For Sale. College Football Stadium on Old Airstrip

[Da_Aisijimo_Gou]

Not sure how this discussion fit into this thread but...Recruiting "older Canadian players" is not intrinsic to Quinnipiac. Take a peak @ most top hockey programs. You want to compete - necessary component. Almost - but not quite like bringing JUCO kids in for football.

Clearly based on sportsart's comment earlier in the thread suggesting UConn should hire a new hockey coach and reference to Quinnipiac's recent hockey success. Of course, some schools recruit older players. Pecknold's noted for it more than the averages ...
'

 

[Husky25]

How does that work for Boston College? Alumni and Conte are in the center of campus and its a ghost town unless the ice is exposed.

 

[CL82]

Eventually you of develop a sixth sense for the Westchester/Fairfield County traffic patterns. You learn to factor in the season, day of the week, hr of the day, whether school is in session or not, construction situation and weather before you decide to point your car down the highway onramp for the Merritt or I-95.

I used to have a very heavily travelled commute. You do learn all kinds of signs to optimize routes. Limo guys are great at this stuff. One guy looks up at a bridge overpass, notes that it is backed up and recomends changing our route, even though it was about 10 miles ahead of the back up that he was predicting. I asked him why that particular bridge would matter. His response was "Don't know, but it does." I've tested his theory both ways and d@mned if he wasn't right...every time.

 

[CL82]

Really doesn't matter if some people make a day of it and some people come from the game. Getting from the highway to UConn when there are 8-9k people coming for a men's game is terrible. Even if football games spread the travel time out over a slightly larger timeframe, it's still 30k+ coming down one lane. It would be terrible getting to the game, much less getting out of there afterwards when almost everyone is leaving at the same time. The amount of money the state would have to spend in infrastructure upgrades to make a project like this feasible is completely and totally prohibitive.

As I frequently note:

1. Other schools manage this successful without building a super highway to the front door of the stadium. It can be done.
2. Any buildout would not be a driveway for the school, it would be improving access to an under developed part of the state.
3. The state is investing in a technical/research park. Access makes companies utilizing that more attractive.
4. Spreading out entry/exit time is exactly how tailgating got started. Get there early and fire ou the grill. Stay late and BS about the game. Visit the campus. Visit restaurants.
5. Regardless, this ain't changing anytime soon. The Rent is decent facility and I am grateful to have it.

 

[WhereistheDove?]

Get more students in the seats. When students walk to the stadium, especially in the planned expansion of students, you create the conditions to fill up a stadium. With bars, restaurants, events and such all over campus, people are much more inclined to make a day of it.

I'm sorry I just completely disagree that this could work without major infrastructure work. I don't care if people are making a day out of it or not. The bottom line is that you would have tens of thousands of people driving down a road that has trouble handling 7k people for a basketball game. And on top of that dealing with the campus traffic situation once you actually get to Storrs. This is not a strong fan base, so while moving it on to campus would get more casual student fans, there are going to be a lot of non-students who won't go because of the extra hassle.

 

[upstater]

PSU has a single lane road to get into the University area, but the campus/State College is massive and there are many different ways to access the stadium without hours of traffic jams. Not to mention 1/3 of their fans live in town and walk and they allow RV's (another large portion of the fan base) to park on campus beginning on Thursday. So not quite apples to apples in any stretch currently or in the next 20 years.

Last I checked the state of CT has a shortfall of roughly $400M for the 2013 budget. Even if they could somehow sell the Rent to someon like NASCAR, good luck getting support to transfer that money to a new stadium closer to Storrs. Even though that is such a far fetched suggestion anyway.

Where would the Stadium go theoretically if they did get all the stars to align? The on campus location was the parking/woods area adjecent to Horsebarn Hill which is now the new Greek housing. That area is now developed and hell would freeze over before locals/school would allow anything to be built on Horsebarn Hill.

1/3rd of 110,000 is 35,000 or so, so they still have 75,000 coming in from hours away. But yes, you're right, they can park anywhere and walk. They can park at their hotel. They can drive the RV in, etc. Va. tech used to have a 55k stadium. Blacksburg was no mecca. Fill that sucker up with 15,000 students (out of 30,000), then sell 40,000 seats (5,000 to the locals, 30,000 to the people in the Hartford area, 5,000 from the rest of the state).

