The Morning Column: August 31, 2021
SoFi Stadium is opening a field-level nightclub with a DJ booth, dance floor and bottle service. This may seem crazy to some but the goal in L.A. and Vegas is to attract everyone, including non-fans.
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1. 🏟 Field-level nightclub opens at SoFi Stadium
First came the Wynn Field Club at Allegiant Stadium and now comes Bootsy Bellows at SoFi Stadium.
Bootsy Bellows, a popular Los Angeles nightclub, is set to open a 2,000-square foot field-level club at SoFi Stadium with a DJ booth, dance floor, mirror bar, and 24 “field seats” along a railing as well as 45 table seats with bottle service. The club, which will have an 80-person capacity on gamedays, will open Sept. 12 when the Los Angeles Rams face the Chicago Bears on Sunday Night Football.
While the club will be open for Rams games as well as concerts and other special events at the stadium, it will not be open for Chargers games. For Chargers games, it will revert back to a cabana suite, which are field sideline suites that border the Pechanga Founders Club and the SoFi Social Club.
The opening of Bootsy Bellows comes almost four months after Allegiant Stadium announced Wynn Field Club, a similar stadium nightlife concept, at the new home of the Las Vegas Raiders. Despite the delayed announcement, Bootsy Bellows is not a late addition. It was set to be announced March 2020 before COVID hit.
The Wynn Field Club is larger and more over-the-top than what is being planned for Bootsy Bellows at SoFi Stadium by the h.wood Group, which also runs other Hollywood hotspots such as Nice Guy, Poppy and Delilah.
The Wynn Field Club is 11,000-square feet with two DJ booths, 42 televisions, a 9-foot-by-350-foot LED screen and a 45,000-watt sound system. It’s basically a Las Vegas nightclub shoehorned into the end zone of a football stadium. It sounds great but it can also have its issues as we’ve seen already.
Bootsy Bellows, which was originally opened by David Arquette in 2012 and named after his mother, is more of a lounge designed to look like Frank Sinatra’s home in Palm Springs. The hope is h.wood Group co-founders John Terzian and Brial Toll will be able to attract their usual celebrity clientele, which includes Drake, Justin Beiber and Marshmello to not only attend games but perhaps hold impromptu performances for guests as they have famously done in the past at their clubs.
Many hardcore fans will wonder what is the need to have a nightclub at a football stadium. Isn’t the game enough? Isn’t that why you’re there? The truth for some people is no, it’s not. SoFi Stadium and Allegiant Stadium are multi-billion-dollar stadiums in the entertainment capitals of the world – Los Angeles and Las Vegas – and they want to attract more than just hardcore fans tracking the down and distance of every play. They want their stadiums to be internationally known as the place to be to everyone, including non-sports fans. Kendall Jenner, for example, will likely attend a Rams game this season at Bootsy Bellows and there is value to SoFi Stadium in her posting a photo of herself on the field to her 200 million followers, most of whom have never heard of the stadium or maybe even of the Rams. It’s not for everyone but these clubs were built more for the vodka Red Bull crowd than the NFL Red Zone crowd.
2. 🏈 Throwback Tuesday: Why the Rams originally left L.A.
While luxury suites are nothing new at NFL stadiums today, they were a novel concept back in the 1970s and were one of the reasons the Rams left the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and moved to Anaheim after the 1979 season. Rams owner Carroll Rosenbloom wasn’t happy playing at the aging Coliseum, which was also home to both USC and UCLA football at the time, and in order to appease him and keep the Rams, the nine-member Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Commission proposed a renovation plan in 1976 that included 138 luxury suites. The plan failed to gain traction and was shelved a year later, prompting the Rams to relocate. Here are some images of the proposed luxury suites, which look like it was inspired by the Three’s Company living room.
3. ⚾️ Dodgers cut Giants lead on Mookie’s big night
What a night for Mookie Betts and the Dodgers. On his bobblehead night, Betts’ mom, Diana Collins, threw out the first pitch and Betts then followed up by hitting a home run and blowing a kiss to his mom, who was sitting in the front row behind home plate. To top it off, the Dodgers beat the Atlanta Braves, 5-3, and moved within 1.5 games of the San Francisco Giants for the NL West lead and the best record in baseball.
4. 🤦🏻♂️ The craziest sports story of the year
The story of how Bishop Sycamore, a fake high school football team made up of non-high school players, ended up playing a high school football game on ESPN is one of the wilder stories in sports. The fallout continues but here’s a great overview so far from Awful Announcing.
5. 💵 Odds and Ends Powered by Bovada
Here are some odds on Bovada if you’re thinking about placing a wager today:
6. 📆 Aug. 31, 1959: Koufax records 18 strikeouts against Giants
On this date 62 years ago, Sandy Koufax broke Dizzy Dean’s National League single season strikeout record and tied Bob Feller’s MLB record with 18 strikeouts in a 5-2 win against the San Francisco Giants at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
7. 🎂 Happy Birthday Chris Duhon
Happy birthday to Chris Duhon. The former Lakers guard turns 39 today. Duhon was traded to the Lakers from the Orlando Magic as part of the Dwight Howard trade along with Earl Clark on Aug. 10, 2012. Duhon only spent one season with the Lakers, and averaged 5.5 points and 3.5 assists in the playoffs, before he was cut by the Lakers on June 29, 2013. That would be the end Duhon’s NBA career and he was hired by Dan D’Antoni to be on his coaching staff at Marshall from 2014-2017.
8. 🎟 Ticket Time Powered by StubHub
Here are the “get in” prices for tickets if you’re thinking about going to a game today:
⚾️ Atlanta Braves at Los Angeles Dodgers – $10
⚾️ New York Yankees at Los Angeles Angels – $19
9. 📺 On The Air
🏀 4 p.m. – Los Angeles Sparks at Indiana Fever – Twitter
⚾️ 6:30 p.m. – New York Yankees at Los Angeles Angels – Bally Sports West
⚾️ 7 p.m. – Atlanta Braves at Los Angeles Dodgers – SportsNet LA, ESPN
10. 📻 The Arash Markazi Show
On Monday’s show, we talked about Rajon Rondo re-joining the Lakers and what he could bring to the team that will enter next season as the most talented in the NBA.
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That’s it for today. Talk to you all tomorrow!