new stadium-8 to 12 $mil needed

[mets1090]

A brand new stadium would probably go a long way towards drawing more than the few dozen students we currently get to go to games. Draw some more students and the atmosphere gets better. The atmosphere gets better and more students will go. A better atmosphere will grow the general buzz of the program and help to draw more of the general CT population.

Bottom line, with continued success and relative dominance of the Northeast, there's no reason we can't significantly boost our attendance with a new stadium. If it's all through private donations, I don't particularly care if they make it bigger rather than smaller. If a 3000 seat stadium makes it more likely that we host a regional with a fringe top 16 record/ranking compared to having a 2500 seat stadium, then I say go for it. If room for temporary seats to expand it to 6000 instead of 5000 helps, then do that too. If you can find people that want to pay for it and it stands a decent chance to help the program, I don't see any reason not to.

Edit: Although I do get the reasoning that we don't need a 5,000 seat stadium that expands to 10,000. Just a generalization that if we get the funds to make something better than what is necessary, we might as well spend on the luxury of a bigger stadium. It can help draw regionals and recruits, so why not.

 

[UConnHusky2012]

Here's what I personally hope to see with this stadium... Go with 2500- 3000 permanent seats with the ability to expand to 5-6k for a regional. Two examples I know of are these:
Coastal Carolina's plans
Georgia Southern's field

The biggest problem is how cold it is early in the season so it's a tough draw for students no matter how good your baseball team is. If we are going to do anything with extra funds put them into upgrading our other facilities such as expanding the batting cage, etc

 

[Dann]

a hs teammate of mine played at ccu. another 1 played at ncst for a year before coming back up north. bueatiful baseball country down there, its what i hope uconn can one day do. jusr create a small buzz that builds over the years.

ccu has a pretty cool looking plan there.

one thing we should all agree on and i hope some1 has the brains to make sure it happens is lights. must have lights! and also they need to pump there fitted hats more. alot of kids will rock those if they put some effort into it. i was playing softball last summer in stamford and i saw a 15yr old kid walk by the bench with a uconn fitted, i was suprised. the C needs to be a bit bigger on them so its doesn't look weird. anyway

i think the fball facility with the turf indoor field is a big time recruiting add for us up here. no excuse of cold weather for throwing and infield...just about everything accept deep fly balls and a actual scrimage are fair game for that place. its def keeping kids hme instead of going south.

 

[UConnHusky2012]

I dont think I saw it any where but would they do this on the site of our current field?? If so, once construction starts (and takes much longer than expected like all projects at UConn) where would we play our home games? Norwich and maybe some in New Britian

 

[mets1090]

I remember seeing something about building a new softball field where the turf is behind the field house and then building the new baseball field where the softball field used to be. Or maybe even putting in a new soccer field there and putting the baseball field where the soccer field currently is. Something along those lines. Not sure if that was a real plan or just a random fan/alum's idea.

 

[UCONNJACK]

I remember seeing something about building a new softball field where the turf is behind the field house and then building the new baseball field where the softball field used to be. Or maybe even putting in a new soccer field there and putting the baseball field where the soccer field currently is. Something along those lines. Not sure if that was a real plan or just a random fan/alum's idea.

Its the plan. The plans were recently released by the university.

 

[mets1090]

I saw the drawing months ago so I wasn't sure if it was the official plan. If it is the case, I assume they will build the softball field first, then build the new soccer field on top of the old softball field, then finally build the new baseball stadium. I would imagine that some sort of training facility would go where the current baseball field is. New batting cages/indoor pitching mounds perhaps.

 

[IMind]

I'm always a little surprised that college baseball doesn't do better attendance wise... look how well minor league baseball does. I guess the direct affiliation with the major league clubs really does work. That being said Connecticut is such a strong baseball state... if the team continues to win consistently and markets effectively you probably could do quite well with attendance.

On an aside, I'm hugely impressed with Pendergast as a fund raiser. I'm glad he's staying on in that position after the new AD is hired. I mean how many years did the basketball facility wallow in limbo? And now we've got the basketball facility moving forward as well as new soccer, softball, and baseball projects being announced... in an economic downturn. Night and day compared to Hathaway.

 

[Duncan Idaho]

I'm always a little surprised that college baseball doesn't do better attendance wise... look how well minor league baseball does. I guess the direct affiliation with the major league clubs really does work. That being said Connecticut is such a strong baseball state... if the team continues to win consistently and markets effectively you probably could do quite well with attendance.

On an aside, I'm hugely impressed with Pendergast as a fund raiser. I'm glad he's staying on in that position after the new AD is hired. I mean how many years did the basketball facility wallow in limbo? And now we've got the basketball facility moving forward as well as new soccer, softball, and baseball projects being announced... in an economic downturn. Night and day compared to Hathaway.

Panciera retired around the same time as BE Membership and it was allowed to be a .500 program for more than a generation, Eastern had more buzz( and rightly so) with their success.

 

[TouchdownHusky]

Yup - unfortunately, the NCAA added baseball to the 'year in residence' requirement for transfers.

Really excited about the new facility's potential.

Yeah the Southern and Western "Big Boys" just hated the idea of parity in college baseball. Better to have a talented kid languishing on their benches rather than having that kid in an opponents uniform coming back to maybe beat them.

Guessing that very few kids from UConn, UMass, URI or other northern schools transfer to ACC or SEC or Big Twelve or PAC12 programs (so no big deal to them about sitting out a year). But in the other direction. . . now suddenly it's a problem.

 

[Yonick]

Yeah the Southern and Western "Big Boys" just hated the idea of parity in college baseball. Better to have a talented kid languishing on their benches rather than having that kid in an opponents uniform coming back to maybe beat them.

Guessing that very few kids from UConn, UMass, URI or other northern schools transfer to ACC or SEC or Big Twelve or PAC12 programs (so no big deal to them about sitting out a year). But in the other direction. . . now suddenly it's a problem.

Believe it, or, not, Tabakman, the UNC transfer obtained a waiver and has pitched twice for us. The first in relief, the second, he started, and won vs Lipscome. Sounds like we got ourselves a good one @ UNC's expense.