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Lumen Field

Take a tour of Lumen Field! Experience the stadium like you never have before; get an up close and personal look at behind the scenes areas and views. The roughly hour and 15-minute-long tour experience will give you a look at one of Seattle’s most iconic venues. Football fanatics, soccer supporters, and everyone in between will learn something new about Lumen Field. Stops include the field, visiting locker room, flag deck and press conference room. *All tour stops are subject to availability.

• Address 800 Occidental Ave S, Ste 200, Seattle, WA 98134
• Phone (206) 381-7555

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• Living on the Cheap

Greater Seattle on the Cheap

Free things to do, cheap fun, discounts and deals in the Seattle-Tacoma metro area

Tours of Lumen Field, T-Mobile Park, Husky Stadium

Stadium tours of Seattle’s professional and collegiate football, soccer, and baseball fields include exclusive back-of-house areas, press box, premier suites and club areas, dugouts, playing fields, and team areas. Bring your camera to capture stunning views of the Seattle skyline and sweeping vistas of the Olympic Mountains over Puget Sound.

Tips for enjoying a stadium tour : Stadium tours are extended walking tours that utilize ramps, elevators, and stairs, both inside and outside. Tours are wheelchair accessible, but wheelchairs are not be provided.  Wear comfortable shoes and dress for the weather.

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Lumen Field stadium in 2011 (known then as CenturyLink Field). Home of Seattle Seahawks football team and Sounders FC soccer team. Photo by anderm – DepositPhotos.com

Husky Stadium Tours

As of April 5, 2023 we could find no information on tours of Husky Stadium on their website. We’ll check periodically for updates. 

• More info:  Husky Stadium Tours – University of Washington Athletics (gohuskies.com)

Lumen Field Tours

Lumen Field was originally the brainchild of Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen (1953-2018), who obtained an option to purchase the Seattle Seahawks in 1996. He then launched a campaign to build a new world-class football field, soccer stadium, and exhibition center on the site of the former Seattle Kingdome. Seahawks Stadium, as it was originally known, opened for the 2002 National Football League preseason. It was renamed Qwest Field in 2004, CenturyLink Field in 2011, and Lumen Field in 2022. Today, Lumen field is home to the Seattle Seahawks and Sounders FC .

Tours of Lumen Field are offered year around. However, tour dates are affected by the seasons, gamedays, and special events held throughout the year.  The roughly hour and 15-minute-long tour experience will give you a behind-the-scenes look at one of Seattle’s most iconic venues. Football fanatics, soccer supporters, and everyone in between will learn something new about Lumen Field. Pending availability, tour stops include the field, visiting locker room, flag deck, and press conference room. Bring your camera to capture the scenes from awe-inspiring viewpoints, including sweeping views of Puget Sound, Olympic Mountains (on those clear days), and a stunning view of downtown Seattle, all from the 300 Level concourses.

Tour Tickets are not available for purchase at the Lumen Field Ticket Office. Tour tickets can only be purchased online. Tickets : Adults (12+) $20, Children (3-11)/Seniors (62+)/Military $15. Children 2 and under Free.  More info: Lumen Field – Tours

T-Mobile Park Tours

Safeco Field officially opened for business on July 15, 1999. A capacity crowd of 47,000 attended the Inaugural Game against the San Diego Padres. On January 1, 2019, the ballpark became known as T-Mobile Park as part of a 25-year hometown partnership. At nearly 20 acres, the outdoor ballpark features real grass and state-of-the-art amenities, most notably its retractable roof. 

Unlike other retractable roofs that completely enclose a stadium, the Seattle baseball field is covered by what is often described as a giant, moveable umbrella. Closing the roof requires three people but takes no more than 12 minutes. It’s so quiet, the roof can be closed while a game is in progress. The roof’s only purpose is to protect the fields from precipitation—not blazing summer heat as most other locations, which Seattle does not have. So, while players and fans will be protected from rain, Seattle’s mild temperatures remain as Mother Nature intends. While the roof can be closed if the weather takes a turn mid-game, it will not be opened again. Therefore, the roof is only closed when absolutely necessary, on average 20-25% of the time. Despite its reputation, Seattle’s average precipitation is lower than many other locations, such as Atlanta, Miami, and New Orleans. The difference with Seattle is we will experience our rain in drizzles rather than downpours. So it can seem like we have more rain than we do.

