Level-Headed Analysis - Stadium

[CONN78SEJ]

A stadium could be built on Campus. Most likely behind Mansfield Supply. A big issue to me is parking for tailgating for 30,000 people. Fans are not going to want to tailgate in parking garages. Depending on stadium location open areas to park could be a good walk, uphill! And with students on campus their parking lots are already very full.

Should be easy to research how other schools with on campus facilities manage that. FSU, UCLA, Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas and Harvard are huge tailgating schools, and there are many more.

 

[Duncan Idaho]

I'm not sure how much wiggle room you believe exists between the terms full and sold out but my first interpretation (when you initially posted) was that you were claiming all games in Memorial for a stretch ~40-45 years ago had 15k-16 people in the seats (and on the hill). I'm not sure if I would view attendance of 12k in Memorial as being full, but even if it would qualify as full, I'm very confident that you can count on one hand the number of games that had 12k or more during the time frame in question.



There were some games where 4,000 would have been a pretty generous assessment and sadly, 25% capacity (which 4k would be) pretty much qualifies as empty.

I understand how obsessed you are with our having an on campus stadium. I personally would love that myself but for us to have an on campus stadium that would be sufficient for what we want our football program to be is a bridge too far at the moment due to many reasons, the most important being that we will need success for a sustained period of time to rebuild the dedication of our fan base (hell, I just responded on the men's hoops board about the incessant complaining about the cupcake home games).

We will need patience (and sadly, as I'm pretty confident that you are in your early 60's as I am, it may take until we are both too old to appreciate it) for the things to fall into place before there would be sufficient movement among people in the fan base, the state and the state's government to want something like an on campus football stadium.

Over 20 with >12k, Villanova alone was a big draw here but your point stands. its still not a good look.

 

[billybud]

Many large stadiums are building down to offer a few thousand fewer seats while improving gameday experience with club seating, clubs with bars, etc. etc.

Connecticut may be different because of compact size...but in states where fans commute 4+ hours each way ot more, it is an overnight for each home game,

Pay high prices for tickets (including the required booster contribution)..a mandatory two night minimum at inflated prices that the hotels require....and it is a huge yearly expense compared to the home big screen.

It has been all about giving more bang for the customer...