 

[upstater]

I'm sorry I just completely disagree that this could work without major infrastructure work. I don't care if people are making a day out of it or not. The bottom line is that you would have tens of thousands of people driving down a road that has trouble handling 7k people for a basketball game. And on top of that dealing with the campus traffic situation once you actually get to Storrs. This is not a strong fan base, so while moving it on to campus would get more casual student fans, there are going to be a lot of non-students who won't go because of the extra hassle.

All I'm saying is that I've seen much much worse and it has worked.

 

[Doggie Style]

It's a combination of the two. Rentschler is very easy to get to for non-students (and not all that bad for students) and we still can't sell out games. The passionate fans would probably love this, but to the majority, who are casual fans, adding another couple of hours in travel time for a lot of them wouldn't do anything to make them show up more often. With this fanbase, I don't see how this is feasible without a huge infrastructure project.

It's called thinning of the herd! Let the 25k students along w/ the passionate fans go to the games and leave the casual fans behind, who needs em'? I'll take that set up all day long! It would only improve our situation!

 

[WhereistheDove?]

It's called thinning of the herd! Let the 25k students along w/ the passionate fans go to the games and leave the casual fans behind, who needs em'? I'll take that set up all day long! It would only improve our situation!

$

 

[BlueMAB]

All I'm saying is that I've seen much much worse and it has worked.

It works in other places because the culture is different.

The Rent is one of the easiest stadiums to get in and out of that you will ever find, and yet many of the fans will still leave competitive games 20-30 minutes before it's over in order to try and beat traffic.

The irony is, traffic is lighter 20-30 minutes after the game is over than it is 20-30 minutes before it's over.

You, HFD, and a few others can continue to ignore the very obvious cultural differences between nutmeggers and anywhere college football brings in 70,000+ fans, the rest of us understand that you're comparing apples to oranges.

 

[Dann]

getting casual fans to campus and going thru the college life every trip is how u turn them into diehards and familes into legacy and so on. its a major culture lacking here to the point where a lot of ppl can't even grasp it.

dad went to psu years ago. out of college moved to philly in a condo worked a nice it job. met his wife who went to psu 2 years later than him. they frucked, got a house 25 minutes outside phili and had 2 kids. every fall they go to campus 5 times on weekends for games. kid have been going since they were 2. they love it just like there parents. they meet old college friends and have huge tailgate and all that jazz. kids are now in hs. looking at schools is a joke. they apply to the phili schools and psu and pitt. get in everywhere but nova. doesn't matter, psu was the pick. they were comfortable there. been there 100 times. love the sports and college life and so on. kid goes to school. parents come up 5 weekends and theya ll party togetehr with more freinds of the kid now. the family of tailgating and just family overall grows by the year.

now translate that to uconn. add in the fact that we have a huge bball fanbase which is a huge jumping point to start with and add that fans will also be on campus for 40 home bball games between the 2 programs and puck/base/soc/lax. thats culture. familes on campus alot gets more book store sales and gear spread out quick. more donations and community service and participation. the towns around them become more populated as hartford is a short daily drive for jobs. u see where im going. the culture is so far upside down here that fans can't even grasp it becuase they look thru blue glasses and like how easy it is to get to hartford instead of a extra 20 minutes down the road. what uconn molded so far is a lazy crowd who likes to get things easy. students wont travel unless it s abig fball or bball game. theya re lazy so they wait for gampel games. same with older fans the opposite way. uconn molded a culture of lazy and also a culture of non campus life so alums and fans have no clue what uconn really is like curently becuase they dont see it enough. football games are all day things, the sun is out, fans and alum can sight see on campus. bball games are mostly dark night games and inside or cold out. not enough of a advantage. thats why fball is important on campus.

 

[Dann]

It works in other places because the culture is different.

The Rent is one of the easiest stadiums to get in and out of that you will ever find, and yet many of the fans will still leave competitive games 20-30 minutes before it's over in order to try and beat traffic.

The irony is, traffic is lighter 20-30 minutes after the game is over than it is 20-30 minutes before it's over.

You, HFD, and a few others can continue to ignore the very obvious cultural differences between nutmeggers and anywhere college football brings in 70,000+ fans, the rest of us understand that you're comparing apples to oranges.

then take your signature out becuase hats never happening with your opinion being .00001% true.

