Football stadiums: good enough for the World Cup, but NOT the New Mexico United?

If you’ve watched any of the World Cup soccer tournament you may have noticed that all of the games being played on US territory are in NFL football stadiums. Some of these stadiums have turf while some of them don’t, but that’s not the point.

What IS the point is that due to a judge’s opinion the New Mexico United stadium MAY be built at Balloon Fiesta Park after it looked like the project would instead be built at the fairgrounds.  We don’t really care WHERE the stadium is to be built because we don’t think the team needs a NEW stadium at all. The same can be said for the UNM Lobos football team which have seen a lot of talk over a potential new stadium as well. Both stadiums will be costing predominantly state taxpayer dollars.

The Lobos play just 6 home games this year.  The United play a few dozen. Why not build or revamp ONE grass stadium for both teams? If the World Cup, the VERY highest level of soccer can be played in a stadium used by the Dallas Cowboys, Atlanta Falcons, and San Francisco 49ers, can’t the Lobos and United share one nice stadium?