radio or reading about the game the next day.

Who wants to sit on a bleacher 500 feet [[upper deck, CF Tiger Stadium) from home plate when the game can be watched in HD at home.

Ideally stadiums for most teams should be around 40K and no bad seats.

Fenway is different. It was a very small stadium which was expanded.

It would have been hard to subtract 10K seats from Tiger Stadium.

Seats today need to be GOOD seats.

One thing about RFK stadium. I was surprised that about 10 years ago, I went from the upper deck, behind home plate, and went to the lower deck behind home plate and low and behold, many rows of lower deck seats behind home plate had obstructed view: the upper deck over hang means that those fans could not see a pop up or fly ball.

RFK had zero potential to be renovated and made a modern stadium.

If RFK is imploded next year or 2019. I will be there to watch.

**EastsideAl** · July-17-17, 05:23 PM

We've certainly come a long way from this....

**emu steve** · August-02-17, 02:45 PM

Originally Posted by EastsideAl

We've certainly come a long way from this....

And the latest views from around LCA. Woodward Ave. is beautiful. The plaza is taking shape.

https://twitter.com/DistrictDetroit

Lot of work outside [[and inside) still remaining to be done.

**masterblaster** · August-02-17, 03:36 PM

Originally Posted by emu steve

Who wants to sit on a bleacher 500 feet [[upper deck, CF Tiger Stadium) from home plate when the game can be watched in HD at home.

Ideally stadiums for most teams should be around 40K and no bad seats.

Fenway is different. It was a very small stadium which was expanded.

It would have been hard to subtract 10K seats from Tiger Stadium.

Seats today need to be GOOD seats

Tiger Stadium was also expanded over the years. It had a capacity of 23,000 when it first opened in 1912. In the mid to late 1930's a few expansions were made by new owner Walter Briggs that brought it to 52,000 in capacity.

On of the ill-fated redevelopment plans for the stadium after 1999 was to preserve much of the stadium but to demolish a lot of those seats that were added in the 1930s.

EDIT: looks like a 1923 expansion increased capacity to 30,000