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"NEW" Ryan Field

We're in the early innings of a negotiation...wringing of hands to be expected by the City of Evanston.
 
Yes. I have seen our attendance and in 9 out of the past 10 years it has been larger than the new stadium's capacity.

Plus, how about dreaming big? How about REALLY being Chicago's Big Ten team?
 
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Eurocat said:
Yes. I have seen our attendance and in 9 out of the past 10 years it has been larger than the new stadium's capacity.
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But not because of demand for seats from NU supporters. The incremental fannies in seats are from the visiting team, tending to erode any home field advantage. Better to have a higher percentage of NU fans in a smaller stadium than more revenue with more visitor fans in a bigger stadium IMHO.
 
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It's the right size imo. Focusing on raw attendance of last 15-20 years is a mistake.

A smaller but much more purple crowd is preferable to hosting 45k where half the crowd is the opponent's fanbase.

This new stadium will be much louder due to how steeply it's designed and with the crowd cover above.

The seats will be much closer to the action than you get in the 60k+ size venues. It'll be a very intimate setup and will feel larger and louder given noise containment.

Going for the additional concerts and such makes sense given how great this venue will be for other events... and of course given the cost of it.
 
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zeek55 said:
It's the right size imo. Focusing on raw attendance of last 15-20 years is a mistake.

A smaller but much more purple crowd is preferable to hosting 45k where half the crowd is the opponent's fanbase.

This new stadium will be much louder due to how steeply it's designed and with the crowd cover above.

The seats will be much closer to the action than you get in the 60k+ size venues. It'll be a very intimate setup and will feel larger and louder given noise containment.

Going for the additional concerts and such makes sense given how great this venue will be for other events... and of course given the cost of it.
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🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯
 
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One also has to keep in mind that college football attendance has been declining nationally over the last several years. You have to build a stadium for the future, not for 30 years ago.

Now that every college football game is televised or streamed, there's less incentive to go out there and watch in the elements. Thirty plus years ago, I probably had to go to Dyche to watch a home game. Now, I can watch any game on a huge OLED while sitting on my comfy, schmumfy couch.
 
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FrancisSearle75 said:
One also has to keep in mind that college football attendance has been declining nationally over the last several years. You have to build a stadium for the future, not for 30 years ago.

Now that every college football game is televised or streamed, there's less incentive to go out there and watch in the elements. Thirty plus years ago, I probably had to go to Dyche to watch a home game. Now, I can watch any game on a huge OLED while sitting on my comfy, schmumfy couch.
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Yeah that's the other big factor; going to this new stadium will be a great experience *and* it will look good and sound good on TV (which is where the money is these days).

TV has changed the game in attendance, and down the road even the giant public schools will likely struggle to generate full attendance unless they're having great years. Makes the downside risk significant.

This stadium sets us up well for the next 20 or 40 years even as the home viewing experience has become so good.
 
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FrancisSearle75 said:
Now, I can watch any game on a huge OLED while sitting on my comfy, schmumfy couch.
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I don't know why you think that sounds good. My TV is 65 inches. Great surround sound. I can watch it any day of the week but not on game day. No! No! Never! Never!

I'm 70 years old. I get up early, load up my heavy tent, chairs, tables, audio-visusl equipment, food and beverages. I visit friends and family at our tailgate party. Rain or shine, we watch the game. Afterwards, there's another party. Yep, keeps me young, or rather, youngish.

Have fun in your basement, sitting on your comfy couch, all by yourself. 😃
 
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StreamCat said:
I don't know why you think that sounds good. My TV is 65 inches. Great surround sound. I can watch it any day of the week but not on game day. No! No! Never! Never!

I'm 70 years old. I get up early, load up my heavy tent, chairs, tables, audio-visusl equipment, food and beverages. I visit friends and family at our tailgate party. Rain or shine, we watch the game. Afterwards, there's another party. Yep, keeps me young, or rather, youngish.

Have fun in your basement, sitting on your comfy couch, all by yourself. 😃
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StreamCat,

I love being at the games, too, season tickets since ‘93.

But:
1. If we play at Soldier Field for two years, will you renew? I don’t think I will.

2. If they add a yearly license fee for seats between the 25 yd. lines, will you renew? After supporting them through thick or thin all these years, if they make me pay a big extra amount to keep my present seats around the 30 yd line, I will sadly drop my renewal.
 
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StreamCat said:
I don't know why you think that sounds good. My TV is 65 inches. Great surround sound. I can watch it any day of the week but not on game day. No! No! Never! Never!

