Good morning my fellow Mountaineers! Alright, it's finally here. After a personal back-and-forth as to whether or not it was kosher for me to construct the "Official" Kidd Brewer Stadium Review for the StadiumJourney.com website, I finally decided to honor my commitment and do so. Without further ado, the review can be found here:

Good morning my fellow Mountaineers! Al ... dium-s1848

I must admit it was a trying piece to write, primarily because the target zone for an official review, word-wise, is between 1,500 and 2,500 words and this one came in at somewhere in the vicinity of 4,700, so definitely one of the longest I have constructed. It was also tough to balance my personal ASU homer mentality with an attempt to be honest and forthright. In the end, my Mountaineer allegiance probably won out, but I believe the review to be quite accurate and not too much of a stretch in any regard.

I know myself, and the entire Stadium Journey team, would very much appreciate each of you taking the time to read the review, and if you feel it worthy, share your thoughts here and please feel free to pass it along via any of the social media avenues available to you (Facebook, Twitter, etc.)

I'd love to make the Kidd Brewer Stadium review one of the Top-10 most-viewed pages on Stadium Journey (America's most-visited site for sports stadium travel) for the month of January, but I'll need your help!

Thanks again, have a great day, and GO APPS!!

Norm
HkyMtneer

Can you make that a link?

I could not find it on stadium journey

very nicely done

Accurate and spot on

I know you put a lot of work into it, but I do not like it. May have missed something.
Only reference I saw to attendance was that we sometimes have 130%, and that 12,000 App State students sometimes attend. Makes it seems like we are Samford and have a high attendance of 12,000.
Wouldn't put the FargoDome in our peer group. Rinky dink compared to most of our crowds.
Just the comparison of KBS to a mini-dome is out of place.

GoApps70 wrote:I know you put a lot of work into it, but I do not like it. May have missed something.
Only reference I saw to attendance was that we sometimes have 130%, and that 12,000 App State students sometimes attend. Makes it seems like we are Samford and have a high attendance of 12,000.

Thanks for your input. Any facilities capacity is always listed on the right sidebar of the review page, so we try not to replicate those mentions very much. I personally try to be more creative in how I note attendance. I occasionally mention sheer numbers in my pieces if the attendance is terribly poor, or eye-popping, but to most stadia fans seeing a stadium capacity of 24,050 is not going to "shake them".

Seeing that 12,000 students routinely attend, that we were used to regularly leading the FCS nation in attendance, and putting in 130% of capacity is not out of the norm does however. I'm really not sure of any way that I could have driven the point home more that we draw great crowds, full of enthusiastic fans...short of being a complete homer.

Also, the comparison to the FargoDome was in the "atmosphere" section of the piece and currently, as of the 2013 season, the atmosphere at the FargoDome is every bit as good as that of KBS. Granted, a lot of that has to do with winning, just as it did during our run of 3-straight. Overall, as facility, KBS is much nicer than what NDSU has, but speaking simply for atmosphere this past season, I find it hard to believe that any fan honest with themselves would not admit it was probably greater in the FargoDome than at the Rock.

Very well done ---

WVAPPeer wrote:Very well done ---

Thanks, Ned!

Where was the mention of BBQ-filled Stadium Cups with ice?
Other than that, I really liked it.

AppinVA wrote:Where was the mention of BBQ-filled Stadium Cups with ice?
Other than that, I really liked it.

I swear to you, I came this close to including a reference to stadium cups with ice, simply as an "inside" thing but alas, I was already pressing it on the word count.

Very articulate.

JCline0429 wrote:Very articulate.

Thanks, Cline. Glad you enjoyed it.

HkyMtneer wrote:

GoApps70 wrote:I know you put a lot of work into it, but I do not like it. May have missed something.
Only reference I saw to attendance was that we sometimes have 130%, and that 12,000 App State students sometimes attend. Makes it seems like we are Samford and have a high attendance of 12,000.

Thanks for your input. Any facilities capacity is always listed on the right sidebar of the review page, so we try not to replicate those mentions very much. I personally try to be more creative in how I note attendance. I occasionally mention sheer numbers in my pieces if the attendance is terribly poor, or eye-popping, but to most stadia fans seeing a stadium capacity of 24,050 is not going to "shake them".

