Not sure itās even worth expanding if we move from lowest permanent capacity to a tie for 10th lowest capacity (25k). Letās just head back to FCS where we belong.
25,000 in a badass stadium would be preferred over a crappy 35,000 stadium. No question, as Lambert likes to say.
I still think 30k range is right for us. Getting into the 30s Is big from the folks worried about optics and with SROs can swell to a scent size number. 38 or so is the biggest Iād go and anything in the 40s just too big for where we are in the growth trajectory imo
I think thatās about right. Squeak over the 30k mark, but have a ton of club seating, suites, and extras.
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We just need some kind of upper level bowl with suits and some cool led banner boards wrapped around. Whatever doesnāt look stupid, 15 rows? 2O rows? 25 rows? I have no idea how many actual seats it equates to. Iād say the least looking stupid while still having 25k min seats.
40,000 seats should be our target if we want to have upward trajectory. Look at Houston and Cincinnati that are moving up to P5. They have been our traditional peers. Our goal should be making the right efforts to fill it up.
With the right sales and marketing effort, and continuous improvement, it can easily be done.
Thatās kind of the divide among the expand debate. I donāt think thereās necessarily anything wrong with a goal 40k. The question is do you do it all at once or build it over time? I get the cost benefit argument of doing it all at once. But that could also actually slow the future growth. Atmosphere, which in part is better in a full stadium than an empty one. An empty stadium can lead to apathy. The closer to capacity we are the better the atmosphere and less apathy.
Did you go to basketball games when we played at the old Charlotte Coliseum? The atmosphere was awful. In other words, 3k at Halton is a better atmosphere than 8k at the Charlotte Coliseum.
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The atmosphere at the Hive on Tyvola was actually pretty great. They used to curtain the upper deck for us and we would fill up most of the roughly 12k seats in the lower bowl for games against Davidson and the like.
It was the building on Independence we didnāt support well.
Canāt put up a curtain over 15,000 empty bleachers in your purpose built on campus stadium.
Are you saying the atmosphere at the Coliseum was better than Halton?
And Iām not sure your memory is completely accurate. There was at least one year where I believe we hosted the Pepsi Tournament of Champions, which inflated the attendance figures. But the general attendance between Halton, Bojangles and Clt Coliseum was fairly comparable. Iād say in the 5k-6k range.
Yeah Id fall in the camp that the Big I atmosphere was way better than Tyvola. Both pale in comparison to Halton.
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Actually, there were some GREAT games and crowds at the BiG I / the original Charlotte Coliseum.
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Houston (1946) and Sincy (1885) though are not and were not our peer schools in football. They have been playing football for years. Our peer schools in football are GA St, Coastal, UTSA, etc. FWIW SIncy Capacity is 37k and Houston is 40k
I think even coming close to filling up 40k is a pipe dream for the foreseeable future. We have to be grounded in reality with an eye towards the future - taking into account revenue streams and attendance trends.
Washington ST, Wake Forest are P5 programs with stadiums in the 30k range
Vandy in the SEC checks in at 40 - in the SEC!
We currently are averaging around 13,500. I think we can grow that but I would prefer crowds of 25k in 30 than 25k in 40 or 45. We need room and capacity for the bigger games but not so much space that we lose any positive atmosphere.
The football feasibility comm said the best case scenario for student attendance is 1/3 of your student body, so that is 10k tops, probably closer to 8 as itās really undergrad population. So if you figure 8 then that means we need to find another 17k fans coming to just get to 25k. Our season ticket base right now is likely in the 4-5k range I would guess. We would need to sell 12-13K season tickets to the general public to get to 25k. If you are confident in that you glasses are darker green than mine.
Hell you can make the argument that having a smaller stadium and forcing more of our fans to watch TV is a better path to P5 as it inflates the TV numbers which matter way more than anything else.
I just want us to be smart. We likely built Halton a tad too big for basketball. Even in our best years against top teams sell outs were very rare. I donāt want over build this. Iād rather build it 2k-5k too small and make the place packed for a big game than too big and have it not sell out the big games and have it empty for other games. The one thing I am certain of is what ever we build it to will meet whatever AAC desires are and likely with a phone call or two to bigger conferences about their needs might be and design will take that into account.
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25,000 would be pushing limits with suites and premium seat level, unless you also fill in the end zone. Geometry and sight lines matter as much as volume packed into a small area
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Thatās also been my sentiment as well (but was told that was a strawman argument). When you hear 25k, it doesnāt sound like all that much, but it is roughly doubling our current attendance figures.
Hereās a brief snapshot of 2021 attendance figures for some of our peers. As with anything like this, itās not necessarily a complete and accurate reflection. For instance, COVID affect, success of a season, etc. For example UTSA was averaging 16k prior to being rank.
And for a completely useless stat, if you take the average of these averages you get 24k.
ODU- 16k
App- 29k
USF- 27k
ECU- 36k
MTSU- 13k
UCF- 39k
GaSt- 15k
UTSA- 31k
UAB- 25k
SMU- 23k
Marshall- 22k
NT- 16k
Mem- 29k
ULouisiana- 21k
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clt asks how suites are included in capacity.
Honestly, most of these other schools numbers are very exaggerated though. While, ours are not for the most part. If you have ever looked at the stands for some of these schools it is painfully obvious they are reporting tickets sold, given away, thrown in the AD trash can, whatever.
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Doesnt that make the case even more so to not over build just so we can say we have stadium of X size? Since those peer schools are over reporting?
lol, I was thinking the same thing.