The Stadium Rundown - International & Safety Edition

It's Monday and it's time for another round of The Stadium Rundown! This week we'll take a look at new protective netting at Yankee Stadium, a major milestone in women's rights in Saudi Arabia, and an NFL game scheduled at a brand new stadium in London.

Yankee Stadium Netting

                             

New Yankee Stadium - Source

There has been a lot of discussion around Major League Baseball regarding fan safety when it comes to flying balls and bats. The number one fan rule of baseball is to always pay attention and watch for flying bats and balls, however due to the era of 100 mph pitching and lightning fast power swings there isn't always enough time to properly react to protect yourself, even if you are paying close attention and not playing on your phone.

The New York Yankees had an incident back in September of 2017 where a young child was injured on a line drive foul ball which was likely the final straw to make this decision. Starting with the 2018 home opener, look for "partially retractable netting attached to the roofs of both dugouts and stationary netting extending beyond the far ends of the dugouts toward the foul poles."

Will this impede your vision a bit? Sure. Is it worth improving fan safety? Absolutely.

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Saudi Arabian Soccer

Women Couldn't Enter Soccer Stadiums? - Source Reuters

Did you know that until last week women could not enter sporting stadiums in Saudi Arabia? I sure didn't. However, I can't say I'm surprised by that fact either. It's widely known that rules for women in Saudi Arabia are really strict including prohibiting them from driving (but that's changing too). I'm not here to get into the details of that, so if you want to discuss that, may I recommend you searching for a site to do so.

The milestone culture change took place at the Al-Ahli vs Al-Batin match at the King Abdullah Sports City in Jeddah on January 12th. I look forward to following up and seeing what else this leads to.

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NFL In London

New Tottenham Stadium - Source: Tottenham Hotspur

On the other side of the pond, English Premier League team Tottenham Hotspur is currently playing their matches at the famous Wembley Stadium, but that is not going to be their home for much longer. When they moved out of White Hart Lane in May of 2017, construction on their new stadium was already almost two years in. The new stadium was being built next door and only required a portion of the property where White Hart Lane sat.

Fast forward to this week and it has been announced that the popular NFL London series will continue to be played and include the new Tottenham Hotspur stadium as a site for the NFL games. So far, the only announced game is the Oakland Raiders vs Seattle Seahawks on October 14th, so be prepared to wake up early for that one...

If you want to check out updates from the new stadium, head over to their Instagram account.

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That's all for this week. See you again next Monday!

-D.J.


This post was proofread by Grammarly