FedEx Needs Better Logistics

Continuing a string of excellent soccer matches that began with the World Cup last July, I spent Saturday night watching Manchester United take on FC Barcelona at Landover, Maryland's FedEx Field, home of the Washington Redskins.  Before talking about the quality of the game or the crowd - both of which were excellent, as expected - I need to take you through the nightmare that was getting into the stadium.  I've been to a lot of stadiums and arenas in my life and have dealt with some pretty horrific travel experiences, but I don't think anything can top what I went through this weekend.

We all know that the traffic in the DC metro area is notoriously bad, so I wasn't surprised when we hit traffic driving from downtown to Landover.  Once we got off the highway at the stadium's exit, however, the downside of building a stadium in the suburbs became immediately obvious; unlike Baltimore's M&T Bank Stadium (which we passed by the next afternoon), FedEx Field is miles away from the highway.  Between the exit and the stadium was a few-mile-long two-lane residential road crammed with cars, with everyone trying to reach the same stadium extrance.  It took us more than 45 minutes between the time we got off the highway and when we got to the parking lot.  Overall, a very frustrating experience.

But that was just the start of the poor stadium planning.  After we parked in a grass and gravel lot pretty far from the stadium, a police officer directed us to a pathway "through the woods" as a shortcut to the field.  After following hundreds of other fans along a tree-covered dirt parthway, we came to a small stream (think of the river that Little John's toll bridge crosses in Mel Brooks' Robin Hood: Men in Tights).  Where the path reached the stream, someone had kindly placed a wooden board over the water so that people could cross to the other side; unfortunately, a tree branch had fallen on the board, smashing it into a "V" shape and making it treacherous to cross.  FedEx actually sent a stadium official to help people make it over the damaged "bridge," and women in heels and flip-flops were stumbling all over the place.  Truly incredible.

When we finally made it to the stadium itself, we got to our seats without incident.  That being said, I was thoroughly unimpressed by FedEx Field.  Though I had been there once years before for a Redskins pre-season game, I didn't remember how bare the place was.  The food options were extremely limited (basically just hot dogs and pretzels), the concourses and bathrooms were dingy and outdated, and the vendors sold only beer (for $9 a pop).  Compared to the relatively nearby New Meadowlands in New Jersey or Philadelphia's Lincoln Financial Field (I've never been, but I've heard good things), Washington's FedEx Field was kind of a dump.  Considering that it's just 15 years old and shares an NFL Division with the Meadowlands, The Link and Cowboys Stadium, I was expecting a lot more from the home of the Skins.

Once I was able to get past the FedEx Field debacle, I really enjoyed the game.  The superior play of Man U and Barca relative to MLS clubs was obvious from the first few minutes of the match, and we were able to see some of the game's top stars (including David Villa, Wayne Rooney and Michael Owen) from our fantastic seats in the 100s section near midfield (see the photos below).  It was great to see 81,000+ (mostly) Americans crammed into a stadium to watch soccer - it's just a shame that many of them had to cross a dirty stream covered by a broken wooden plank to get there.