Tours of the baseball park are available on select Mariners gamedays. Pre-Game Tours will start 3-1/2 hours prior to first pitch and last about one hour. Visitors can enjoy early access to the ballpark, a facility tour, overview of team history, and an opportunity to watch pregame batting practice.

• A game ticket (sold separately) for the same date is required in addition to a ticket for the pregame tour. Tickets : GA $50. Children 3 years old and younger will be free of charge. All others require a ticket.
• Non-gameday tours are not offered last time we checked (April 5, 2023).

More info: T-Mobile Park Tours | Seattle Mariners (mlb.com)

T-Mobile Park, home of the Seattle Mariners MLB baseball team – DepositPhotos.com

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The Stadium Tour: Motley Crue, Def Leppard, Poison & Joan Jett and The Blackhearts at T-Mobile Park

The stadium tour tickets, t-mobile park | seattle, washington, event rescheduled to wednesday 31st august 2022. originally tuesday 7th september 2021. all original tickets are still valid.

Congratulations for finding the only place to get tickets to see The Stadium Tour: Motley Crue, Def Leppard, Poison & Joan Jett and The Blackhearts for a live rock show at the world famous T-Mobile Park in Seattle, Washington on Wednesday 2nd September 2020. This one-off event brings some of the finest artists under one roof to put on a night of unforgettable music that fans have been waiting years for! Just imagine, you are among the sell-out crowd at the T-Mobile Park this Wednesday 2nd September 2020, and you are being transported by the same music that defined a generation! To get your tickets today, click the Buy Tickets button below!

Have you ever attended the supreme pop music venue in Washington? In case there’s any doubt what that would be, here’s a small hint – try booking any of the upcoming shows hosted by T-Mobile Park in Seattle and make sure for yourself. The venue offers a broad range of shows from some of pop music’s industry most astounding celebrities. Their stage is designed to give fans like you the finest viewing experience from every angle in the house, with specifically engineered acoustics that will give you the clearest sounds possible. The atmosphere and decorations have also been designed to set the mood that will make your pop music concert experiences as enchanting as they could possibly be. If you love pop music, then you’ll surely love any of the shows performed at T-Mobile Park.

• | The Stadium Tour: Motley Crue, Def Leppard, Poison & Joan Jett and The Blackhearts

ESPN Announces Exclusive ‘ESPN Experiences: Take Me Out to the Ballparks’ Tour Set for Labor Day Weekend

Indulge in baseball luxury with espn’s first-ever three-city mlb tour, featuring iconic ballparks and mvp espn access.

ESPN continues its commitment to serve sports fans anytime, anywhere, with a five-day, four-night Major League Baseball (MLB) tour this Labor Day Weekend perfect for the most avid baseball fan.

The ESPN Experiences: Take Me Out to the Ballparks tour powered by Adventures by Disney immerses fans into baseball luxury with premium ballpark experiences sure to provide lifelong memories.

Stops include the iconic Fenway Park in Boston, Yankee Stadium in New York, and Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, along with a private tour of the Jackie Robinson Museum and exclusive MVP access at the famed ESPN Headquarters in Bristol, CT.

“ESPN Experiences: Take Me Out to the Ballparks tour is a new offering we’re incredibly proud to introduce,” said Zack Malet, Senior Director of Sports Business Development & Innovation, ESPN. “The curated experience between ESPN, MLB, and our friends at Adventures by Disney will bring baseball enthusiasts closer to the game they love. We anticipate this tour to be the first of more to come across other sports and leagues.”

