Ask and ye shall receive, or so the popular saying goes. Apparently demand is high enough for Portland Timbers tickets this season that the Timbers FO is going to open up some of those tarped seats in the north end to allow for a couple thousand more fans to squeeze into our already crowded stadium.
The expansions will take place on September 16th against the New England Revolution and on October 14th against the Houston Dynamo.
"When considering our maximum capacity entering our first MLS season, we opted to cover certain sections out of concern that our concourse width affects the fan experience over a certain attendance threshold," said Mike Golub, Timbers COO. "We are comfortable with the current operation of the venue and are undertaking a two-game test of attendance increase to see if we can permanently expand our capacity a bit and meet increased demand with negligible impact on the overall fan experience."
I'm not sure I really agree with the Timbers current assessment. Getting out into the concourse at halftime from the Timbers Army section is unbearable. Adding a couple thousand more people will make it crazy.
The new capacity will be 20,323. Should this prove to work and demand holds, the Timbers will look into making this more permanent while also expanding season ticket holders by 1,000 to a maximum of 13,500.