Untold Stories | Opening Banc Of California Stadium, Pt. 1

April 29, 2018.

The date alone is enough to conjure memories for even the modest Black & Gold fan.

It was a day of celebration that nearly fell flat after 90 minutes. Not a single person in the sold-out crowd at Banc of California Stadium wanted to witness a scoreless draw to christen to the new building.

Laurent Ciman carefully placed the ball on the perfectly manicured pitch in the 93^rd minute. The LAFC captain slowly paced off his runup and awaited the referee’s whistle. 

A subtle nod obliged the hopes of the crowd. One more step back. Followed by a dipping shot that made history.

In the instant Ciman’s shot hit the back of the net, the 22,000-plus in attendance became one. United through a shared story. A memory they’ll recount over and over to those that weren’t there and reminisce with the ones that were.

It’s these stories in common that remind us what we’re missing right now. In just over two years, the Banc has left us with countless memories. All of them connect us to literally a full stadium’s worth of people with the same story.

However, these are not those stories.

To celebrate the two-year anniversary of the first match at Banc of California Stadium and its opening, these are some of the lesser-known stories. Featuring many of the shared memories we all have from those days but told from a different perspective, this is Part 1 of a two-part series. Here are the untold stories from the opening of Banc of California Stadium:

A Gift To Our City

In the months leading up to the unveiling of Banc of California Stadium, a crew at LAFC was tasked with the run of show for the opening event.

The small group spent months tossing around ideas. Ways to do something different. Ways to do something uniquely Los Angeles. A lot was up in the air.

The idea of a ribbon-cutting ceremony was floated. But before anything was put into action, LAFC President Tom Penn sought the advice of LAFC owner and legendary Hollywood producer Peter Guber.

In those days, LAFC shared office space with the Oscar-winning producer’s Mandalay Entertainment Group. Guber sat in and listened to the pitches for the event.

“Peter jumps in and says, ‘This isn’t the right idea, but hear me out...’ - which is Guber Code for here comes a great idea,” LAFC Chief Business Officer Larry Freedman said of the meeting.

The idea? Unwrapping the Banc like a gift.

As Freedman tells it, Guber followed up his idea with this reasoning.

“This building is gorgeous, nothing like it in LA. It’s like a gift. It’s our gift to the city, so let’s wrap it like a gift and for the ceremony, we should present it to the mayor and the other political and community stakeholders,” Guber said. “We need to get a giant gold ribbon and wrap it all the way around the stadium, so it looks like a gift and when we cut the ribbon it’ll be like opening a present.”

On April 18, 2018, LAFC hosted its ribbon-cutting event at Banc of California Stadium. Owners, players, fans, politicians, and more were on hand. The giant gold ribbon was there, too. Just on a slightly smaller scale.

Looking back, Freedman jokes now:

“You know what it costs to get a custom 1,200+ ft ribbon made and installed?”

Fashionably Late

Speaking of ribbon cutting.

Minutes before the event, all systems were go. Everyone was in place. Players sat amongst the crowd situated at the front of Banc of California Stadium. Owners, politicians, and honored guests were on stage. The media was gathered and ready to capture the moment. And yes, the aforementioned gold ribbon was in place.

Just one problem. Where’s the mayor?

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti was one of the esteemed guests and speakers at the ceremony. The mayor’s car arrived at the stadium’s loading dock with just minutes to spare. But… priorities.

“He walks in. And straight ahead, he sees the tunnel that leads right out onto the pitch. He’s just eyes locked on that grass. It’s the most pristine grass you’ve ever seen,” the mayor’s LAFC liaison for the day Alex Sale recalls. “And I’m like it’s time to go, you’ve got to get out there. You can literally see the bow from the stairwell.

“But he says, ‘I gotta go. I’ve got to go out there.’ Walks straight out and goes live on his social media. And proceeded to go out there to the grass.”

The mayor’s impromptu live recording on the pitch was the first look many Angelenos got of the inside of Banc of California Stadium. And maybe the ceremony started just a few minutes late.

“I think even on live video, he said something about being there for the ribbon cutting and it being about to start,” Sale said. “You can probably see me in the background panicked.”

22,000 Black & Gold Sheets? 

Just before kickoff of Banc of California Stadium’s first match, fans in the stadium raised gold and black foil sheets to form a stadium-wide tifo. The visual was stunning. Coupled with the sounds of the 3252 coming from the North End, it was LAFC’s introduction to the world and a culmination of a plan a year in the making.

But it almost didn’t happen.

The idea came to Alex Sale and Pat Aviles of LAFC about a year and half before LAFC’s inaugural home match. The pair sourced a company that had done similar stadium-wide tifos for other clubs.

Simple enough. And then the sheets arrived.

“They come on just like a full-on pallet to the Experience Center [LAFC’s offices at the time],” Sale said. “22,000 black and gold sheets was like 550 pounds or whatever it was. It was outrageously heavy and we’re definitely not equipped for this.”

Sale and Aviles managed to load the pallet onto the LAFC Street Team truck, drive it to the stadium, and find a place to store it until matchday. The day before the match, they began placing the sheets in each of the 22,000 seats in the stadium.

“We started a full 24 hours before the game and we’re thinking this is plenty of time. Nope. Not a chance,” Sale said. “The biggest issue is we’re setting these things up in whatever way we thought was the best starting point. We didn’t have a plan of attack on how this was going to go. We didn’t coordinate with the stadium.”

Aviles had arranged for 30 or so Supporters to assist with placing the sheets around the stadium. That quickly evolved to nearly a hundred. But at around 8 pm the night before the match, about five hours into their work, they had to stop.

“Tim [McNeff, assistant general manager of Banc of California Stadium] comes over to me and Pat and he’s like, ‘Guys, we’ve got a real problem. We still have to power wash all the seats,'” Sale said. “I think at that point we had probably put out at least all of the North End and most of the West side of the stadium.”

A deal had to be struck. Some sheets were removed for power washing, some were not. But the setback forced the team to work until 2 am that morning. Work continued on matchday right up until kickoff.

“I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t fun and extremely horrible at the same time. It was memorable being there with Supporters that came in so clutch and helped us out,” Sale said. “But that embodies to me what this Club is all about. It was the Club having some sort of idea and Supporters in on it from the start of the process. And then when it came time to put out the stadium-wide tifo, it started with maybe 10 Supporters to 30 Supporters to 100 Supporters. There were kids running around and we were there until 2 am, working together.

"In that way, it was awesome.”