 

[WhereistheDove?]

getting casual fans to campus and going thru the college life every trip is how u turn them into diehards and familes into legacy and so on. its a major culture lacking here to the point where a lot of ppl can't even grasp it.

dad went to psu years ago. out of college moved to philly in a condo worked a nice it job. met his wife who went to psu 2 years later than him. they frucked, got a house 25 minutes outside phili and had 2 kids. every fall they go to campus 5 times on weekends for games. kid have been going since they were 2. they love it just like there parents. they meet old college friends and have huge tailgate and all that jazz. kids are now in hs. looking at schools is a joke. they apply to the phili schools and psu and pitt. get in everywhere but nova. doesn't matter, psu was the pick. they were comfortable there. been there 100 times. love the sports and college life and so on. kid goes to school. parents come up 5 weekends and theya ll party togetehr with more freinds of the kid now. the family of tailgating and just family overall grows by the year.

now translate that to uconn. add in the fact that we have a huge bball fanbase which is a huge jumping point to start with and add that fans will also be on campus for 40 home bball games between the 2 programs and puck/base/soc/lax. thats culture. familes on campus alot gets more book store sales and gear spread out quick. more donations and community service and participation. the towns around them become more populated as hartford is a short daily drive for jobs. u see where im going. the culture is so far upside down here that fans can't even grasp it becuase they look thru blue glasses and like how easy it is to get to hartford instead of a extra 20 minutes down the road. what uconn molded so far is a lazy crowd who likes to get things easy. students wont travel unless it s abig fball or bball game. theya re lazy so they wait for gampel games. same with older fans the opposite way. uconn molded a culture of lazy and also a culture of non campus life so alums and fans have no clue what uconn really is like curently becuase they dont see it enough. football games are all day things, the sun is out, fans and alum can sight see on campus. bball games are mostly dark night games and inside or cold out. not enough of a advantage. thats why fball is important on campus.

Do you go to all home football games, 40 home bball games between the two programs and assorted other UConn teams?

 

[upstater]

It works in other places because the culture is different.

The Rent is one of the easiest stadiums to get in and out of that you will ever find, and yet many of the fans will still leave competitive games 20-30 minutes before it's over in order to try and beat traffic.

The irony is, traffic is lighter 20-30 minutes after the game is over than it is 20-30 minutes before it's over.

You, HFD, and a few others can continue to ignore the very obvious cultural differences between nutmeggers and anywhere college football brings in 70,000+ fans, the rest of us understand that you're comparing apples to oranges.

We're not ignoring anything. I understand why people would try to get out of the Rent ASAP too. Comparing the Rent to on campus stadiums? Now that is apples and oranges. It's not a great college football experience. An on campus stadium in a college town IS a college football experience. If you gave people a total college football experience, they wouldn't worry about the traffic because they wouldn't have to worry about it.

 

[BlueMAB]

then take your signature out becuase hats never happening with your opinion being .00001% true.

When you stop being this board's delusional drunken version of RutgersAl and show anything close to real life possible solutions for the problems this program faces, I'll change my signature to whatever you want. But that's never happening either.

 

[Dann]

Do you go to all home football games, 40 home bball games between the two programs and assorted other UConn teams?

no and no one will. well almost no one. but the point is your giving fans and alums between all the sports like 80 chances to get to campus a school year. thats huge and it molds culture. 6 or 7 home fball games, i bet most fans and alum start to make most of those. the bball crowd/base we have is already huge, it will only get better. it becomes the thing to do on weekends. those fall weekends its THE show in the state. during the winter puck on friday nights becomes a monster draw. bball is bball. in the spring the weather gets nice and we have good baseball and lax and softball doing its thing. the culture starts to tun into tailgating baseball games and having crowds vs uva types.

how many students in storrs? 20k? realistic # not reaching... how many of those are the student section of gampel or the student section at the rent? 5k for the rent? 2k in gampel? well how about 10k on campus for fball games easy and more when seats become more and 5k in a 15k arena in storrs for bball. how about 3 or 4k on a friday night for a puck game? how about drawing 1k consistently to soccer, baseball, lax and softball games? its all possible if culture is molded that way.

 

[Dann]

When you stop being this board's delusional drunken version of RutgersAl and show anything close to real life possible solutions for the problems this program faces, I'll change my signature to whatever you want. But that's never happening either.

solution #1, your user name has a dash in it. congrats on that.

 

[Husky25]

...the culture is so far upside down here that fans can't even grasp it becuase they look thru blue glasses and like how easy it is to get to hartford instead of a extra 20 minutes down the road...

You can't get from East Hartford to Storrs in 20 minutes if you flew a Sesna.

It's 21 miles from the Rent to Hillside Road (i.e. Gampel Pavilion's front door). Going 84 to 384 to 44, it takes at least a half hour if you obey speed limits and hit all the green lights (of which there are plenty). So you tell me you speed (so do I)? Now add in traffic. No more speeding through the cow pastures on 44.

