Size of new stadium -
- Thread starter Eurocat
- Start date
Courtney and Clay are his kids. Courtney is the main reason her father accepted the NU head coaching job as she really wanted to attended Northwestern.
Fine. Coach McCartney also talked him into it by pointing out that head coaching jobs don't come open often. GB did mention his daughter during an online alumni event during the pandemic he did with DA. But NU was hardly his dream job.
Willy haven’t seen you in a few years. Worried there will be no tix for you at 35k? I got you!
I am really surprised nobody else has encountered this besides me. Oh well - it will be what it will be and then PPD will chastise me for having brought it up somewhere down the line…
Perhaps you guys remember the Allstate year for basketball, where we went from a capacity of 8,100 to a capacity of 18,500. Not sure about you, but I don't recall there being a massive influx of NU fans coming off of literally the best season in the program's history with almost everybody returning and that dingus Clark Kellogg picking NU to the Final Four.
No, what happened was that every single opposing team fan in the Chicago area plus anyone else who wanted to fly to Chicago and drive literally five minutes to the arena showed up to cheer on their team against the 'Cats, and we were essentially playing road games all year long. Making the football stadium bigger would not result in the desired outcome.
No, what happened was that every single opposing team fan in the Chicago area plus anyone else who wanted to fly to Chicago and drive literally five minutes to the arena showed up to cheer on their team against the 'Cats, and we were essentially playing road games all year long. Making the football stadium bigger would not result in the desired outcome.
Some general comments..
1) I don't care if it is private money, the astronomical cost is stupid and wasteful. Spend 100M (still a lot) to put in actual seats, better restrooms and concessions. The rest is wasted, even if Pat Ryan and @Alan Smithee have, together, already donated millions.
2) I will miss the towers. My heart skips a beat when I see them as I approach.
3) the cost of tickets and PSL will be very high. I have no interest in this type of investment. I am hopeful that the secondary market is still reasonable for non con games
4) I'm OK with limiting capacity to keep out yahoos. Better field a competitive team
5) stadium novelty wears off in a few years. People will go because it is the thing to do, then, even if we are good, interest will ebb. But the reduction in supply will create an artifical demand for a time, where gate receipts and concessions will end up easily outpacing current because of higher revenue per seat.
1) I don't care if it is private money, the astronomical cost is stupid and wasteful. Spend 100M (still a lot) to put in actual seats, better restrooms and concessions. The rest is wasted, even if Pat Ryan and @Alan Smithee have, together, already donated millions.
2) I will miss the towers. My heart skips a beat when I see them as I approach.
3) the cost of tickets and PSL will be very high. I have no interest in this type of investment. I am hopeful that the secondary market is still reasonable for non con games
4) I'm OK with limiting capacity to keep out yahoos. Better field a competitive team
5) stadium novelty wears off in a few years. People will go because it is the thing to do, then, even if we are good, interest will ebb. But the reduction in supply will create an artifical demand for a time, where gate receipts and concessions will end up easily outpacing current because of higher revenue per seat.
A lot of similarities in their reasons for going with their design compared to ours.
I live in Oregon and Oregon State is in the middle of a renovation that will reduce capacity from 45k to 36k. This comes less than 20 years after expanding from 35k to 45k. They easily sell 45k when they play Oregon but otherwise max out around 35-40. I think programs are preparing for a future where attendance demand likely keeps declining.
I think you have to prepare for 10/20/30 years into the future.
Attending games in person will still be a thing at the biggest schools or pro-teams with the most rabid followings in the biggest cities.
But for everyone else? Likely to be much lower in aggregate, so I think you get ahead of the curve like us, Oregon State, Buffalo Bills, etc.
Make a max luxury experience for fewer people. 10 years ago, I'd have been shocked at myself for agreeing with a project that puts the stadium below 40k seats. Now it feels like a natural outcome.
Outside of like 15-20 college programs, I think most will see significantly lower attendance in the future than now. Every game is on TV, TVs are better than ever, there's a million other things to do in terms of enterainment options on Saturdays. I also assume less students stick around Chicago after graduating than in the past. That's another factor that affects us.
Just feels like we're in a paradigm shift and recognizing that early is a good thing. Creating a 35k stadium that will feel like a 50k+ bowl shaped stadium in terms of atmosphere is the right decision.
Yeah...but the NFL is probably going to look at them and say, "That program isn't big time" and not let them in the playoffs with that new stadium. 😇
This same argument happened withe basketball arena reno and Willy was all over that one as well insisting that you couldn't possibly be a B1G team with a reduced capacity.
I'm sure your nightmare scenario totally happens all the time with Duke and their cute, little 9,000-person capacity basketball arena. People totally overlook their success and say that they are definitely not big-time.
Northwestern can't stadium its way to "big-time". That happens on the field.
Ah, yes. Another turn of phrase that should be retired posthaste. This is a joke. That is a joke. They’re a joke. We’re a joke. Come on, people. Our writing prowess has become a joke.
None of it will matter unless the product is good. They will only need 10,000 seats if they don’t start winning, and 9,000 will be visiting team fans!
Amen. It sucks. This seems like a post from someone who never goes to games. Having the other team’s fans chant across the stadium is not exciting. Having the other team’s fans try to disrupt our offense with noise is not exciting. When the stadium is full, at least 20,000 fans are cheering for the other team. I have had season tickets for over 30 years and with the exception of a few games, the atmosphere sucks. When we don’t play a good team, it’s half-filled and deadly silent and when we play a good team, it’s hard to tell if it’s a home game. 35,000 to 38,000 is absolutely the right size. A 35,000 seat stadium filled with 28,000 of our fans will be fantastic. The game at Wrigley Field had less than 40,000 fans and the atmosphere was great. The game in Dublin had less than 40,000 fans and the atmosphere was great even with all of the Nebraska fans and some empty seats. NBA arenas are plenty exciting with 20,000 fans.
Exactly! A lot of stadium bitching going on from folks that aren’t there very much.
I cannot hear their name without thinking: "Hey Bungalow Bill, what did you kill, Bungalow Bill?"
SDSU's new 35,000 seat stadium cost $310 million. Clearly ours will be fancier, but almost triple the price?
https://www.athleticbusiness.com/fa...21031002&utm_term=&oly_enc_id=4135B3789801G5N
https://www.athleticbusiness.com/fa...21031002&utm_term=&oly_enc_id=4135B3789801G5N
I just looked at SDSU's new stadium. It is very basic and butt-ugly. It is also built in the middle of a huge parking lot in an industrial area adjacent to the intersection of two interstates. The design features, the supply routes, the building season, and the neighborhood constraints are not even remotely comparable.
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I want to thank you, Smithee and Pat Ryan for your $480 million dollar embarrassing donation. Maybe the 3 of you can up the ante so we doesn’t suffer the humiliation.
to me, it's a nothing-burger, though I'm admittedly biased because I can't stand them. Since it is sunken, there is no intimidating presence when you arrive. It's like as tall as my house otherwise.
Once inside, it's just a big cereal bowl with the seats too close together.
Major stadiums (stadia?) I've visited that I like better - Iowa, OSU, MSU, PSU.
I have been to PSU and every time I walked into the stadium, I prayed that the structural engineer/architect were top of the line because it looked like an erector set that a child might have made and 110K fans could stress the structure to its' limit. Also, the PSU growl is as annoying as copycat NU's
Hey @Eurocat heres your chance to be heard. You can bring @willycat ans @docrugby1 along for support.
