Can we please just get Grant Paulsen ONE new arena or stadium or something sometime soon?
With the news that Monumental Sports is staying in DC with money from the city to refurbish Capital One Arena, it’s pretty official that the next Commanders home is going to be the next new sports digs in the DMV – and If you don’t count Audi Field, we’re looking at at least 20 years – it’s going to be 2027 minimum for a new Commanders stadium – between new buildings in town, while all three as constructed currently are falling apart.
“I’m very hopeful of what could be come, it’s a lot of money, but still, the nuts and bolts are the same,” Grant said in discussing the Cap One refurbishment. “Think of a house: if you’re going to add value to or make your house better, the first thing you do is go out, and they cannot do that. There's just only so much that can be done in one building. Not to say it won't be a lot better, I'm sure it could be, but I’m comparing it in my head to the thing I saw in Virginia – and no matter what, it’s still a 30-plus-year-old building. Nine years from now, it'll be a 36-year-old building. I'm sure it'll be better than it is right now when they put $500 million into it, but I just wonder: this is the only market I've ever known, I’m from Virginia born and raised loving all these teams…is it this way in every market that people don't want new things, are excited to stay at Capital One Arena because ‘it’s fine?’ Are you a fan that goes to games? You don't want something awesome? Am I in the minority?”
“I think you are, especially here, where everybody's got maybe more political juice than they normally would in, like, Minneapolis or whatever,” Danny replied. “In Buffalo, for example, it was like, ‘hey, we need a new stadium so badly, it’s such a treasure for a little market, let’s give him some money. Here, it’s like, A BILLIONAIRE IS GETTING MONEY? ARGH! That bothers a huge percentage of people, including me by the way – I hate the idea of anybody giving a red cent to the billionaire.”
GP doesn’t care enough about the politics and also isn’t team ‘build stadiums for billionaires,’ but he just needs SOMETHING, and he is FIRED UP about it.
“My priority is a new awesome arena or stadium. I have been hearing about the next stadium for the Commanders for 15 years, and nothing has been done. They are nowhere,” Grant said. “There's nothing, we're nowhere. There's no NFL stadium that I'm going to this year, other than stupid FedEx Field again, still, and recently Jason Wright told me I'll still be there after the lease is up! I'm the crazy one who wants to stop going there, but let's fight more over whether or not it should be here or there. A bunch of people yelling at me who don't go to the games, by the way – tell me more how I should feel when I’ll be at Capital One Arena again in two nights. For people that don't go to games to tell me you're an idiot if you want a new arena, this one's fine…says the guy who went there three years ago and it’s fine. It’s fine is not good enough.”
It’s okay, he says, to let yourself dream.
“You think when people ask my wife what her husband looks like and she says he’s fine, you think that's what she dreamed of when she was a little girl?” GP, who we think is handsome, said. “You shouldn't dream of fine. You should dream of awesome, a new venue in a town center with a bunch of new restaurants and bars. It's okay to let yourself dream.”
And that’s when Danny got cised.
“I keep coming back to the same, and I guess we all kind of grab onto our certain things here when it comes to this discussion, but I don't care where it is; I don’t want something out by FedEx because I had that my whole life, and selfishly, logistically, it’s a non-starter for me to drive to Landover, but all I care about is the arms race that's going on in professional sports,” Danny said. “The stupid Commanders have the worst facilities in the sport. I care about THAT. I care that the practice facility where the Wizards are supposed to be getting better is a place that the players don't really go to, because it’s 6.5 miles away from the arena in a neighborhood that a lot of guys don't go to. It’s 2024, you need excellent facilities for the players: the latest in sports science, the latest in data, the latest in everything needs to be right there to compete in this arms race. No more ‘we get by on heart’ and putting logistical challenges in the way of winning. That's the part that I care about, so if that means a new stadium in a new municipality, let's do that.”