Seeing that 12,000 students routinely attend, that we were used to regularly leading the FCS nation in attendance, and putting in 130% of capacity is not out of the norm does however. I'm really not sure of any way that I could have driven the point home more that we draw great crowds, full of enthusiastic fans...short of being a complete homer.

Also, the comparison to the FargoDome was in the "atmosphere" section of the piece and currently, as of the 2013 season, the atmosphere at the FargoDome is every bit as good as that of KBS. Granted, a lot of that has to do with winning, just as it did during our run of 3-straight. Overall, as facility, KBS is much nicer than what NDSU has, but speaking simply for atmosphere this past season, I find it hard to believe that any fan honest with themselves would not admit it was probably greater in the FargoDome than at the Rock.

What you said makes sense. Good job. Took a lot of time and work.

Overall, I liked the stadium review write up, it was very complimentary. Then I looked at the review written for Georgia Southern's stadium and they got the same score for fanfare. There is no way they should have scored that high. I was also amazed that when I typed up many other Sun Belt schools their reviews didn't score very high, which surprised me. I know ASU has one of the nicest and most scenic stadiums around, just didn't think Georgia Southern was on the same level as us, yet.

Deano wrote:Overall, I liked the stadium review write up, it was very complimentary. Then I looked at the review written for Georgia Southern's stadium and they got the same score for fanfare. There is no way they should have scored that high. I was also amazed that when I typed up many other Sun Belt schools their reviews didn't score very high, which surprised me. I know ASU has one of the nicest and most scenic stadiums around, just didn't think Georgia Southern was on the same level as us, yet.

Thanks for taking the time to read my review. I'm glad you thought I did a good job representing our football home. As for the GSU review, I cannot speak for that particular correspondent and his review or personal grading criteria. Stadium Journey employs the help of over 100 correspondents on every continent except Antarctica. As a result, even when using a system that helps in covering some discrepancies, ratings are ultimately subjective. I will say this. I know that we were trying to finish off all the FCS schools this year and were having trouble finding a correspondent with an opening to take in a game at GSU, and as a result I believe the reviewer of Paulson (as well as GSU's Hanner Fieldhouse) may have been a "guest" correspondent from the Statesboro area. Take that for what you will. Also, I'm probably tougher on grading than some, more lenient than others.

Loved it. Very well written, but I was expecting a 5 in atmosphere. You won't find a stadium with higher per capita fan involvement in this State. No where I've been anyway. And if KBS is a 4, Paulson is a 2.5 at best.

Gonzo wrote:Loved it. Very well written, but I was expecting a 5 in atmosphere. You won't find a stadium with higher per capita fan involvement in this State. No where I've been anyway. And if KBS is a 4, Paulson is a 2.5 at best.

Thanks, Gonzo. I really don't like to give too many 5's, unless I think they are especially warranted. I gave the ASU review probably more 5's than any other review I've ever done. I agree that atmosphere could warrant a 5, but *technically these are supposed to be yearly (or close to it) reviews so considering this past year or so has been down a bit I chose a 4. As for Paulson, I've made 3 or 4 of the last 5 or 6 trips down there for ASU games and I would say it can fluctuate (similarly to our atmosphere) based on a variety of factors. For games against ASU I think a 4 is probably warranted most of the time, for many of their other games this is probably not the case...but I've never been to a non-ASU game in Statesboro so I could not honestly say. If I were doing the Paulson review I'd probably go with a 3, just from heresay and knowing the stadiums design, how it plays sound wise, etc. I really wish we could aware 1/2 stars. I think that would allow for even more "honing in" of the scoring system. I've thought this for a while, and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only SJ Correspondent who feels this way so it might be something worth presenting to the site's founder.

I would like to personally thank everyone of my fellow Mountaineers who took the time to check out my Kidd Brewer Stadium review in January. Also, thanks to those of you who passed the review along to those you thought might have been interested. With your help the review ranked in the Top-10 most viewed on Stadium Journey for the month of January, and that is out of around 2,000 facility reviews. The Top-10 viewed reviews, and a diverse list it is, for the month of January on SJ are as follows:

Top 10 review pages in January: 1) Indianapolis Colts, 2) St Louis Blues, 3) Minnesota-Duluth hockey, 4) LSU football, 5) Appalachian State football, 6) Utica Comets, 7) Notre Dame hockey, 8) Seattle Seahawks, 9) Notre Dame football, 10) Green Bay Packers

Enjoyed it! Nice writing as well.