 

[WhereistheDove?]

no and no one will. well almost no one. but the point is your giving fans and alums between all the sports like 80 chances to get to campus a school year. thats huge and it molds culture. 6 or 7 home fball games, i bet most fans and alum start to make most of those. the bball crowd/base we have is already huge, it will only get better. it becomes the thing to do on weekends. those fall weekends its THE show in the state. during the winter puck on friday nights becomes a monster draw. bball is bball. in the spring the weather gets nice and we have good baseball and lax and softball doing its thing. the culture starts to tun into tailgating baseball games and having crowds vs uva types.

how many students in storrs? 20k? realistic # not reaching... how many of those are the student section of gampel or the student section at the rent? 5k for the rent? 2k in gampel? well how about 10k on campus for fball games easy and more when seats become more and 5k in a 15k arena in storrs for bball. how about 3 or 4k on a friday night for a puck game? how about drawing 1k consistently to soccer, baseball, lax and softball games? its all possible if culture is molded that way.

How many UConn games do you go to in a given year?

 

[BlueMAB]

We're not ignoring anything. I understand why people would try to get out of the Rent ASAP too. Comparing the Rent to on campus stadiums? Now that is apples and oranges. It's not a great college football experience. An on campus stadium in a college town IS a college football experience. If you gave people a total college football experience, they wouldn't worry about the traffic because they wouldn't have to worry about it.

I don't know why I bother trying to introduce reality and logic to someone who insists on comparing the culture of Penn State to the culture of CT.

Enjoy your delusional alternative reality where unicorn blood cures cancer, and people who show up late, and leave early are going to spend all day on campus.

 

[Dann]

How many UConn games do you go to in a given year?

none until some ppl leave this state.

in college i went to 2-4 a year. in grad school i only made 1-2 a year fball wise. for bball, in college it was 5-10 games and a mix of hartford and storrs. i used to get student tix for gampel and borrow some 1s id just in case and go with my gf at the time. last year i went to 6 bball games as tuesday nigths types were great gettinga round school for my schedule. always go to a couple baseball games if i can also

i am now on the bats crazy train and wont go to any games until certain ppl are gone from storrs or things change.

travel has nothing to do with it. just certain little things with me wether its beef with class schedule or hating warde...for a non uconn student me and my friends from springfield made some noise for uconn for 4 years. you would be surprised how uconn pro that city is. a lot of the college kids either were from ct or grew up with umass sucking diick so uconn was popular. city ppl like uconn ball also. can't tell u how many times i got crowds hyped with hot 93.7 up in the building drunk as f. hof weekend was great all the time also. had big baby pay for a stripper for my table at mardi gras 1 weekend becuase my buddy had his uconn polo shirt on and he talked to us about rayray.

im no uconn slouch if thats what u think. i know a couple things and will rant until a cow eats me.

 

[Husky25]

I don't know why I bother trying to introduce reality and logic to someone who insists on comparing the culture of Penn State to the culture of CT.

Enjoy your delusional alternative reality where unicorn blood cures cancer, and people who show up late, and leave early are going to spend all day on campus.

The Chicken Lips and watered down Bud Light at Ted's are apparently that good.

 

[Dann]

I don't know why I bother trying to introduce reality and logic to someone who insists on comparing the culture of Penn State to the culture of CT.

Enjoy your delusional alternative reality where unicorn blood cures cancer, and people who show up late, and leave early are going to spend all day on campus.

psu
clemson
unc
wvu

doesn't matter who they all do the same. those ar ebig boys who we want to be like. stop having nelson syndrome and grow a pair and think big time and not bc/cuse/pitt/temple/duke small time. thats the culture issue. we looked up and then passed a bunch of dregs in bball who claimed to be fball schools. they wern't so this fanbase was looking up at the wrong crowd all along and still some old timers can't get over games vs miami and its so silly i want to freak out over it.

 

[BlueMAB]

psu
clemson
unc
wvu

doesn't matter who they all do the same. those ar ebig boys who we want to be like. stop having nelson syndrome and grow a pair and think big time and not bc/cuse/pitt/temple/duke small time. thats the culture issue. we looked up and then passed a bunch of dregs in bball who claimed to be fball schools. they wern't so this fanbase was looking up at the wrong crowd all along and still some old timers can't get over games vs miami and its so silly i want to freak out over it.

Yes, because wanting to expand retail and entertainment at the rent because
1) it's realistic
2) it will improve the gameday experience and attract more casual fans and families
3) it will help lead expansion of the stadium

is exactly like making the argument we should shut down the program.