I'm 70 years old. I get up early, load up my heavy tent, chairs, tables, audio-visusl equipment, food and beverages. I visit friends and family at our tailgate party. Rain or shine, we watch the game. Afterwards, there's another party. Yep, keeps me young, or rather, youngish.

Have fun in your basement, sitting on your comfy couch, all by yourself. 😃
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Thanks. I do have fun watching the games at home with my young children. It's a better experience than driving to Ryan only to have to drive back home after one quarter because they're bored and cold.

While you stay young at your tailgates, I grow older faster taking care of these kids.
 
fcmchi said:
StreamCat,

I love being at the games, too, season tickets since ‘93.

But:
1. If we play at Soldier Field for two years, will you renew? I don’t think I will.

2. If they add a yearly license fee for seats between the 25 yd. lines, will you renew? After supporting them through thick or thin all these years, if they make me pay a big extra amount to keep my present seats around the 30 yd line, I will sadly drop my renewal.
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Why wouldn't you renew. Even if you don't want to fork over an extra fee, as a 30 yr STH you'd get first crack at the seats that won't require a fee. I'm sure those would still be great seats. There are great seats at W-R that require no fee.

As a 30yr STH you also realize that after a few games in the new stadium the novelty will wear off and you'll be able to sit anywhere lol.
 
its_the_sauce said:
Why wouldn't you renew. Even if you don't want to fork over an extra fee, as a 30 yr STH you'd get first crack at the seats that won't require a fee. I'm sure those would still be great seats. There are great seats at W-R that require no fee.

As a 30yr STH you also realize that after a few games in the new stadium the novelty will wear off and you'll be able to sit anywhere lol.
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My annoyance with the seat license idea is the lack of loyalty it shows for the present season ticket holders. NU is getting a facility bought and paid for by the Ryan family and others. It’s planned to bring the university additional revenue through non-sport events.

But we should pay significantly more to sit in it?

Maybe an econ prof should remind them about Adam Smith and supply and demand. Maybe there only about 22K season ticket holders now? A few season ticket holders I’ve spoken to feel the same as I do.
 
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fcmchi said:
My annoyance with the seat license idea is the lack of loyalty it shows for the present season ticket holders. NU is getting a facility bought and paid for by the Ryan family and others. It’s planned to bring the university additional revenue through non-sport events.

But we should pay significantly more to sit in it?

Maybe an econ prof should remind them about Adam Smith and supply and demand. Maybe there only about 22K season ticket holders now? A few season ticket holders I’ve spoken to feel the same as I do.
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Welcome to modern college football.
 
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That’s part of my point: NU is not part of modern college football when it comes to a large, rabid fan base. If we did have the following the large schools have and NU wanted to charge us more, I’d respond like Kevin Bacon in Animal House, “Yes sir, may I have another.”
 
fcmchi said:
That’s part of my point: NU is not part of modern college football when it comes to a large, rabid fan base. If we did have the following the large schools have and NU wanted to charge us more, I’d respond like Kevin Bacon in Animal House, “Yes sir, may I have another.”
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The point is that the program needs the same financial support as other programs if we want to win like the other programs.
 
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There was a brief exchange on LinkedIn after an NU press release. Most commenters posted positive replies on the topic (including yours truly), and there were a few naysayers. One guy argued that the traffic on Central would be Armageddon (puh-lease).

Then there was this batshart crazy woman who first argued that the money should go toward housing and healthcare because "everyone is broke". I pointed out that 1) the project is privately funded 2) there are 11 million unfilled jobs in this country, including 1.5 million in manufacturing.

Her response: the jobs are unfilled because "one quarter to one-third of the people died or defected."

WTF?

So yeah, there is always one crazy in every crowd who is going to oppose the idea, regardless.
 
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fcmchi said:
My annoyance with the seat license idea is the lack of loyalty it shows for the present season ticket holders. NU is getting a facility bought and paid for by the Ryan family and others. It’s planned to bring the university additional revenue through non-sport events.

But we should pay significantly more to sit in it?

Maybe an econ prof should remind them about Adam Smith and supply and demand. Maybe there only about 22K season ticket holders now? A few season ticket holders I’ve spoken to feel the same as I do.
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I think the seat license method of raising revenue for a stadium upgrade just won’t work for NU. As I’ve mentioned many times, I’m a long term STH for Cal. When they did their stadium upgrade 10 years ago, they allocated the best 15,000 seats as licensed. Ten years later, those sections are half filled almost every Saturday while sections with poorer sight lines and proximity are full. The move alienated a lot of people, and while the concessions are better and he restrooms no longer have pissing walls, the overall game day experience has gone downhill since renovation. I am afraid an $800,000,000 t stadium with seat licenses for a third of the seats will guarantee large block of empty purple seats for almost every game, and tick off 5k to 10k really good fans from an already small fan base.
When I still lived in the Chicago area, my Cats’ season tickets were on the 45, two thirds up, and I could afford them on the salary of a young academic. My 40some son, who is not an NU alum, is still a lifelong fan as a result.
 
