Rentschler Stadium expansion

[Jimdish255]

Pj can i expand on that? Lol

Chb part of my dream project wouldbe to extend the highway right to storrs. A route 7 connector basically.

Unfortunately the Rt 7 connector was blocked before it reached it's destination. That's the problem with small towns and big thinking. They don't mix well without big payoffs. I meant to say "incentives".

 

[Waquoit]

Legit or just in your opinion? I really think that Hartford should act before NY and Boston get big teams. It's why they'll never get a NHL team. The Revolution don't play in Boston and Red Bulls play in NJ. Time act! Haha! Pipe dream......

A field that conforms to international dimensions was part of the planning. I heard that from a UConn person when I toured The Rent late in the construction process. It's never going to get a MLS team but a game or two each summer should be doable goal. It practically sold out for that last pre-WC friendly. It has a comparable capacity to Stamford Bridge.

 

[HuskyBlue08]

I like the idea of selling the Rent to a MLL or MLS team for 1 trillion dollars.

1 Billion goes towards a new state of the art 60000 seat on-campus stadium.

1 Billion goes towards basketball practice facility/new 15000 seat Gampel

1 Billion to upgrade to Hockey East/new 8000 seat ice arena/8000 seat soccer stadium

200 billion towards the university's endowment

300 billion towards research to make us more attractive to AAU/Big Ten

500 billion towards creating a UConn satellite campus on Mars in 2023

 

[HuskyBlue08]

Oh crap UConn doesn't own the Rent. I guess it's on to plan B...

 

[Dann]

Mars jokes were so last year.

 

[Dann]

Oh crap UConn doesn't own the Rent. I guess it's on to plan B...

The state sells it. Then they reinvest it for a mew better stadium.... The big pitch is that the mls owner can sell naming rights in 2018. A mls team would easily find a redbull type hor that and make alot of dough in the long run.

 

[pj]

Don't forget to endow the new Victoria's Secret School of Fashion Design with scholarships for the Swedish bikini team. That might help recruiting.

 

[BlueMAB]

CT regularly refinances bond debt

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-...bonds-after-boosting-top-income-tax-rate.html

Connecticut, plans to offer $600 million in tax-exempt bonds next week.
The offering will be split, with $200 million for capital improvements and $400 million to refinance existing debt, and save the state $16 million without extending maturities, Moody’s Investors Service said.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The state Treasury will begin selling $715 million in general obligation bonds Friday. Bonds from the sale will be used for a variety of new projects, according to the statement.

Nappier said $335.7 million will be used for school construction grants; $54.6 million will fund improvements to state community technical colleges and $30 million will be used to replenish the Capitol Improvement Fund. About $79.7 million will go to other building projects, the statement said.

Another $165 million will be used to refinance the state’s debt at lower interest rates, the statement said.

http://www.ctnewsjunkie.com/ctnj.php/archives/entry/connecticut_keeps_its_aa_bond_rating/

How much is going to meet payroll, since our cash flow is an obvious problem to everyone who doesn't have a "D" after their name?

 

[RS9999X]

How much is going to meet payroll, since our cash flow is an obvious problem to everyone who doesn't have a "D" after their name?

The problem is that fixed costs for payroll, benefits, and debt service are climbing faster than inflation and productivity . As is Medicaid. I read somewhere that CT needs 5% more a year just to level fund everything in real dollar terms and that doesn't include pension and state employee health benefit arrears.

Then there's the Romney Recession when Mitt he cuts off much of CT's funding. By 2014 ........

 

[WestCoastHusky]

UCONN needs to expand the stadium. College football is all about perception. When you have a stadium that's over 50K, it gives the impression that the school is serious about football. UCONN might not fill it right away, but I believe UCONN will fill it eventually. Bigger stadium will help draw better opponents and as a result will help attendance.

 

[Chin Diesel]

UCONN needs to expand the stadium. College football is all about perception. When you have a stadium that's over 50K, it gives the impression that the school is serious about football. UCONN might not fill it right away, but I believe UCONN will fill it eventually. Bigger stadium will help draw better opponents and as a result will help attendance.

There are less than a dozen schools that fill out their stadium for every game regardless of the opponents. Even in the vaunted SEC you can get tickets at Bama, LSU, Georgia or Florida from scalpers or on stub hub for face value or less against the garbage teams.

I realize it'd be dumb and look horrible for Uconn to have a 75K stadium and only have 35K fans. But Uconn is at a point where we could put 50K in a stadium 2-3 times a year.

The dilemma with expanding the Rent is total revenues. If Uconn were to expand right now, there would be little incentive to pay the fee needed to reserve seats in certain sections above and beyond the ticket costs. Uconn could be put in a a position for several years of higher overall attendance and at the same time having lower overall revenue.

 

[Waquoit]

Then they reinvest it for a mew better stadium.... .

I don't get this line of thinking. The Rent is a great stadium.

 

[huskypantz]

Then there's the Romney Recession when Mitt he cuts off much of CT's funding. By 2014 ........

As opposed to the stellar unemployment rate and thriving economy over the past 3.5 years

 

[uconnfan68]

I don't get this line of thinking. The Rent is a great stadium.

but nothing a all-season bubble cover wouldn't fix. ;^)

 

[Dann]

I don't get this line of thinking. The Rent is a great stadium.

Its a good stadium. Its hella better than the erector set ucf built. But the rent is nothing special. It has some good features like sound and sightline type stuff and the tg setup is great right now. I mean look at what baylor or tcu or uh are building. I like on campus stuff also...