People in CT are vastly different culturally than people in SC, NC, and WV if you haven't noticed. What you want to achieve will not be achieved doing what they did. We have to do it in a manner that fits our culture.

 

[Husky25]

none until some ppl leave this state.

in college i went to 2-4 a year. in grad school i only made 1-2 a year fball wise. for bball, in college it was 5-10 games and a mix of hartford and storrs. i used to get student tix for gampel and borrow some 1s id just in case and go with my gf at the time. last year i went to 6 bball games as tuesday nigths types were great gettinga round school for my schedule. always go to a couple baseball games if i can also

i am now on the bats crazy train and wont go to any games until certain ppl are gone from storrs or things change.

travel has nothing to do with it. just certain little things with me wether its beef with class schedule or hating warde...for a non uconn student me and my friends from springfield made some noise for uconn for 4 years. you would be surprised how uconn pro that city is. a lot of the college kids either were from ct or grew up with umass sucking diick so uconn was popular. city ppl like uconn ball also. can't tell u how many times i got crowds hyped with hot 93.7 up in the building drunk as f. hof weekend was great all the time also. had big baby pay for a stripper for my table at mardi gras 1 weekend becuase my buddy had his uconn polo shirt on and he talked to us about rayray.

im no uconn slouch if thats what u think. i know a couple things and will rant until a cow eats me.

Did I read that right?

You don't go to any games? Sandwich it between as many words as you'd like. You not having ANY skin in the game pretty much hollows out any point about being big time you try to incoherently rant about make .

 

[BlueMAB]

solution #1, your user name has a dash in it. congrats on that.

You stalk high school boys on twitter. I hope your mom's basement is heated. It's cold out there today.

 

[Dann]

Yes, because wanting to expand retail and entertainment at the rent because
1) it's realistic
2) it will improve the gameday experience and attract more casual fans and families
3) it will help lead expansion of the stadium

is exactly like making the argument we should shut down the program.

People in CT are vastly different culturally than people in SC, NC, and WV if you haven't noticed. What you want to achieve will not be achieved doing what they did. We have to do it in a manner that fits our culture.

ppl who want to shop or eat at the new place at the rent will go any time but during game days becuase of the crowd. its not going to make moms and daughters want to go to the fbsll game. not how it works. sorry to ruin u and the iodot leadership we have dreams.

amy can go buy a barbie at toys r us and watch tv in her bedroom. shes not going to the rent to buy a abrbie and watch a uconn game live in the cold weather. this target audience is wrong and the idea is wrong. east hartford is nobody land. it has no emotional attachment to 99% of ppl in this state. eating at that buffalo wings vs the one in your local town is not going to make casual fans mor eliekly to come. sorry to burst your dreams. this is the basic type thinking that ppl get away with becuase other ppl around them are also weak minded.

but the patriots rah rah rah. listen the pats are a nfl team with a big established fanbase a short ride outside a major city who have been on a very impressive 10-15 what? year run as a solid franchise. a couple eats and a fan shop are nice and good things. but they were going to get crowds with or with out. what were doing isn't going to improve crowds, its going to make tailagting thinner and also slowly just eat away at the fanbase will to see thinsg uconn vs outside uconn tradition.

the dive bar u drank at in college? would u rather throw 2 back in that befor eor after a game vs go to the upscale outsider eats and bar that just moved on the block? its about the excpierence and the culture.

 

[Dann]

You stalk high school boys on twitter. I hope your mom's basement is heated. It's cold out there today.

i try to rape them to. thats my real agenda. im uconns fanbase sandusky and u all just dont know it yet.

 

[Dann]

Did I read that right?

You don't go to any games? Sandwich it between as many words as you'd like. You not having ANY skin in the game pretty much hollows out any point about being big time you try to incoherently rant about make .

after game 6 this fall i have not been to a uconn game sice. thats when i jumped off the p bandwagon. most here know that. before that i went to a good amount of games a year over the past 5 years i would say for a kid in college/grad...

 

[BlueMAB]

Did I read that right?

You don't go to any games? Sandwich it between as many words as you'd like. You not having ANY skin in the game pretty much hollows out any point about being big time you try to incoherently rant about make .

Until UConn fires Manuel and Pasqualoni he is boycotting games.

He's gone from a passionate fan to whiny little brat who is throwing himself on the floor and holding his breath until he gets what he wants. I guess that's what the big boys do, since that is who we're supposed to be like.