{"id":6684,"date":"2019-12-05T13:40:22","date_gmt":"2019-12-05T21:40:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/?p=50000000807"},"modified":"2019-12-05T13:40:46","modified_gmt":"2019-12-05T21:40:46","slug":"commentary-whats-next-for-long-beachs-field-of-dreams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/commentary-whats-next-for-long-beachs-field-of-dreams","title":{"rendered":"Commentary: What\u2019s next for Long Beach\u2019s Field of Dreams?"},"content":{"rendered":"

There will be no Angels in the outfield for Long Beach, as the team officially announced, Wednesday, it would be staying in Anaheim for the next half-century, ending yet another flirtation with our city.<\/p>\n

The question now is what will become of Long Beach\u2019s Field of Dreams? Or rather, its Parking Lot of Dreams?<\/p>\n

The \u201cElephant Lot\u201d site, better known to residents as the Long Beach Arena and its parking lot, or as the Whale Building and its parking lot (or, to confused tourists, as the Aquarium) still has a lot of potential. It\u2019s even feasible that the area could become home to a sports team or two, an idea that Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia has been floating for some time.<\/p>\n

Long Beach is large enough to support a major sports franchise. At nearly a half million people, there are only a half dozen U.S. cities larger than ours that don\u2019t have an NFL, MLB, NBA or NHL team. Sadly, there aren\u2019t any major sports franchises looking to relocate here, but there are still plenty of other appealing sports options.<\/p>\n

In our hearts, we\u2019d most love for some generous billionaire with millions to lose to revive the Ice Dogs, bringing minor league hockey back to town. Mike has fond memories of growing up watching the Ice Dogs in the Long Beach Arena and still sports his battered, moth-bitten \u201cAll Bite, No Bark\u201d shirt from time to time.<\/p>\n

And there\u2019s plenty of space on the lot for something we\u2019re calling \u201cLong Beach Live.\u201d The $2.6 billion L.A. Live, built by AEG, houses the Staples Center as well as an entertainment and restaurant district. Long Beach has room for a mini-version of that, with a mid-sized arena in the 10,000-15,000 seat range\u2014the current arena holds 13,000.<\/p>\n

That new venue could host the Los Angeles Sparks. With an average 2019 attendance of 11,306 per game, the Sparks are too big for a smaller arena like the Walter Pyramid at Long Beach State but don\u2019t need the full 20,000-seat capacity of the Staples Center. A move to Long Beach would put them geographically in the center of Southern California and near a good chunk of their dedicated fan base. The Sparks are always a big draw when they host playoff and preseason games in the Pyramid.<\/p>\n

A related co-tenant could be the South Bay Lakers, the Los Angeles Lakers\u2019 G-League affiliate. For those who don\u2019t follow basketball, that\u2019s essentially the equivalent of an MLB team\u2019s minor league affiliate. The South Bay Lakers currently play in the Lakers\u2019 training facility in El Segundo, the UCLA Health Training Center. With a capacity of only 750, it\u2019s about the size of a high school gym and is the smallest G-League facility in the country.<\/p>\n

A \u201cLong Beach Live\u201d option would bring plenty of bodies to the Downtown Long Beach bar and restaurant scene, without the crush that a Major League Baseball team would bring. A new mid-sized indoor facility could also re-install Long Beach as a major concert venue for touring musicians, the way the Long Beach Arena once was. Check it out…<\/p>\n

\"\"
Robert Plant, left, and Jimmy Page, of Led Zeppelin. The band played at the Long Beach Arena in 1972 and 1975. Courtesy photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If we can\u2019t get a sports team to Long Beach (and as sportswriters, we\u2019d really, really like that to happen), maybe the area could be developed for something athletics-adjacent, like a semi-permanent circus\u2014that\u2019s where the name \u201cElephant Lot\u201d originally comes from, after all.<\/p>\n

One way or another, something will be done with that space, it\u2019s too valuable a piece of real estate, with too beautiful a view, to remain the site of a too-large parking lot and a too-old arena (and a lot of confused tourists).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Long Beach has room for a mini-version of LA Live.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":250,"featured_media":17113,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1495],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[199],"class_list":["post-6684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-sports-venue","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/250"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6684"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=6684"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=6684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}