Southern Miss Game

[WVAPPeer]

I'm not against expansion - only that, in my opinion, it is not necessary, in itself, to schedule a home and home against a good team ---

[Kgfish]

We need more seats now just so we can book home and homes with good teams.
With decent teams we have run over capacity for years, up to 149% capacity I believe.
You cannot count the bank seats when some good team is taking into consideration if they
want to do a home and home with you. Simple also, more seats, more money.
Believe we now have the smallest stadium in the Sun Belt, wouldn't hurt with recruiting
also.

Not sure what relevance our number of seats has to do with scheduling a home and home with "some good team" (other than the allotment required for the visitors) - Doesn't home and home mean the home team keeps 100%?

Yep. And more seats means we keep more dollars.

Oh, I agree - I'm was just questioning the philosophy of us having to have more seats to attract a home and home against a "good team"

Depends on how you define a "good" team. ULL and Ark State will bring really good teams when they play in Boone. While I expect more of our fans and local fans wanting to see a good FBS game will show up it is doubtful many visiting fans will make the trip. We could probably use some additional seats. On the other hand, when Charlotte comes to town in a few years the 49'ers probably won't be nearly as "good" of a team as ULL & Ark State. But due to the close proximity and relationship of the fans bases we will need A LOT more seats to accommodate that crowd.

[WVAPPeer]

"good team" was not my term - it was used when describing why we need more seats to get a home and home with a "good team" - so I can't define it but it would not be a conference team because we will have home and home with them ---

[Saint3333]

70 you continue to beat that drum with no solution of how to pay for it.[/quote

Had the money collected for the bank tickets all these years been put into a stadium expansion account there would be plenty of money available. The athletics department has been making money on that bank for years and that is pure gravy considering not one dollar had to be spent on construction.

If only it were that simple. We have many expenses. We don't fully fund scholarships currently and have debt from the last expansion.

This is like living in a 4,000 sq ft place, having 10 kids, of which you only pay for 8 and thinking about putting in a pool and outdoor living area.

[EastHallApp]

I must say it is hard for me to buy the argument that we need 30,000 actual seats to draw a quality G5 or lower-level P5 when I see something like Wake playing at ULM this year. Sure they have more actual seats than KBS, but how many fans is Wake going to bring to Monroe, LA anyway? A few hundred?

I realize they'd bring more to Boone (and that the bigger issue is probably that they just don't want to play us), but what about similar out of state programs? How many tickets would we realistically have to guarantee someone like, say, Boston College or Kansas?

[Kgfish]

70 you continue to beat that drum with no solution of how to pay for it.[/quote

Had the money collected for the bank tickets all these years been put into a stadium expansion account there would be plenty of money available. The athletics department has been making money on that bank for years and that is pure gravy considering not one dollar had to be spent on construction.

If only it were that simple. We have many expenses. We don't fully fund scholarships currently and have debt from the last expansion.

This is like living in a 4,000 sq ft place, having 10 kids, of which you only pay for 8 and thinking about putting in a pool and outdoor living area.

It is very simple. Funding scholarships should have nothing to do with building seats. App has sucked about all it can out of the rank and file Yosef Club member. We can not depend on them to fund everything.

The problem is two fold. Cobb has demonstrated little expertise in planning smart, cost effective facilities and & Beasley no ability to secure corporate funding to build them. That should not come as a surprise considering his previous job experience. Why Cobb would bring a guy in with zero experience in such matters instead of someone from a major university is a real head scratcher. Rick is a great guy and App football legend, but he isn't an dynamic fundraiser.

[Kgfish]

I must say it is hard for me to buy the argument that we need 30,000 actual seats to draw a quality G5 or lower-level P5 when I see something like Wake playing at ULM this year. Sure they have more actual seats than KBS, but how many fans is Wake going to bring to Monroe, LA anyway? A few hundred?

I realize they'd bring more to Boone (and that the bigger issue is probably that they just don't want to play us), but what about similar out of state programs? How many tickets would we realistically have to guarantee someone like, say, Boston College or Kansas?

The Wake ULM example is a good one. BC & Kansas, not so much.

ULM averaged 17K in a 30K SEAT - no bank - stadium. Their largest home crowd of 23,600 was for a team 1 hour down the road, Grambling. I'm betting most of the extra 6K fans were supporting the Tigers. App averages between 25 & 29K in a 21K SEAT stadium playing mostly schools with small to tiny fan bases. That won't be the case with Char, ECU, Marshall or Wake. They will bring a lot of fans. I'm having a really hard time seeing how this is so difficult to understand.