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Since 2018 basketball season tickets have a license type fee for every section but one.

Except for this year the product on the court hasn’t improved in spite of the extra income.

Unless I missed it, there have been no articles attributing the football train wreck of three of the last four years to lack of financial backing.

A small season ticket fan base will grow smaller with a license type fee for season football tickets.
 
One part of how I've gotten others to buy into being NU fans (and season ticket holders) has been the value proposition - see a competitive program play Big Ten football at reasonable prices - don't have to park 10 miles away or sit in nosebleeds - a great experience by any objective measure.

Now we're floundering on the field, and a temp move to Soldier Field (we HATE going to Soldier Field for ANYTHING) before we sweat bullets over how we might be charged for season tickets in the new stadium does not have my STH friends excited for what lies ahead.

The concept of a "big time program" fan experience is interesting to me - for most people just making it to 1-2 games per year at State U is a big deal because season tickets and parking would be cost-prohibitive...and now the Athletic Dept and private collectives are reaching into our pockets asking us to "support" our players beyond season tickets, PSLs, mandatory "donations" for parking, etc...while more players enter the Portal explaining that it's a business decision for their family...gross.

I've always considered myself lucky to be an NU fan since we are able to avoid a lot of the bullsht associated with State U programs...can only hope that does not change and the new stadium doesn't become my/our own worst enemy.
 
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CoralSpringsCat said:
Have…you…seen….our…attendance???
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Better than being too big. Our opponents like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Ohio State take over the stadium which is a bad look. If we can sell fewer tickets to them and limit resales it will be better for us. Better resistance to bad weather conditions will also be helpful towards local attendance. A billion dollar project has lots of consultants.
 
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CatFanEd said:
If we can sell fewer tickets to them and limit resales it will be better for us.
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The resale part is what I’m interested in. With paper tickets now almost completely obsolete, the University will be able to track who is using each ticket issued and how it got to that person from the season ticket holder.

If part of NU’s reasoning is to make supply smaller (and $$$ value of tickets higher), I think NU will want a piece of the action if a $50 dollar face value ticket Is earning four times that on the resale market. This could either be a convenience fee to transfer or a limit to the number of times a ticket can be transferred (with a demerit to the original buyer if it goes past that number).
 
Expecting my season ticket prices to more than double while Cats improve to 3-5 win team over next few years.

I’ve gone from making each home game to 1-3 games over last two seasons - typically, giving my tickets to other alums or friends.

I’ve renewed for next season but will likely drop them as prices rise and Cats continue to struggle.

New stadium is exciting but if Cats aren’t competitive, I’m less likely to attend
 
1060Ivy said:
Expecting my season ticket prices to more than double while Cats improve to 3-5 win team over next few years.

I’ve gone from making each home game to 1-3 games over last two seasons - typically, giving my tickets to other alums or friends.

I’ve renewed for next season but will likely drop them as prices rise and Cats continue to struggle.

New stadium is exciting but if Cats aren’t competitive, I’m less likely to attend
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When the going gets tough…
 
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CoralSpringsCat said:
When the going gets tough…
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Just a bandwagon fan here, only had season tickets since late 1980’s.

Likely to still give university donations but questioning value of season tickets.

Increasing prices on a failing product that will be wrapped in a better package may work for some products and customers but not all.
 
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1060Ivy said:
Just a bandwagon fan here, only had season tickets since late 1980’s.

Likely to still give university donations but questioning value of season tickets.

Increasing prices on a failing product that will be wrapped in a better package may work for some products and customers but not all.
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Makes your quitting on our student-athletes even worse. It’s easy to cheer them on when they’re winning. They’ll need your support more than ever in the coming seasons.
 
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1060Ivy has been a season ticket holder since the late ‘80’s. He sure didn’t quit on all the losing teams in that period, some of which were god awful.

Maybe he’s quitting on the idea that a university that has one of the biggest endowments in the nation, is being gifted a new stadium shouldn’t be repaying his loyalty with a substantial seat license fee.

If they want to charge more for the tickets, I’m fine with that. But a yearly seat license fee to keep my tickets?

There was a time when loyalty was a two way street.
 
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