A Dozen Years at Home

It is rare for a year to go by where a new stadium does not open for a sports team belonging to one of the "major four" sports.  I emphasize rare because such an instance did occur only last year in 2011, and prior to that 2005.  However, I believe you would have to travel back in time to 1986 to find the previous year where the NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL did not open a stadium or arena.

Despite the recent occurrence of 2011, both MLB and the NFL opened a new stadium in 2010 with Target Field for the Minnesota Twins and MetLife Stadium for the New York Giants and Jets.  This year, the newly renamed Miami Marlins found a new home, and in a few months, the New Jersey Nets will travel across the Verrazano Bridge to their new home in Brooklyn.  Meanwhile, the Minnesota Vikings have threatened to move to Los Angeles; the Oakland Athletics are begging to move to San Jose; the Seattle Supersonics left for Oklahoma City; and some NHL team is constantly considering Kansas City for a new home.

More often than not, these moves, or threats to move, are based over a new stadium to call home and the funding to build it.  I wanted to do a quick run down of all the teams in the four major sports in North America, and compare how each league stacks up in how old the current 30 plus stadiums are on average. 

The results were as follows: 

1. MLB - 22.1 years
2. NFL - 19.3 years
3. NHL - 17.6 years
4. NBA - 16.4 years

Those numbers were pretty close to what I would estimate.  After all, twenty-five years ago, the NHL had only 21 teams (now has 30).  The NBA had 23 teams (30 now as well).  Expanding by 30% or more, you're going to find plenty of newer stadiums, especially since many times expansion teams don't find their own home for a few years.

Twenty-five years ago, the NFL had 28 teams (now 32), and MLB had 26 (now 30).  Meanwhile, baseball has only seen one team relocated in the past few decades while the NFL has seen four teams do the same.  Moreover, the NBA and NHL have seen numerous teams relocate in their own leagues, so really the average age of each home seems to make sense.  To be honest, while I certainly do not believe that these teams need a new home every 15-25 years, these averages were a lot higher than I was expecting.

That is until you start manipulating the numbers a bit.  Baseball's 22.1 year average may lead the way, but it has a handful of teams to thank for that, largely the Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs.  Fenway Park of the Red is now 100 years old, and Wrigley Field of the Cubs is not at all far behind at 98 years.  Those two franchises have embraced the tradition of their home stadiums despite the lack of seats available or the big screens of Jerry Jones Land in Dallas.  By comparison, the next oldest stadium of any of these leagues is the of Lambeau Field which is short of retirement age at 55.  Madison Square Garden is shared as the oldest arena for both the NHL and NBA at a mere 44 years old.

I decided to recalculate this average while ignoring the five oldest stadiums for each sport, and got the following:

1. NBA - 13.2 years
2. MLB - 12.9 years
3. NFL - 11.8 years
4. NHL - 11.5 years

This time I was very surprised with just how close all of these figures were.  Essentially, the average age of the twenty-five (twenty-seven in the NFL's case) youngest stadiums is merely 12 years.  To be fair, many of these have undergone some significant renovations such as Angel Stadium, but none were complete makeovers such as Solider Field which for all intents and purposes is a new stadium from 2003.

The one other interesting thing I found were the newer stadiums were only coming to the NFL and MLB.  In the last ten years, the NFL has seen 11 teams with new stadiums and MLB has had 9.  The NBA has had only 6 and the NHL only 4.  If you eliminate the five youngest stadiums, the results change to the following:

1. MLB - 15.5 years
2. NBA - 15.0 years
3. NFL - 13.8 years
4. NHL - 12.7 years

I don't think that is necessarily unfair when you consider the five newest MLB stadiums were replacing stadiums that were 85, 47, 44, 28, and 25 years old, and the youngest two were the Metrodome and Sun Life Stadium that are both still used by the NFL.

In any event, I thought it was interesting to see just how old, or rather young these stadiums are considering there is almost never a time when a franchise is lobbying a city that is already nearly bankrupt for a brand new stadium.  It makes you wonder if the Red Sox, Packers, Red Wings, and Knicks can continue to play in their respective stadiums, why is it necessary for so many other franchises to demand the shiniest new homes in order to remain loyal to their fans?