The ESPN Experiences: Take Me Out to the Ballparks tour

• Thu., August 29: Witness the Toronto Blue Jays clash with the Boston Red Sox from the coveted Green Monster seats, an experience reserved for those with a penchant for the extraordinary.
• Fri., August 30: Embark on a MVP journey into the heart of sports media excellence with an exclusive tour of the illustrious ESPN Headquarters, where innovation and ingenuity converge to shape the future of sports entertainment. Fans will also have lunch with MLB Analyst Doug Glanville.
• Sat., August 31: Soak in Yankee Stadium with a private tour and meet and greet with Yankees Play-by-play Broadcaster Michael Kay before taking in the action of the St. Louis Cardinals and New York Yankees from a suite.
• Sun., September 1: Start the day at the Jackie Robinson Museum with a private tour, paying homage to a trailblazer whose legacy transcends generations, and finish at Citizens Bank Park, home of the Philadelphia Phillies, in a Sunday Night Baseball tilt against National League East foe Atlanta Braves in the comforts of a suite. Attendees will also have a chance to meet Sunday Night Baseball announcers Karl Ravech, David Cone, Eduardo Pérez, and Buster Olney.
• Mon., September 2: Conclude with a hearty breakfast before traveling home following the three-city MLB tour.

Throughout the experience, fans will be greeted by many of ESPN’s esteemed baseball personalities including Michael Kay and Doug Glanville, Boston Red Sox announcer Dave O’Brien, and play-by-play announcer Mike Monaco. All hotels, transportation within the tour, select meals and much more are also included (visit experiences.espn.com for a full list of the inclusions). 

ESPN Experience Coaches will provide attendees with a seamless travel experience, making sure every detail is carefully attended to. They are master storytellers who will bring to life the rich history and traditions of the places and people these select fans will be introduced to.

ESPN “Get Up” Producer and sports trivia author Paul “Hembo” Hembekides will join ESPN Experience fans at the Jackie Robinson museum and in-suite at the Phillies vs. Braves game.

The ESPN Experiences: Take Me Out to the Ballparks tour retails at $6,999 (per person based on double occupancy). As this is part of a small group escorted tour experience, there are a limited number of spaces available to book.

This inaugural ESPN Experiences tour goes on sale June 25 at 10 a.m. ET. The Travel Specialists will be available from 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. ET, Monday through Friday, starting on June 25, and the package can only be purchased by call ing (407) 566-8411 after that time.   M ore information at experiences.espn.com .

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Def Leppard, Journey team for stadium tour: 'We may have a surprise or two up our sleeves'

The anthems will be loud and frequent when Journey and Def Leppard take a spin through stadiums this summer.

The rock powerhouses are teaming for a 23-city tour that will kick off July 6, 2024, at Busch Stadium in St. Louis and wrap Sept. 8 at Coors Field in Denver.

While the bands have a stockpile of smashes including “Any Way You Want It,” “Don’t Stop Believin’,” “Photograph” and “Pour Some Sugar on Me,” respectively, they’ll also be joined by fellow hitmakers Steve Miller Band , Heart and Cheap Trick in varying markets (see list below).

When do tickets for Def Leppard, Journey go on sale?

Registration for presale tickets begins at 10 a.m. ET/7 a.m. PT on Dec. 7 at www.defleppardjourney2024.com .

Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.

A presale for Citi cardholders kicks off at 10 a.m. local time on Dec. 13 via www.citientertainment.com . The general public sale begins at 10 a.m. local time on Dec. 15.

Both Journey and Def Leppard have been road warriors lately. Def Leppard played a sold-out stadium run in summer 2022 with Motley Crue, Poison and Joan Jett & The Blackhearts and continued a worldwide tour with Motley Crue in 2023.

Def Leppard frontman Joe Elliott shared that the band's set will celebrate specific parts of the rockers' history. "We may even have a surprise or two up our sleeves," he said in a statement.

Journey recently announced a spate of 2024 dates for their 50 th anniversary Freedom tour, which will play arenas across the U.S. between Feb. 9 and April 29.

Interested in going? Check out tickets at Vivid Seats , StubHub , SeatGeek , and Ticketmaster .

Purchases you make through our links may earn us and our publishing partners a commission.