[Saint3333]

70 you continue to beat that drum with no solution of how to pay for it.[/quote

Had the money collected for the bank tickets all these years been put into a stadium expansion account there would be plenty of money available. The athletics department has been making money on that bank for years and that is pure gravy considering not one dollar had to be spent on construction.

If only it were that simple. We have many expenses. We don't fully fund scholarships currently and have debt from the last expansion.

This is like living in a 4,000 sq ft place, having 10 kids, of which you only pay for 8 and thinking about putting in a pool and outdoor living area.

It is very simple. Funding scholarships should have nothing to do with building seats. App has sucked about all it can out of the rank and file Yosef Club member. We can not depend on them to fund everything.

The problem is two fold. Cobb has demonstrated little expertise in planning smart, cost effective facilities and & Beasley no ability to secure corporate funding to build them. That should not come as a surprise considering his previous job experience. Why Cobb would bring a guy in with zero experience in such matters instead of someone from a major university is a real head scratcher. Rick is a great guy and App football legend, but he isn't an dynamic fundraiser.

It really isn't simple. App needs increased donations from many directions. I agree the current Yosef Club members have been asked to do A LOT the last 5-6 years and it is time for newer members and non-members to step up and fully fund scholarships. I also agree that the number one area we can improve is growing our corporate sponsorships. Hopefully adding a full time Charlotte rep will help with that.

Outside of your disagreements with some of the football facilities what other facilities have been unwise? Baseball has worked out well and can be expanded. Softball and the indoor facility are nice.

[ASUMountaineer]

Did I not say that I can see where we may need 30,000 seats one day?

My stance on this issue is not controversial or complicated.

Kidd Brewer should have as many seats as necessary to serve the fan bases. Period. It is my opinion that there is a more realistic need of 30,000 seats (vs. 40K) over the next 10 years. It is also my opinion that there will never be a need 40,000 seats in KBS.

Now, being a capitalist, if there is a sustained increase of consumer demand over time requiring more than 30,000 seats I will happily admit my initial opinion to be incorrect. It won't be the first time I've been wrong. But it has been frustrating to see a lot of shiney aluminum on game day in the past couple of seasons.

Ok, hopefully then you now see that JT was not suggesting we go to 40,000 seats tomorrow, or ever. Only that we plan ahead for the potential need to have 40,000 seats. I fail to see how that stance is controversial or complicated. Perhaps you can explain what I'm missing.

[bcoach]

My whole question is not about expansion. If we need seats and our past expansions are paid for then let's see where we can find the money for another expansion. My problem is with expansion for one game a year. I have yet to hear that we need seats for the season. All I hear is that we need them for an individual game. So we need 5k empty seats for the other 5 games?

[ASUMountaineer]

My whole question is not about expansion. If we need seats and our past expansions are paid for then let's see where we can find the money for another expansion. My problem is with expansion for one game a year. I have yet to hear that we need seats for the season. All I hear is that we need them for an individual game. So we need 5k empty seats for the other 5 games?

I think the idea is that we currently sell more tickets than we have seats for, hence the use of the bank for sitting. With that said, I think that there are fans that choose to sit on the hill. I don't think we need to break ground tomorrow on expansion, but I do think there is an "every-game" need to go to 30,000 but not unless a master plan is develop for an initial expansion and potential future expansion. I think the idea is to be as proactive as possible to avoid being reactive.

[roachgone]

I don't think we need 40,000 now but we do need a plan for 30,000. Look at the possible $$. Let's just say we had 40,000 seats and could do a home and home with Say ECU, NC State, type programs where we would easily sell out every yr. !0,000 extra tickets for only one game a yr. @ 35 is $350,000 @ yr. If you sold 10,000 extra tickets for all the other games that is $700,000 @ yr. That amount of money would go a long way to a debt retirement amount. There is no way we could not sell out a 40,000 stadium against the 2 schools I mentioned and in fact unless we have a 35,000 plus stadium we will never see those kinds of games in Boone. I really think 35,000 seats with the ability to still sell some grass seats would be enough for us. A tough ticket at 30,000 to 35,000 would be better that a bunch of empty seats for most games.

[EastHallApp]

I must say it is hard for me to buy the argument that we need 30,000 actual seats to draw a quality G5 or lower-level P5 when I see something like Wake playing at ULM this year. Sure they have more actual seats than KBS, but how many fans is Wake going to bring to Monroe, LA anyway? A few hundred?

