New 3d video and website for the new BU stadium
- Thread starter Sammy11
- Start date
You shouldn't be. Let's run the numbers.
With a dump of a stadium 5 miles from campus which only has the redeeming quality of good sight lines we average 8,000 of our 12,000 undergrads showing up.
Our alumni base in Central Texas's DMA that includes Waco- 25,000 but it includes surrounding counties and such. Let's say we get half that at 12,500.
We now have 20,500. The rest either is unaffiliated Waco fans who haven't had a reason to be excited before 2010 or our large DFW or Houston alumni bases. We can pack out 40k usually but it tapers of sharply there. 45k is right.
Our 12k undergrad enrollment gets us in the low 40s. Your 30k enrollment gets you in the low 50s. I imagine a substantial portion of that 10k difference is enrollment.
But if no fans ever see it, does it exsist? In all seriousness I feel bad for Baylor players especiallly in b-ball.
Are there any concerns with flooding at all? I'd be weary building a stadium that close to a river.... or is it a lake?
You also benefit from having more visiting fans when you're talking in terms of attendance.
This year, Baylor attendance:
TCU 43,753
SFA 43,090
Rice 40,088
Iowa St. 35,625
Missouri 40,194
OU 40,281
Tx Tech 51,615
Texas 46,543
The above figures set a school record.
TCU, SFA, Rice, Texas are all within what? 3.5 hours?
Compared to our schedule where we only had Northern Iowa and Iowa within that distance. I'd imagine a good chunk of your disadvantage of your smaller undergrad population is more than made up for with your visiting fan ticket sales.
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It is the Brazos River, but in the 1914 Waco built a dam about a mile and a half down stream from where the location of the stadium is going to be and it was rebuilt in 1970 and then they built the current one in 2006 so it is actually holding the water levels up and in that area it is called Lake Brazos. If they opened the dam or if it wasn't there the water levels would get pretty low.
Either way it will be in what is considered a 100 year flood plain, but the entire Baylor campus on the other side of the Brazos is also in that flood plain.
This is looking back up stream towards Waco and I-35, I-35 is the second bridge you can see and the stadium will be right next to it. Baylor campus and all of their other athletic facilities are on the left hand side in the picture and the FB stadium will be on the right hand side.
Yep looking at that it's safe to think something like 35,000 - 37,000 BU fans per game are showing up. New stadium will raise those figures, toss in visiting fans and a 45K stadium is a good decision.
Stadium looks cool, must be lots of rich Baptists down there
There was a video board at each end of the horseshoe. But a strange lack of them on the other side.
We do benefit more but this is overblown IMO and my comments on each.
OU, UT, and TCU were the only big traveling fanbases having been there for pretty much each game. The other 4 games in Waco? They still averaged 39,749 with only the ISU game dipping below 40k. The other 3? 41k. Even still, TCU is a game that BU fans would likely have drawn 40k+ for if it was on Saturday (timing kills the Houston travelers who have to go 3+ hours) I would have been shocked to see a BU turnout less than 42k for a Saturday opener even without visiting fans.
So when you add it up at the very most the 3 bigger visiting crowds brought 30k combined. 10k is roughly the largest visiting turnout I have ever seen there and I was there for the dark years. Reduce that to 15k in order to adjust it to a more normal turnout (5,000 per game) and you get a net bump of 2k or so. So our 42k gets bumped to 40k. A bump of 2,000 for 3 games of visiting fans helping out won't offset another 15k of enrollment's effect on attendance. Even if you gave them double that it still probably isn't enough to offset enrollment. Let's say only half of your enrollment gap shows up, that is still 7-8k. If more than that shows up? Well you cross 10k pretty easy.
45,000 is a good size for our new digs. Our current draw of around 40k and our expected increase in enrollment will make it well suited to our size now and in the forseeable future.
PS- I hope you don't feel like I am picking at ISU's attendance. You guys draw 50k in a smaller state where you have another rival with 30k enrollment in a major conference. I am simply trying to defend my school.
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It would be dumb of Baylor to build it much bigger than 45,000. Much like Minnesota, they recognized that a good way to keep out visiting fans is to build the stadium "down" to meet the size of the fanbase.
I do agree that we need to get our SEZ done soon. Our exterior and amenities are very good, but we're behind in stuff like that.
I do agree that we need to get our SEZ done soon. Our exterior and amenities are very good, but we're behind in stuff like that.
Hopefully when it is done I can make it up to Ames for a game. Love to tailgate with you guys sometime.
You do make a good point about building it to suit demand. BU does well for a private school that is:
a- Not Notre Dame or USC
b- Not located in a major population center like Miami or Stanford (Palo Alto is as far from SF as Fort Worth is from Dallas)
We dwarf Northwestern, Wake, Duke, BC, SMU, Rice, Tulsa, and are on par with the turnout from Syracuse. We do well for our size considering how long the program was in a very poor condition.
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A smaller, full stadium is always better than a larger empty one.
Not to be a **** either, but your attendance is definitely helped by a large amount of fans from other schools. Games like Texas, TCU, OU must have had at least 10K fans from those schools.
Still better than BC, Wake, etc, but they don't have nearby fanbases who care helping them out.
There will plenty of beer in Ames this fall for the ISU/BU game.
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Unrelated but would guys please relax a little and start allowing beer sales at the Big XII Bball Tourney? From what I'm told only Baylor has a problem with beer sales at the Sprint Center. Thanks.
Agree
That is about the max. Even then it only adds 2-3k max onto a season average.
and the amount that those fanbases help our averages is significantly less than the lead we have on these other schools.