More: Steve Miller felt his 'career was over' before 'Joker.' 50 years later 'it all worked out'

Journey and Def Leppard 2024 tour dates

• July 6, 2024, St Louis, MO Busch Stadium with Cheap Trick
• July 10, 2024, Orlando, FL Camping World Stadium with Cheap Trick
• July 13, 2024, Atlanta, GA Truist Park with Steve Miller Band
• July 15, 2024, Chicago, IL Wrigley Field with Steve Miller Band
• July 18, 2024, Detroit, MI Comerica Park with Steve Miller Band
• July 20, 2024, Nashville, TN Nissan Stadium with Steve Miller Band
• July 23, 2024, Philadelphia, PA Citizens Bank Park with Steve Miller Band
• July 25, 2024, Hershey, PA Hersheypark Stadium with Steve Miller Band
• July 27, 2024, Pittsburgh, PA PNC Park with Steve Miller Band
• July 30, 2024, Cleveland, OH Progressive Field with Heart
• Aug. 2, 2024, Toronto, ON Rogers Centre with Heart
• Aug. 5, 2024, Boston, MA Fenway Park with Heart
• Aug. 7, 2024, Flushing, NY Citi Field with Steve Miller Band
• Aug. 12, 2024, Arlington, TX Globe Life Field with Steve Miller Band
• Aug. 14, 2024, Houston, TX Minute Maid Park with Steve Miller Band
• Aug. 16, 2024, San Antonio, TX Alamodome with Steve Miller Band
• Aug. 19, 2024, Minneapolis, MN Target Field with Steve Miller Band
• Aug. 23, 2024, Phoenix, AZ Chase Field with Steve Miller Band
• Aug. 25, 2024, Los Angeles, CA SoFi Stadium with Steve Miller Band
• Aug. 28, 2024, San Francisco, CAOracle Park with Steve Miller Band
• Aug. 30, 2024, San Diego, CA Petco Park with Steve Miller Band
• Sept. 4, 2024, Seattle, WA T-Mobile Park with Cheap Trick
• Sept. 8, 2024, Denver, CO Coors Field with Cheap Trick

More: KISS delivers explosive final concert in New York, debuts digital avatars in 'new era'

Seattle Sounders at 50: The two priorities are to ‘double our fan base and double our business’

Adrian Hanauer had a stomach ache. 

The Seattle Sounders owner had walked through his team’s gleaming new facility in the first days the team was moving in this spring and just couldn’t shake the feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Located at the site of the old Longacres thoroughbred horse track in Renton, Washington, about a 15-minute drive from Seattle-Tacoma Airport, the former Boeing headquarters was now retrofitted as a state-of-the-art practice facility and the new home base for the club. It is less than six months old and the gym still smells like the fresh rubber of the floor mats and weights. The training room is equipped with hyperbaric chambers and cold and hot tubs; the team dining room feels more like a downtown bar than a cafeteria, its walls decorated with pictures and jerseys from the club’s history. Hanauer’s office there is open and still not filled up yet. It feels more like a small lobby than an office. There is no desk, but rather a large table and some couches and chairs. A wall of windows overlooks the pristine fields where the team trains. 

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As Hanauer meandered the halls and locker room and office, he kept asking himself: Is it too nice?

“Like, it just really made me uncomfortable,” Hanauer recalled.

Hanauer had guided the franchise from his early days of investment in 2001 when the Sounders played in what was then called the A-League in front of a few thousand fans. He helped turn it into the marquee club of Major League Soccer. Like watching a child grow up, the days when they had to get on hands and knees to tape down the turf at Memorial Stadium felt like a lifetime before, and yet also just yesterday.

For Hanauer, the duct tape at Memorial was still so much of what made up the identity of the club. And there is little separating the team from himself.

“It’s kind of my entire identity at this point,” Hanauer said.

The Sounders had found a way to survive. They won hearts in the 1970s and early 1980s in the NASL, including that of Hanauer, who had gone down to watch the Sounders play at Memorial as a young boy. They were brought back in the American Professional Soccer League in 1994, and Hanauer bought in after a chance encounter with the then-Sounders general manager, Brad Kimura, on a plane in 2001. The Sounders grew in the A-League, which became the USL in 2005. 

Would all of that journey, the grind, be lost inside these new halls?