I realize they'd bring more to Boone (and that the bigger issue is probably that they just don't want to play us), but what about similar out of state programs? How many tickets would we realistically have to guarantee someone like, say, Boston College or Kansas?

The Wake ULM example is a good one. BC & Kansas, not so much.

ULM averaged 17K in a 30K SEAT - no bank - stadium. Their largest home crowd of 23,600 was for a team 1 hour down the road, Grambling. I'm betting most of the extra 6K fans were supporting the Tigers. App averages between 25 & 29K in a 21K SEAT stadium playing mostly schools with small to tiny fan bases. That won't be the case with Char, ECU, Marshall or Wake. They will bring a lot of fans. I'm having a really hard time seeing how this is so difficult to understand.

I understand that nearby teams would bring more fans. What I will ask you to explain is why the idea of someone like BC coming to Boone would be markedly different than Wake going to ULM. Grambling might have brought 6,000 fans to Monroe, but Wake won't bring anywhere close to that.

The point is, neither is going to bring a large contingent of fans to an out of state game vs. a Sun Belt opponent. Wake agreed to that game against a team that averages markedly smaller crowds than App does.

I would also submit that it is not necessarily a bad thing to have demand for tickets outpace supply for your biggest game of the year. That's one way to boost season ticket sales.

Also: I'm not actually sure how many fans Charlotte or Wake would bring to KBS. With Wake, I suspect if App gave them sections 208-209, and maybe 210 (in addition to the normal visitors sections 108-109), that would be sufficient to accommodate their fans' actual demand (which is not to say it would be sufficient for them to agree to play the game). Same would go for Duke - neither of those schools has a particularly large or well-traveling football fanbase.

[Kgfish]

70 you continue to beat that drum with no solution of how to pay for it.[/quote

Had the money collected for the bank tickets all these years been put into a stadium expansion account there would be plenty of money available. The athletics department has been making money on that bank for years and that is pure gravy considering not one dollar had to be spent on construction.

If only it were that simple. We have many expenses. We don't fully fund scholarships currently and have debt from the last expansion.

This is like living in a 4,000 sq ft place, having 10 kids, of which you only pay for 8 and thinking about putting in a pool and outdoor living area.

It is very simple. Funding scholarships should have nothing to do with building seats. App has sucked about all it can out of the rank and file Yosef Club member. We can not depend on them to fund everything.

The problem is two fold. Cobb has demonstrated little expertise in planning smart, cost effective facilities and & Beasley no ability to secure corporate funding to build them. That should not come as a surprise considering his previous job experience. Why Cobb would bring a guy in with zero experience in such matters instead of someone from a major university is a real head scratcher. Rick is a great guy and App football legend, but he isn't an dynamic fundraiser.

It really isn't simple. App needs increased donations from many directions. I agree the current Yosef Club members have been asked to do A LOT the last 5-6 years and it is time for newer members and non-members to step up and fully fund scholarships. I also agree that the number one area we can improve is growing our corporate sponsorships. Hopefully adding a full time Charlotte rep will help with that.

Outside of your disagreements with some of the football facilities what other facilities have been unwise? Baseball has worked out well and can be expanded. Softball and the indoor facility are nice.

My main gripe is with the athletics center. No doubt we needed the indoor facility, new weight room, training room and seats. But the original plan to enlarge Owens, building a separate press box with suites and club seating was much better and more cost effective. Think about it. When you have to spend $150K on a walkway to get the team to the field there is a flaw with your plan. We now have a weight room that needs to be relocated and a locker room that interrupts spectator flow before, during and after the games. Not much thought went into those two highly important aspects of the plan.

The original plan was fieldhouse first, additional seating and updated fan amenities next, then press box and suites last phase. But, the lure of revenue from selling suites and club seats trumped all else and everything got lumped into one massive facility that doesn't work particularly together.

Smith Stadium suffered at the hands of the excess spending on the athletics center. Originally planned with 1500 individual seats it was cut down to 1000 mostly bleacher seats. Its poor design with raised dugouts restrict views down each line. If we expand seating the light poles located behind the dugouts will have to be moved. Not exactly forward thinking.

