Seattle is quickly becoming the epicenter of rugby in the United States. It has both arguably the best youth coaching in the country and the best men's club. The college scene in the region is going strong and they already have a varsity program in Central Washington. Seattle also even hosted the National Club 7s last year bringing in a very strong crowd and generally appeasing all involved. However, for all that success the one thing Seattle has been missing is a major Eagles match.
The problem has been that Seattle hasn't had an appropriate venue. The Starfire Sports Complex, where the National Club 7s was held, only has a maximum capacity of 4,500. There is a big jump after that. The next appropriate venue is Memorial Stadium in the shadow of the Space Needle but the surface is terrible and the stadium is very old. Up from that there is CenturyLink Field where the Seattle Sounders and the Seattle Seahawks play. 67,000 seats is far too many and even if they capped the capacity in the lower bowl it's still too many. Plus, the field isn't great.
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With all that in mind it should come as a warm welcome to rugby fans in Seattle that the Sounders are rumored to be looking for a new stadium. The blog Sounder At Heart is reporting that General Manager and part owner Adrian Hanauer is looking to leave CenturyLink Field for a stadium nearby in the SoDo region of the city also near SafeCo Field, the home of the Seattle Mariners. It should be stressed that nothing has come out of the club and that this is mostly speculation.
Despite leading MLS in attendance at well over 40,000 fans the Sounders still have to put up tarps on the upper part of the stadium during matches. More importantly, the quality of the turf field has become an embarrassment for the club. Soccer players like natural grass while American football players generally prefer when field turf is trampled down. As the Sounders continually distance themselves from the Seahawks (they split business operations earlier this year) finding a new stadium to control field conditions, etc, becomes more important.
From a rugby perspective getting a stadium of 30-40,000 built in Seattle would be a major boost. The stadium would almost certainly have natural grass and would have the proper dimensions for rugby. It would also tap into the growing rugby community in Seattle and at times the already sizable rugby community in nearby British Columbia. A stadium is not a guarantee and the Sounders are locked into CenturyLink Field for four more years but it's at least something to keep an eye on.Ce