“We talked about this a lot before it opened, the context is important,” said Sounders chief business officer Hugh Weber, a Tacoma native and longtime friend of Hanauer who joined the franchise two years ago after years of working with the New Jersey Devils and Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment. “People need to know that this doesn’t define our core ethos.”

As the Sounders marked the 50th anniversary of their club on Saturday with a 2-0 win over Minnesota United, the fight to hold on to that history amidst the inevitability of evolution existed far beyond just the new training facility. 

When the Sounders entered MLS in 2009, they announced themselves with star designated players and sell-out crowds. They were quickly considered the big dogs of the league, and their popularity in the market became one of the key selling points and catalysts for the MLS’ growth. On the field, the success is unprecedented. Since entering MLS, the Sounders have missed the playoffs just once, in 2022, the same year they became the first MLS team to win the modern version of the CONCACAF Champions League. They have won four U.S. Open Cups, two MLS Cups and one Supporters’ Shield. 

“At the beginning of the year, when guys come in, they know that the standard and the goal is to win trophies,” Sounders homegrown forward Jordan Morris said. “And I think it’s important that any player that comes here, any player that puts on the jersey, understands that.”

The MLS landscape has shifted dramatically over the last decade and a half, however. 

No longer are the Sounders top spenders in MLS. They have been surpassed by the likes of Atlanta United, LAFC, Toronto FC, the Chicago Fire, FC Cincinnati, the Columbus Crew and numerous others. They are just two years removed from winning a trophy no other MLS team has won, and yet the Sounders are also at a crossroads. 

So far, Seattle has found a way to maintain success, but the challenge is only growing and Hanauer knows evolution is the only path for survival. The vision for that evolution exists both with the work being done inside that brand-new building at Longacres and in the land all around it.

Brian Schmetzer hasn’t unpacked the boxes in his new office yet.

Schmetzer understands as well as anybody the expectations in Seattle. Upstairs in the Sounders’ office is a sign taken off one of the stores from his father’s famous sporting stores in the Seattle area: Schmetzer’s Sporthaus. He was born and raised here and has played, coached or worked across nearly every team and level of Seattle’s storied soccer history. For the first 20 minutes of an interview, Schmetzer is rattling off the names of historic figures in the market with whom he played or coached. Telling stories from the old days of lessons learned in those first training sessions in the NASL or beers bought by Hanauer for the team after Sounders wins in the USL days. 

Seattle is sitting closer to the bottom of the Western Conference standings than the top and Schmetzer, despite his longevity at a club where he signed as an 18-year-old in the NASL, knows the nature of pro sports. Those boxes sitting to the left of his desk are a reminder of that.

Schmetzer doesn’t love the word “culture,” but he knows enough to know that in Seattle the club is built around two things: “the connection between the players and the fans,” he said, and “winning, because we have to win.”

Sounders general manager Craig Waibel said the latter is omnipresent. 

“The fans are very clear: There’s an expectation here to win every game and I think it’s a healthy expectation,” Waibel said. “You know, not every club has that. … Ultimately, what’s defined the Sounders is winning, and I don’t think that gets lost on the fans.”

MLS’ rulebook is complex, but overall the keys to sustained success are typically straightforward. Chief among them is the ability to hit on designated players, and the Sounders have done that with astounding regularity. It started in the expansion season with Freddie Ljungberg and carried forward with players like Fredy Montero, Mauro Rosales, Obafemi Martins, Clint Dempsey, Osvaldo Alonso, Nico Lodeiro and Raul Ruidiaz. If there is a through line to the trophies, it’s that.

That hit rate can be attributed to a number of things, but Seattle has also boasted widely-respected front office executives, including inaugural coach Sigi Schmid, current Inter Miami sporting director Chris Henderson and current Atlanta United president Garth Lagerwey, who is widely considered the best sporting executive in MLS history and left Seattle in November 2022 having built a team that won two MLS Cups, advanced to two other MLS championship games and won a Champions League. (Hanauer served as the team’s general manager from 2002-14, when Lagerwey was hired.)