The entire facility enhancement plan (if there was or is one) should have started with a relocation of the track. It isn't just about aesthetics. Without that one key element the result, as others have pointed out, is a hodge podge of mismatched angles, materials and architectural styles inside the fences surrounding KBS. For once I wish ASU would do something that half way resembled a plan and not the cheapest way out. The picture depicting an expanded KBS is a perfect example of the lack of professionalism in our athletics department. Instead of creating an first class image they took an existing picture and photoshopped some seats and a dorm over the track. Typical.

[WVAPPeer]

Fish - all of this facility talk is just like the move to the SunBelt that you trumpet -

IT'S DONE - GET OVER IT - GET ON BOARD - LOOK FORWARD,NOT BACKWARD!!!

[ASUGoose]

70 you continue to beat that drum with no solution of how to pay for it.[/quote

Had the money collected for the bank tickets all these years been put into a stadium expansion account there would be plenty of money available. The athletics department has been making money on that bank for years and that is pure gravy considering not one dollar had to be spent on construction.

If only it were that simple. We have many expenses. We don't fully fund scholarships currently and have debt from the last expansion.

This is like living in a 4,000 sq ft place, having 10 kids, of which you only pay for 8 and thinking about putting in a pool and outdoor living area.

It is very simple. Funding scholarships should have nothing to do with building seats. App has sucked about all it can out of the rank and file Yosef Club member. We can not depend on them to fund everything.

The problem is two fold. Cobb has demonstrated little expertise in planning smart, cost effective facilities and & Beasley no ability to secure corporate funding to build them. That should not come as a surprise considering his previous job experience. Why Cobb would bring a guy in with zero experience in such matters instead of someone from a major university is a real head scratcher. Rick is a great guy and App football legend, but he isn't an dynamic fundraiser.

It really isn't simple. App needs increased donations from many directions. I agree the current Yosef Club members have been asked to do A LOT the last 5-6 years and it is time for newer members and non-members to step up and fully fund scholarships. I also agree that the number one area we can improve is growing our corporate sponsorships. Hopefully adding a full time Charlotte rep will help with that.

Outside of your disagreements with some of the football facilities what other facilities have been unwise? Baseball has worked out well and can be expanded. Softball and the indoor facility are nice.

Completely agree here and I thought this was going to be the big push from a financial perspective with the announcement of moving to FBS. Now that App will be on the national stage with national TV contracts, it should've helped to open doors to corporate $$ that otherwise were not realistic at the FCS level in a conference without TV contracts. While it opens the door, we still need folks within the athletic department to close these corporate sponsorship deals. I haven't heard whether we have landed any big corporate sponsorship deals since our FBS announcement.

[Kgfish]

I must say it is hard for me to buy the argument that we need 30,000 actual seats to draw a quality G5 or lower-level P5 when I see something like Wake playing at ULM this year. Sure they have more actual seats than KBS, but how many fans is Wake going to bring to Monroe, LA anyway? A few hundred?

I realize they'd bring more to Boone (and that the bigger issue is probably that they just don't want to play us), but what about similar out of state programs? How many tickets would we realistically have to guarantee someone like, say, Boston College or Kansas?

The Wake ULM example is a good one. BC & Kansas, not so much.

ULM averaged 17K in a 30K SEAT - no bank - stadium. Their largest home crowd of 23,600 was for a team 1 hour down the road, Grambling. I'm betting most of the extra 6K fans were supporting the Tigers. App averages between 25 & 29K in a 21K SEAT stadium playing mostly schools with small to tiny fan bases. That won't be the case with Char, ECU, Marshall or Wake. They will bring a lot of fans. I'm having a really hard time seeing how this is so difficult to understand.

I understand that nearby teams would bring more fans. What I will ask you to explain is why the idea of someone like BC coming to Boone would be markedly different than Wake going to ULM. Grambling might have brought 6,000 fans to Monroe, but Wake won't bring anywhere close to that.

The point is, neither is going to bring a large contingent of fans to an out of state game vs. a Sun Belt opponent. Wake agreed to that game against a team that averages markedly smaller crowds than App does.

I would also submit that it is not necessarily a bad thing to have demand for tickets outpace supply for your biggest game of the year. That's one way to boost season ticket sales.

I may be one of the few pro FBS people who thinks it's impractical to get a "name" school - esp a BCS level team - from a large distance to come to Boone. These guys are accustomed to flying into a city, staying at a luxury hotel with meeting & dining facilities then hopping on a plane and getting out of Dodge. While charter jets can land and depart from Hickory the town lacks the aforementioned facilities. That is why I think the BC & Kansas comparison is not a valid one.

