Should ISU wait on next phase of Stadium Expansion?

anticyclonic · 05-03-2008, 01:04 PM

Help me out, is Pollard's intent to move more of the original $110 Million to the football stadium versus Hilton, or is the $65 Million in addition to that master plan? Thanks

Cyclone711 · 05-03-2008, 01:16 PM

Originally Posted by MontyBurns

Indiana's renovation doesn't make a lot of sense, but the others all have valid reasons that are different from ISU:

Illinois' stadium is starting to sell out -- they now have a lot of success to build on with a BCS bowl game. And unlike JTS, their stadium is also a dump. It was built in 1923 and other than replacing a few upper deck seats and the scoreboard, it had not been renovated (concourses, restrooms, concessions, etc.) - ever.

Oklahoma State's renovation makes no sense except for the fact that they have T. Boone Picken's donations behind it. They could install gold plated seats without going into debt, so why not?

Minnesota does not sell out home games, but they are going from 65,000 seats in the Metrodome to ~45,000 seats in their new stadium. They will also be moving to an on-campus stadium so that students can actually tailgate and attend games.

Illinois had their plans set out and were going to move ahead with it before their BCS season. The fact that it happened was a good coincidance. And even in that season they were not selling out every home game.

Minnesota's new stadium will be 50k (I have no idea where 45k came from, lot of people are saying that, but it is wrong). They averaged 47k I believe this season (most of that was the other teams fans, even my brother, who is a student there, said that when they played OSU and Wisc that 50% of the fans were the opposing teams). So yeah, it's not as good as it seems (although a new stadium I'm sure will sell out for the first couple of years soley because of the novelty of it).

HandSanitizer · 05-03-2008, 01:19 PM

The hilton Practice facility was originally going to cost 25 million.
The Hilton renovation 35 million.
Then there was going to be a Hilton gateway complex built as a phase 4 later on down the road.
I think things have changes prioroties and price tags though. Just like this current project could change.

anticyclonic · 05-03-2008, 01:39 PM

thanks for the info. I would prefer that priority be put towards football since that is where the real big $ is.

Ficklone02 · 05-03-2008, 01:40 PM

Originally Posted by Aclone

That sounds reasonable to me, as well. Of course, it also tells us exactly where we have to go if in say, twenty years, we want to increase capacity to 70K, 72K, or even 75K (do you really think that if we have a winning, exciting team, that fans won't roll in?). I should add that I'm not a big fan of tearing down perfectly good structures to allow fo eventual expansion.

I'll also assume that they would have more luxury boxes between the south end zone decks, as well. At a reduced price, of course.

Some people may complain about too many seats, but you can't sell those seats if you don't have them. And an additional 10K seats would mean at least an additional half million dollars in revenue a game alone--in ticket revenue only. Beef up the non conference schedule with some recognizable names (read, BCS schools), and we would be selling more season tickets. Seriously, who really wants to pay extra money to come to see Toledo (or SD State) when the come to town? Even Kentucky would beat Kent. Washington State is wandering around out there somewhere, too--and why wouldn't Arizona want to come to town?

Yeah its true that even though we're catching up big time if this comes to fruition...we might easily still be behind the eightball when it comes time to upgrade again. But at this point I'm just going to be happy that JP has the guts to do something about it.
I got a little perspective this past week when I was in Atlanta at a conference. The veranda outside my hotel room offered an eyeshot of the G.Tech football stadium...and so I was talking with the hotel bartender about it, and he seemed to think that it was total crap because it only seated around 60,000 (at least thats what he said). So, you gotta think places like that are in line for an upgrade soon even as we are catching up to them. But, again, I'd still be ecstatic if all those renderings came to fruition.

HandSanitizer · 05-03-2008, 01:56 PM

Stadium seats 55,000 But its also being compared to Tennessee, Georgia and Florida etc.. So Jack Trice and Dodd Stadium are the same capacity, but which one looks like a better facility? Especially if you walked into them empty so you could see the hills.

http://www.collegegridirons.com/acc/...oddStadium.htm

Aclone · 05-03-2008, 02:26 PM

Originally Posted by HandSanitizer

Stadium seats 55,000 But its also being compared to Tennessee, Georgia and Florida etc.. So Jack Trice and Dodd Stadium are the same capacity, but which one looks like a better facility? Especially if you walked into them empty so you could see the hills.
Although there is a lot of red in their stadium....

College Gridirons-Bobby Dodd Stadium-Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets

Uhh...same capacity? I thought Tennessee was one of the half dozen or so stadiums in the country that seated 100K plus (MI, OSU, PSU and ???). Neyland Stadium, 104, 079?

HandSanitizer · 05-03-2008, 03:17 PM

Sorry about the bad grammer....It has the same capacity as ISU yet it looks better because it is enclosed. I was trying to make the point that the reason people in georgia probably make fun of that stadium is because its so small compared to the others down there.

Aclone · 05-03-2008, 03:35 PM

Ahh...you mean Bobby Dodd Stadium. Had to Google it. It was also built in 1913, which might be another reason people ridicule it. After all, the Atlanta pro stadiums that were built at the same time as the Jack and Hilton were both torn down several years ago.