Waibel became just the third GM in the team’s MLS history in 2022. Like many people around the Sounders front office, Waibel has close links to the area. He grew up in Spokane and his wife is from Bellevue; he attended the University of Washington and played for the Sounders in the A-League. The tall GM with a shaved head still looks like the center back that roamed MLS fields for 11 years, winning four MLS Cups along the way. 

The job he has isn’t an easy one. 

The Sounders still carry all of the expectations, but they are operating with a far different budget. Observers around the league wonder whether the Sounders will be able to keep up with the big spenders, or if the pace of the league’s growth will push them down the pecking order.

“I’m not gonna sit here and say we’re spending the most money,” Waibel said. “We’re not spending the most money. Anyone can do that research. You know, you look at transfer fees, which is where most of the money in MLS is spent.”

But Waibel added, “it’s not just the money that solves it.”

Waibel’s job is to put together a competitive roster, but it’s more than that. The Sounders finished second in the Western Conference last year, but the pragmatic approach to winning games wasn’t as entertaining as fans wanted. The club has to win, but also win pretty. They are chasing rivals and chasing their own history.

Hanauer, who sits on the league’s sporting and competition committee that determines league rules, is probably better-versed on roster building than any owner in the league. He is at the facility every day and contributing to decisions at every level. Weber laughs telling stories about Hanauer going to a rock quarry to pick out features for the drive into the facility, and of finding the furniture that fills the office. 

Hanauer isn’t concerned with whether the Sounders are considered big spenders or not, pointing to MLS’ competitive balance and the fact that Seattle is far from a bottom-spender, too.

“I see zero empirical evidence that spending money leads to success in MLS at this point in time,” he said. 

That may be true to an extent, but the vast majority of MLS Cup winners in the last 15 years have been high spending teams, from the LA Galaxy to Toronto FC, LAFC, Columbus, Atlanta and, yes, those Sounders teams.  

In today’s MLS, considering the heft of ownership groups that have entered the league in recent history, the Sounders are likely going to have to do it by being smarter, not by outspending. 

“I believe that in our league, great clubs are the aggregate of all the pieces,” Hanauer said. “Yeah, players are important, but so are the coaches, and so are the medical staff, and the data and analytics, and the sports science, and the support staff, and the dieticians, and the administration, and all of the business people and how we all connect.”

The Sounders typically have invested in areas of the front office that assist in spending, like data and analytics. The new Longacres facility should help with recruitment, too. Seattle’s first DP signing under Waibel, Pedro de la Vega, who arrived with a transfer fee around $7 million, has missed most of the season due to injury. It’s not clear if they’ll be aggressive in the summer window or willing to spend more, but the roster is approaching a point of turnover. 

The Sounders, though, must figure out a way to get their roster to compete not just with the very best in MLS, but also the world’s best. The CONCACAF Champions League win in 2022 means Seattle will play in next year’s FIFA Club World Cup. They will be ambassadors trying to sell the league, just as they were when they entered MLS with such fanfare in 2009.

Seattle will also be stepping on to that stage at a time when they are rethinking their own growth. It is a transformation that may start with the land around the Longacres facility.

On Monday, a few days after celebrating their 50th anniversary, the Sounders officially announced their acquisition of the NWSL’s Seattle Reign . The purchase, made in partnership with investment firm The Carlyle Group, is a massive step toward how they see the next 50 years of the business.

The Reign’s logo was already on the wall of the training facility last month, a sign of the then-pending sale. The belief is that the organization will now be able to reach more fans and grow soccer in the market across both the Sounders and Reign. It’s part of a plan to expand the impact of the business as the league and team look to grow at a key moment in time for the sport in the United States, with the 2026 World Cup just around the corner.

“We have two core priorities,” Weber said. “One is to double our fan base and one is to double our business, and doubling our business doesn’t mean doubling our ticket revenue, doubling our business means doubling how we think about this as an enterprise.”

It is vital for the Sounders to find a path to the levels of sustained success they have had their entire history in MLS, not just for the on-field results, but also for the relevance they have long had in their home market. The Sounders’ attendance is down this year, a trend over the last few years that the club needs to reverse.

