{"id":7006,"date":"2018-04-20T11:24:44","date_gmt":"2018-04-20T18:24:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=7006"},"modified":"2018-04-20T11:24:44","modified_gmt":"2018-04-20T18:24:44","slug":"banc-of-california-stadium-to-city-of-los-angeles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=7006","title":{"rendered":"Banc Of California Stadium To City of Los Angeles"},"content":{"rendered":"

LOS ANGELES \u2013 Below a giant golden bow on Wednesday, LAFC executive chairman and co-owner Peter Guber welcomed several hundred attendees inside a completed stadium he hopes will become a \u201cmodern day campfire\u201d for Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe purpose,\u201d he said,\u00a0\u201cis for the people to be here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Star players\u00a0Carlos Vela<\/a>,\u00a0Diego Rossi<\/a>, and club GM John Thorrington were among those in the front row basking in the late April sunshine, a time-lapse video of the Banc of California Stadium construction streaming above them.<\/p>\n

Speaking from a stage that featured LA\u00a0mayor Eric Garcetti, MLS commissioner Don Garber, and Guber\u2019s fellow co-owners including Magic Johnson, Mia Hamm-Garciaparra, Nomar Garciaparra\u00a0and Henry Nguyen, the entertainment mogul, who also co-owns the Los Angeles Dodgers and Golden State Warriors, called the process of creating the $350-million, 22,000-seat stadium both \u201carduous\u201d and \u201cinteresting\u201d with a final product that \u201cexceeds expectations.\u201d<\/p>\n

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LAFC co-owner Magic Johnson (right) shares a moment with star midfielder Carlos Vela at the Banc of California Stadium ribbon-cutting ceremony on April 18, 2018. | Courtesy: LAFC<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The privately funded facility\u00a0replaced the\u00a0Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena, taking its place\u00a0next to other iconic Exposition Park fixtures\u00a0like the LA Memorial Coliseum, the California Science Center\u00a0and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles. It will become the most expensive soccer-specific stadium in league history when it hosts its opening match on April 29 (LAFC vs. Seattle Sounders at 9 pm ET on FS1).<\/p>\n

In his speech, Guber thanked Garber\u00a0\u201cfor your magic,\u201d alluding\u00a0to the MLS commissioner\u2019s contribution to helping make the stadium a reality. Garber, in turn,\u00a0praised everyone involved, including the architects and construction workers who oversaw the project through the 20 months since breaking ground in August 2016.<\/p>\n

As the league gets set to expand\u00a0to new cities like Nashville and Miami in the coming years, Garber emphasized how important the Los Angeles market is to the league, calling the city, \u201cvery young, very diverse, and very global.\u201d<\/p>\n

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MLS Commissioner Don Garber (center) poses with LAFC owners at the Banc of California Stadium ribbon-cutting. | Courtesy: LAFC<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Commissioner Garber also applauded the club and head coach Bob Bradley for building a \u201cvery good team in a very short amount of time.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was a sentiment shared by two-time World Cup and Olympic soccer champion and LA co-owner, Mia Hamm-Garciaparra, who provided her assessment of the team after the ribbon-cutting pageantry.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor a young team, I think the performance has been tremendous,\u201d she said to reporters, before discussing how the stadium will impact the players. \u201cThey\u2019re probably going to be running around like 100 miles an hour in practice today, Bob [Bradley] is probably going to have to be like, \u2018Hey, this is exciting, but relax.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

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LAFC players broke in the Banc of California Stadium field for the first time on April 18, 2018. | Courtesy: LAFC<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Media and owners were later invited to watch the team practice for the first time on\u00a0their home ground, with Rodrigo Pacheco and Vela both scoring for their respective sides during a full-field scrimmage on Banc of California Stadium\u2019s 86,000 square feet of natural Bermuda grass.<\/p>\n

The pitch resembled a golf green, a surface which many believe\u00a0will suit the expansion side\u2019s fast-paced style.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have no worries when they step out here,” said Hamm-Garciaparra.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LOS ANGELES \u2013 Below a giant...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ca-local"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7006"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7006\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7007,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7006\/revisions\/7007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}