 

[Nostical]

While certainly an upgrade over what we had, The Rent actually has several deficiencies, not the least of which are the standing areas in the end zone and the many standing alcoves between the decks. They were already termed a major blunder by the project manager who originally insisted on them (due to his missing a Dave Megget kickoff at Giants stadium while getting a hot dog--true story-- He asked the architects if they could design to have a lot of openings so fans can see the game while getting food and drinks!)The failure to have all our fans sitting on their fannies is what gives the impression of a less than filled stadium, even when it's essentially filled.

 

[Srqhusky]

Its a good stadium. Its hella better than the erector set ucf built. But the rent is nothing special. It has some good features like sound and sightline type stuff and the tg setup is great right now. I mean look at what baylor or tcu or uh are building. I like on campus stuff also...

Everyone I have been to has been erector setish, including the rent

 

[Chin Diesel]

While certainly an upgrade over what we had, The Rent actually has several deficiencies, not the least of which are the standing areas in the end zone and the many standing alcoves between the decks. They were already termed a major blunder by the project manager who originally insisted on them (due to his missing a Dave Megget kickoff at Giants stadium while getting a hot dog--true story-- He asked the architects if they could design to have a lot of openings so fans can see the game while getting food and drinks!)The failure to have all our fans sitting on their fannies is what gives the impression of a less than filled stadium, even when it's essentially filled.

I have to disagree about the standing areas. I love it at the Rent and I love it at baseball stadiums. No need to worry about people telling you to sit down, no need to worry about the size or width of the seat or the person sitting next to you.

Waquoit and several others have mentioned that the already built in for expansion areas are another level opposite the suites and press box and around and above the student section. I hope they keep the Rent in a horseshoe configuration and not a sombrero.

 

[Husky68]

If can get 40,ooo fans now, with the great tailgate opportunities with all the land, flexibility in offering pricing and ease of access to non "tailgating" fans - I could come up with a way to fill a 55,000 seat stadium. This is only 7 games over 3 months. Should have 12,000 students there.
Make it a better game day experience, allow overnight RV camping, let fans stay 'till 3 hours after game over. Do stuff.

 

[RS9999X]

7 games at $30 a ticket and 12,000 extra seats is $2.5 million. Then there's improving infrastructure costs to handle the new capacity.

I've got this whole diminihsing returns thing going on in my head absent a sound plan. RVs, legalize pot, and live music through the night after a Sat game. Why is this again? To earn another $360,000 gross per game minus the additional game day security and complaints.

The only way to sell that number of tickets for 7 games is building them into the student fees. Even soldout games today have plenty of cheap tickets on Stub Hub.

It's a recession. Demographic trends are getting worse. Sell out the 40,000, rasi eprices to a 40 minimumn ticket price and then talk to me about expansion.

There are 45 stadiums that sell more tickets than an expanded UConn would sell.30 fo them do 60,000 seats or more regularly At best UConn would become a Georgia Tech or similar in attendance. That;s if we forced tickets into the hands of the students.

At some point accept the Rent as a success and the CT market for what it is. We don't need a Miami situation where ticket dumping leads to general apathy and truly devalues the product.

 

[Waquoit]

The failure to have all our fans sitting on their fannies is what gives the impression of a less than filled stadium, even when it's essentially filled.

So what?

 

[Husky68]

The problem is that fixed costs for payroll, benefits, and debt service are climbing faster than inflation and productivity . As is Medicaid. I read somewhere that CT needs 5% more a year just to level fund everything in real dollar terms and that doesn't include pension and state employee health benefit arrears.

Then there's the Romney Recession when Mitt he cuts off much of CT's funding. By 2014 ........

Just think of the offsetting savings by not having to pay for Moochelles vacations.

 

[Nostical]

So what?

So what? I guess it's all about how UConn is perceived by the viewing public and the opinion makers. I dont think there's any question that empty seats send a poor message about support for the team and the program. During the opening of a televised game watch how our stadium looks compared to those of the big boys we're trying to become. It isn't close and it isn't pretty. Meanwhile there are lots of folks already inside The Rent that aren't showing up on TV because they're too busy standing in alcoves and under the scoreboard.

I'll also get on my soapbox again to whine about our pre-game crowd---although sadly, crowd is a poor choice of words. At schools where football is treated as a religion and tailgating is even more sacrosanct than here, the stadiums are jam packed during pre-game to watch the band take the field, hear the fight song and cheer the team running out of the tunnel. And in those other places where football is merely deemed "important", stadiums are still more than half-full with loyal fans roaring their support. Then there's us. Watch 20 seconds of this and you'll have your answer to "so '' what".

 

[Waquoit]

At schools where football is treated as a religion and tailgating is even more sacrosanct than here...

Football is not a religion and I am glad I don't live in a place where it is treated as such. I like living in a place where football is a part of life, not folks entire life. That's never going to happen here and I'm not going to worry about it.

 

[ConnHuskBask]

Football is not a religion and I am glad I don't live in a place where it is treated as such. I like living in a place where football is a part of life, not folks entire life. That's never going to happen here and I'm not going to worry about it.

Well to some of us, the notion that people would take a religion as seriously as I take my college football is equally as ridiculous.

The elitist attitude - because that's what it is - that us in the Northeast are so much more culturally refined and that's why we don't like college football as much is bogus too and pretty condescending. If some guy from Florida saw a drunken fight between some lunatic Yankees and Sox fans they may say the same about us.