Pizza Hut Park to Close Auxiliary Fields
April 11th, 2008 . 5:57 am . By: Peter WelptonReports are coming in that the many soccer leagues that have contracts with Pizza Hut Park for use of the fields have received a letter stating the fields will be “closed for repair” for an undetermined amount of time starting as soon as April 17th. There is some confusion as it appears that games have continued to be scheduled post the stated “date of closure”, so any true date is up in the air, but the park’s closure does appear imminent. If you haven’t seen the facility in some time, it is sad to report that the once marvelous looking set of fields have all fallen into disrepair. The reasons appear to be a wide mix of mismanagement, overuse and poor initial construction. No matter the reasons, the reality is that the fields have gotten so bad that the Dallas Cup was forced to embarrassingly move many of its highest profile games back to Richland College. This reportedly has incensed the Dallas Cup group which paid a high price to use the facility, and these complaints are found in the same stack as the ones from the high profile boys and girl’s Classic Leagues which also have contracts with PHP for the fields use. In addition to those leagues and tournament the fields also currently host the Frisco Soccer Association, North TX Co-Ed, Dallas Men’s Select Soccer League, several different tournaments (national adult and youth) and now the FC Dallas youth academy and teams practices. Different sources claim that the fields had problems from the beginning, starting with their construction. In the original plans each field was supposed to have enough wiggle room so they could be re-lined/moved so that “wear spots” would not appear. But in the final construction each field was simply 75×115. Also, the drainage for the northern fields was never done properly. The construction was so far behind that many believe that play began on them too quickly and the grass was not allowed to grow properly, exacerbating their ease of wear. Even the Sprint Turf fields have had problems. Three of them have already been replaced once after a water main burst underneath them. But that re-installation has failed and reportedly will be installed for a third time during this upcoming “closure”. As for status of the leagues that use the fields, there appears to be some question over the legality of PHP’s decision to close the facility. These leagues have paid money for the use of the fields and have received money from their teams who certainly are not going to be happy about this development. Many of the leagues are about to end their seasons, while others have just started new ones. But there is a long term question that remains unanswered. If PHP is serious about rebuilding these fields the time needed to properly allow their growth will require several months, if not a full year. While the letter doesn’t state a hard time for teams to return to most leagues generally are scheduled to return in August which doesn’t appear to give the fields the needed time to properly repair. Pizza Hut Park is going to have to take a hard look at the corner it has painted itself into. While the fields were built to be a revenue generator and a community service – but in an effort to maximize the profitability the fields are just flat out over used and over committed. The decision to close the facility is the proper one. But the tough decision should also be made to keep it closed for the proper amount of time to get the repair job done right this time. And the even harder decisions of limiting their future use so that this problem doesn’t happen again. Whether that is achieved through pricing or just hard usage limits, Pizza Hut Park should get it right and make the facility the jewel is deserves to be. 19 Comments Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI Leave a comment |
Etremely dissapointing. The typical no win situation for all involved… leagues will not have fields that they alredy paid to play and PHP looses the channel to distribute tickets. Surely PHP will issue a credit memo for the missed dates.
I play on those fields on sundays as part of the “new” men’s league. Since we began playing there a little less than a year ago you can tell a decline in the quality of the fields. It’s unfortunate that this is happening because those fields were incredible.
I can’t help but think that this is a greater reflection of PHP and FCDs ability to run an organization. As a season ticket holder to FCD I get irritated to no end to see all of the grammatical errors on their flyers and emails. It’s silly – and that’s just a small annoyance… You look at the situation with these fields and you can see a bigger problem – greed/mismanagement. I get that you need to maximize your profit, but sometimes less is in fact more. I think an entire post could be done on the business side of things for the Hunts/PHP so I’ll end my comment here.
Quite annoying, to say the least.
no offence fan o toja but mens league and most of the other mentioned leagues that played on these fields should never haver been allowed to do so in the first place. You are correct when you refer to the greed of HSG in their chase for every single available dollar.
Allowed to play on those fields? PHP charges for the use of those fields; furthermore, part of the deal is that the participating leagues also purchase a block of FCD tickets.
Buy more land, build more fields, and rotate the usage more.
No offense taken, but i’m with Balonpie on this one. They were selling a product and we were interested in buying. Which makes me wonder if they understand the supply/demand process… If the demand is greater than the supply, then they can actually charge more and sell less to make the same amount of $$ (okay, okay, i’m not a finance guy – that’s the reader’s digest version that I remember from econ101 years ago).
Alex – I’m wondering who(m?) the fields were built for then, if my league and “other mentioned leages” shouldn’t have been allowed to play on them.
Really what should have happened is that PHP should have said “we can handle X # of games per field per weekend and maintain Y level of quality”, and when capacity was going to exceed that or the baseline level of quality was going to suffer they should have said “nope, sorry, we’re all booked up.” Instead what they did was say “hey, we’ve got lights so we should figure out how many games can we possibly fit into a weekend x 52 weekends per year”
Any way you slice it (pun intended), this is not good business.
I think what he means is that they were built and first used for the top classic leagues and top tournaments. Especially not for practice (except FCD and an occasional pro or national team). That would have filled them up right there (and in the first year did). I was very surprised when they kept adding leagues. Now before you get angry at me the reason I say that is because Richland was overcrowded before FCD and this was the relief for that and allowed a third division to be added. You are correct that there should be an overall understanding of how many games per day, week year can be played without damage.
“Juan Pablo Angel has heard nothing but good things about Pizza Hut Park and was looking forward to playing on what he is told is arguably the best surface in Major League Soccer.”- MLSnet.com Guess not everything is that bad.
Just curious, who maintains and manages the fields. Is it the City of Frisco?
FC Dallas manages and maintains the fields.
Just another reason why Michael Hitchcock needs to be fired. He’s running this team and organization into the ground. Literally.
Andy Swift would have NEVER, EVER let this happen……Come back Andy!!!!
Yes, Alejo, if I were playing on the stadium field, or even practice Field #1, I’d be pretty pleased. No doubt those are two of the best fields in the country…. But if Angel were looking forward to a pickup match on Field #7, he’d be in for quite a dissapointment.
has anyone noticed the price of concessions at PHP?
FCD has had a posting on their website for awhile now looking for a field manager to solve this problem. I’m amazed they haven’t found anybody yet (or, they found somebody and that somebody said, “Hold your horses! The only way to save the fields and fix this problem is to close down, regroup, and start over.”)
actually the problem was not initially with Hitchcock. he doesn’t book the fields for different leagues. those responsibilities fell with someone that quit the front office last year.
I wonder if the original business plan was the problem. I’m sure the directive from above was to “book as much revenue as possible.”
Did Hitchcock manage the person that booked the fields? If so, then the buck stops there. If not, then that’s a problem. Either way, not good.
Every pub league team, old ladies side, rec teams and any one else who can PAY were allowed to play on these fields. The problem is HSG and their constant search for every available $$$ for their $ss facility. Wait till late in the season and the concerts/lacrosse/hs football start to take their toll of the stadium pitch.