Within the realm of professional sports (in the US), have scheduled games been moved, esp. at the last minute? If so, what do the pros call this in sports jargon? Is there some other term for this besides, perhaps, a “change of venue”?
- Jinx
I believe the Cleveland Indians moved several games to Milwaukee this spring due to winter weather in Cleveland. Of course the New Orleans Saints spent two years in other venues due to Katrina. I haven’t heard of a move done at the last minute.
The logistics of moving a major event of any kind at the last minute are pretty overwhelming. It requires a bit of notice to cancel a game, let alone move it.
There were several occasions when stadiums started falling apart, forcing the home teams to play their games on the road. The Seattle Mariners played the last 15 games before the 1994 baseball strike due to fallen ceiling tiles from the Kingdome’s roof. One Yankee game was moved to Shea Stadium in 1998 because a piece of concrete fell down in Yankee Stadium.
Most notorious in Major League Baseball were the Cleveland Spiders of 100+ years ago.
They were a team so overwhelmingly bad that mid-way through the season their attendance was so low they elected to spend the rest of the season on the road because they visitor’s share of the gate receipts was higher than their larger home-team share of the gate receipts.
Recently a Sunday night NFL game was moved from San Diego to Phoenix in a span of a couple of days due to wildfires. IIRC they did not charge admission.
The NFL game between the San Francisco 49ers and New England Patriots on October 22, 1989 was forced to move by the Loma Prieta earthquake, which occurred on October 17. Instead of Candlestick Park, the game took place at Stanford Stadium. Cite.
You recall correctly. 
The Chargers were to host the Miami Dolphins at Qualcomm Stadium on October 27, 2003, but the stadium was being used as an emergency shelter for victims of the Cedar Fire. The game was moved to Sun Devil Stadium, then the home of the Arizona Cardinals. Cite. According to this article, admission to the game was free; tickets were distributed at the gate on a first-come, first-served basis.
The New Orleans Saints played a “home game” against the New York Giants at New York after Hurricane Katrina with about 3 weeks’ notice, then shuffled their whole season around to play at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas, and LSU in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
At least one non-Giant NFC East fan was a bit disgruntled by the Giants’ extra home game and felt the NFL could have found a more neutral site.
I remember that during the 1996-1997 NHL season, the scoreboard fell to the ice in the Buffalo Sabres’ arena(was it still HSBC Arena back then?). I don’t remember if they had to move any games or not.
What is the NHL? Is that some kind of sport?
Moved to Cafe Society.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Man…that’s some seriously slow-acting gravity.
But what did they do about that year’s “subway [World] Series?” Weren’t the Giants and the A’s in the middle of the series when the earthquake happened?
There was talk about moving the 1989 World Series games to Los Angeles. But they just delayed the games 10 days and played Games 3 and 4 in San Francisco.
The 1973 New York Jets had games switched from home to away due to the World Series.
The Jets were secondary tenants in Shea Stadium, so when there were baseball playoff games, they were out of luck. Because of the nature of the schedule that year, the Jets ended up with eight games on the road and only six at home; it looks like the game with Pittsburgh was the one change they couldn’t accommodate by switching home and away dates (they only played the Steelers once).
Back in the days when the A’s and Giant powerhouses. The A’s and the Giants were going to open Game 3 of the world series when the Loma Prieta quake took place. IIRC the reason why the football game was moved was because the tests for structural integrity could not be finished that fast, after the stadium passed the tests the World Series games restarted in San Francisco.
It was a godsend to the tourism industry; you see, after the quake the media just was showing the devastated areas so much that many thought what Jack London said in 1906: that “San Francisco is gone”. There was even the funny report in the paper of a couple at the airport that wanted to rent a 4x4 pick up truck to go around the debris of the destroyed city.
One of the greatest moments ever was to see the opening of the new game 3 with the cast members of the musical Beach Blanket Babylon singing “San Francisco” and the cameras show to the world that virtually all the skyline in San Francisco was intact. The moment was made even better when I detected almost shame in the voice of the reporters mentioning “yes, it is still there”
Gah! Talk about a good way to piss everyone off.
The New York Rangers were forced to play their “home” games for the 1950 Stanley Cup Finals against the Detroit Red Wings at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. The management of Madison Square Garden determined that it would be more profitable to let the cricus perfrom there than the Stanley Cup finals.
Gangster Octopus:
Was that the MSG management’s discretion, or was it prior contractual obligation to the circus?