Struggles and Success in Two Neighboring Stadium Towns

Two neighboring towns -- one with a bustling soccer stadium and the other with a struggling minor league baseball stadium -- offer a story of changing times in the U.S.

1 minute read

August 23, 2011, 9:00 AM PDT

By Nate Berg


Harrison, New Jersey has seen much success with its Major League Soccer stadium, but nearby Newark has had trouble justifying the costs of renovating a stadium for its decreasingly popular minor league baseball team.

"While the Bears fend for scraps, the Red Bulls averaged 18,796 fans for their first 12 home games this season - and that does not include the sellout for the M.L.S. All-Star Game and other exhibition matches.

Although the Newark-Harrison story is an extreme and somewhat unusual case, it reflects an urban cultural shift on which soccer hopes to capitalize as an emergent and faster-paced sport in 21st-century America. Still enormously popular in many markets, baseball has lost traction with young people, especially African-Americans, with a 26 percent decline in youth participation between 2000 and 2009, according to the National Sporting Goods Association."

Monday, August 22, 2011 in The New York Times

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I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching.

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