I think regionally when looking at possible opponents. They provide more local appeal and easier travel logistics to Boone's remote location. Wake, Duke, NC State and Va Tech are within bussing distance of Boone. That is where our targets for a BCS type opponent should be. I think you underestimate the number of people Wake would bring but for the sake of argument let's say they bring 3,000. App has drawn 30K for teams with far less curb appeal than Wake. It stands to reason more App fans, not to mention more students, would want to see that game. With 21,000 permanent seats we're already in a bind. Combined increased ticket demand from App fans and students with 3000 Wake fans could easily boost attendance to around 35K. Crowds for ECU and Marshall would be even larger.

Hopefully our crack athletic marketing staff would recognize the opportunity and tells our fans the only way to ensure a seat for these games is to buy season tickets.

[EastHallApp]

I think regionally when looking at possible opponents. They provide more local appeal and easier travel logistics to Boone's remote location. Wake, Duke, NC State and Va Tech are within bussing distance of Boone. That is where our targets for a BCS type opponent should be. I think you underestimate the number of people Wake would bring but for the sake of argument let's say they bring 3,000. App has drawn 30K for teams with far less curb appeal than Wake. It stands to reason more App fans, not to mention more students, would want to see that game. With 21,000 permanent seats we're already in a bind. Combined increased ticket demand from App fans and students with 3000 Wake fans could easily boost attendance to around 35K. Crowds for ECU and Marshall would be even larger.

Hopefully our crack athletic marketing staff would recognize the opportunity and tells our fans the only way to ensure a seat for these games is to buy season tickets.

I mean, I'm going to assume a base level of competency there, that they would set ticket prices higher for that game and promote it in the way you described.

I don't know how big an obstacle the travel issues would be for teams that have to fly so I won't comment on that. But if Akron and Southern Miss can manage to get to Boone...

As far as the sorts of regional opponents you mention, obviously bigger teams like VT, State, UNC etc. would be the dream scenario, but to me that's a little further off, so I look at it in stages.

I look at expansion in the same way. I'm not opposed to it per se, and I totally agree with you on the need for a master plan. But I think demand has to drive supply, not vice versa. And I am fairly optimistic that we might be able to schedule at least some relatively appealing opponents in the meantime.

[Kgfish]

Fish - all of this facility talk is just like the move to the SunBelt that you trumpet -

IT'S DONE - GET OVER IT - GET ON BOARD - LOOK FORWARD,NOT BACKWARD!!!

I answered a question - to someone else - about the facilities I had a problem with. It had nothing to do with you and I could care less if you don't like it. You tell me to get on board and move on, yet you are one of the ring leaders poo-pooing the move to FBS. You need to get on the FBS bus that you merely are a passenger on anyway. Not that it makes any difference but for logistical reasons I'd rather be in CUSA. I understand we had to get into FBS before moving around. If that is trumpeting a move to the SunBelt then so be it.

I guess we should all just be happy we don't have soccer lines any longer, right? Sorry but I have much greater expectations for my school than that. You can also forget about me stopping my trumpeting the relocation of the track and adding actual seats closer to the field.

FYI, I am looking forward. Forward to the day App has a legit college football stadium and not some all purpose facility. One more thing. Don't you EVER tell me to get over it! This is MY school and I'll express any opinion I darn well please!

[bcoach]

My whole question is not about expansion. If we need seats and our past expansions are paid for then let's see where we can find the money for another expansion. My problem is with expansion for one game a year. I have yet to hear that we need seats for the season. All I hear is that we need them for an individual game. So we need 5k empty seats for the other 5 games?

I think the idea is that we currently sell more tickets than we have seats for, hence the use of the bank for sitting. With that said, I think that there are fans that choose to sit on the hill. I don't think we need to break ground tomorrow on expansion, but I do think there is an "every-game" need to go to 30,000 but not unless a master plan is develop for an initial expansion and potential future expansion. I think the idea is to be as proactive as possible to avoid being reactive.

I am not convinced we have the every game need but I do agree with you. We do need a well thought out master plan. One that studies the every game need, as you may be right, it may be there. One that looks at future expansion possibilities. One that looks at cost, timeline, how it gets paid for, and how it effects the athletic program in total. One that has a strong and binding financial commitment before ever raising the first hammer. The very first part of that study though needs to be the plan to pay for expansion and athletic department commitments already made. I understand that the balance on the last expansion seems to be some sort of secret but there is agreement that there is a balance. It needs to be included in the plan.