Among the major decisions Seattle has is what to do about the stadium where it plays. Currently a tenant at Lumen Field, the club’s lease is up in eight years. The lease, which has friendly terms, feels like a ticking clock. Hanauer and Weber said that the team, among other things, is considering whether to build a soccer-specific stadium on the Longacres campus, which is accessible by train but would obviously not have the same convenience of Lumen Field. 

“We would be remiss if we didn’t do the work to find out if it was if it made sense,” Weber said.

There is still a lot of work to be done, Weber emphasizes. The club wants to “engage our fan base” and also meet with government officials and partners. It has to make financial sense. But Longacres has opened the possibility of a stadium, which might not have existed any time before.

“Lumen has been a great home, let’s start with that,” Weber said. “They’re partners of ours. The economic equation of this is just a small component of it. There’s a qualitative component, which is: we can’t play on grass at Lumen, right? Just their business model won’t allow for grass. So that, coupled with the cavernous 67,000 versus if you built soccer a soccer-specific you wouldn’t build 67,000, the premium areas, Lumen’s a great building but it’s (22 years old). … We wouldn’t do this if we didn’t believe we could pull off a fan experience that people would say, ‘I’m going, for sure.’ 

“If you can imagine this whole campus is full of places to gather and easy parking and train stops, which is just across the way, and places to eat, drink and hang out and then go to the match, if we could do all that then it becomes a compelling qualitative reason.”

It is the most grandiose part of the evolution of the business for the Sounders, but it is hardly the only bullet point in the plan. Seattle plans to do more work in the community space, Hanauer said, and get back to outreach they felt was a strength of the organization pre-Covid. They are also looking into the possibility of building a music venue on the Longacres campus, as well as potential residential and commercial opportunities. The Reign purchase is a huge part of the growth of the business, too.

As Weber puts it, the Sounders are in the “data and live events business” and they need to leverage the information and success they’ve had in the market to grow their business, and the way the enterprise interacts with the market. It’s more than just about keeping up with the “big spenders” in MLS and about enhancing their place in the sports and entertainment industry.

“What does it mean to actually live-work-play in a soccer ecosystem,” Weber said. “And could we do that 10 minutes from downtown Seattle? That’s just a different level of thinking about your business and about what it means to be a core soccer fan. If we’re good at all of this stuff, it feeds the engine for what we can put out on the pitch.”

Ultimately, what’s out on the pitch is what will measure the success of the club — and of its evolution.

(Top photo: Joe Nicholson-USA TODAY Sports)

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Paul Tenorio is a senior writer for The Athletic who covers soccer. He has previously written for the Washington Post, the Orlando Sentinel, FourFourTwo, ESPN and MLSsoccer.com. Follow Paul on Twitter @ PaulTenorio

• Entertainment

Taylor Swift kicks off UK Eras shows as some fans wonder if singer is ready to say ‘So long, London’

LONDON (AP) — Taylor Swift fans enjoy parsing the singer-songwriter’s lyrics for references to her romantic life and insights into her state of mind.

But the pop superstar’s fans in the U.K. didn’t have to listen closely to her latest album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” to get the sense that Swift had soured on the country’s capital city after long making it a regular hangout and then her second home. The record’s fifth track is titled “So Long, London.”

As Swift brings her blockbuster Eras Tour to London’s Wembley Stadium this weekend, some Swifties therefore are wondering if they are witnessing the beginning of an extended goodbye.

London isn’t ready to see her go. The area around Wembley was transformed for the shows, with fans posing in front of a giant mural of the singer and traveling stairs christened “Swiftie Steps” and other tributes.

Swift announced that 88,446 people were in attendance at Friday’s show in what she called “the most exhilarating city in the world.” Among the famous attendees: Prince William celebrating his 42nd birthday at the show and posing for a photo with Swift along with two of his children, Prince George and Princess Charlotte.

Swift gave fans a wink and a nod toward her London life during one of her two solo acoustic surprise songs: a piano medley that opened with the London-set “The Black Dog” and segued into “Come Back, Be Here” and then “Maroon.”

In addition to this weekend’s shows, Swift will return to Wembley for five more in August to close the tour’s European leg.

London is the only city on the tour where Swift is stopping twice. Some worry the arrangement may represent a swan song of sorts, while others think it just reflects a new era in Swift’s bond with the Big Smoke. Whether “So Long, London” turns out to be a final chapter or a bookend to her valentine to the city, the song “London Boy,” Eras is arriving as an emotional milestone.

“Her relationship now kind of assumes London won’t be somewhere she will be. It’s not like there is an American football player living here,” said Maggie Fekete, 22, a Canadian graduate student who credits the London references in Swift’s music with orienting her when she moved to the city three years ago. “I think there will be a lot less London in her music, which is sad.”

Stella Elgood, 25, of London, said Friday she assumed Swift would sing “So Long, London” at some point during her eight nights in the city but that Swift “will always be welcome.”

“Especially since she dated Harry Styles, she’s been here in the Zeitgeist,” Elgood said.

For those who haven’t been paying attention, Swift had a series of romances with famous British citizens (including Styles in 2012) that ended last year, when she started dating Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. The speculation surrounding “So Long, London” and a mournful companion song that mentions a London pub, “The Black Dog,” stems from the 2023 breakup of Swift and English actor Joe Alwyn, who were together for over six years.

Alwyn is assumed to have inspired “London Boy,” a song from her 2019 album “Lover.” A special-edition “Lover” CD included what appeared to be a January 2017 diary entry in which Swift talked about being “essentially based in London” but trying to lay low. British tabloids later reported that Swift spent much of the COVID-19 pandemic sheltering with Alwyn in north London.

The Sun newspaper reported in December that the multiple Grammy-winner had bought a large property in the area and was remodeling it to be her base in Europe. After Swift released “The Tortured Poets Department” last month, however, a writer for the British edition of ELLE magazine observed that Londoners had an opening “for an all-American A-lister who can slot into her place in our collective consciousness.”

“We had Swift before we lost her to her record-breaking, box office-breaking Eras Tour and now, it would appear that her vacant position has been filled by Zendaya,” writer Naomi May playfully posited before listing the various locations the American actor had been spotted with her longtime boyfriend, British actor Tom Holland.

Either way, the capital is putting on quite a show of its own to make sure Swift and her fans feel appreciated. Guides are offering walking, bus and taxi tours that retrace her footsteps, including a kebab shop whose owner says his establishment is supplying sandwiches for the singer and her crew on Friday.

Before the end of August, Swifties can partake in a full diet of Swift-themed brunches and dance parties, or ride the London Eye Ferris wheel accompanied by a string quartet playing her music. Souvenir stalls in Camden Market, one of the places mentioned in “London Boy,” stocked up on Swift-specific caps, T-shirts, bags and stickers in preparation.

Amy Unsworth, 34, who is from a small town near Manchester, England, and was born a month before Swift, said Friday that the singer’s ties to the U.K. and vice versa extend beyond the capital.

“I feel like as a Northerner I have an affinity with her,” Unsworth said, noting that Swift wrote many of the songs on her “Evermore” album while in England’s Lake District with Alwyn.

“It’s hard to know how she feels right now, being back, given her history.”

Unsworth isn’t worried Swift will turn her back on the U.K. Swift said from the stage that her British fans “have been some of the most supportive people in my corner since I started making music.” Swift performed in London for the first time at age 17, when she appeared at the student union of Kings College London.

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“I think she will come back” after Eras, Unsworth said. “She has too many dedicated fans not to come back. She’s built up too much momentum here to just forget about us.”

Zachary Hourihane, who co-hosts a Swift podcast called “Evolution of a Snake” and posts YouTube and TikTok videos under the name Swiftologist, said Thursday that it’s too soon to know whether the singer will retain her honorary citizenship or part ways with London. As her fans know all too well, only time will tell with Taylor.

“Taylor is someone who retraces her steps a lot. Things are never really over with her. She likes to revisit things that have finished,” he said. “Let’s be realistic about it. Her relationship, even if it is, ‘so long, goodbye,’ she has good reason to be in London and good money to make there.”