(05-30-2013 04:22 PM)panama Wrote: Love what you guys are doing with this stadium. Really hoping our next AD will push for something similar near campus. Will you guys be serving beer?
(05-30-2013 04:22 PM)panama Wrote: Love what you guys are doing with this stadium. Really hoping our next AD will push for something similar near campus. Will you guys be serving beer?
- Gould Evans, the architect that worked with Woodward Design and Build on the design of the stadium, has some updated renderings of the stadium, and more interestingly, some cool architectural diagrams and cut-away perspectives. I think the pictures and new diagrams are worth a look, particularly if you're into design and architecture.
There is a ridiculous debate ongoing on some of the Tulane fan sites over how many seats the stadium will have -- capacity is listed at 30k, with seating often sited at 25k. Talking about these two numbers as if the difference matters strikes me as pointless. Yes, its a small stadium. We're a small school. CLEARLY the stadium is designed with several LARGE non-seated areas, to include suites and party decks. Guess what -- this is a feature, not a bug. This is how many people want to watch sporting events these days, particularly young, single and recently married people without kids. I want to watch the game with a group of friends, I'm buying a ticket for the party deck. I don't want to have the airplane experience where the only person I talk to is the person sitting next to me. I actually think its a forward looking design to put those two corner decks in the stadium to increase capacity and offer more viewing options. The seat counting (25k? 24k? 30k?) is a dick-measuring thing, in my view. Capacity is about how many tickets you can legitimately sell. That's all that matters.
More interesting to me is the limited egress/ingress points for foot traffic. You can see in the diagrams that during a sellout, it could really bottleneck. Not the worst problem to have, of course (unless God forbid there is an emergency).
- Fox 8 News did a video report on the stadium progress, which you can see below.
Before anyone thinks that I am slamming Tulane, please understand that is NOT my intentions.
First off, I admire Tulane for getting their own OCS built. Playing on campus will bring more alumni to the games and back to the campus. Also, works good with recruiting.
That being said, I think it's too small and resembles a mid-major to small school stadium. No way will a major P5 program agree to play there. Which hurts Tulane. Seating capacity should have been no less than 35,000 at best. That could hold Tulane back when next realignment wheels start turning again.
Another issue I have is with the location. I have noticed that residential areas are directly right next to and behind the west stands. That will be unpleasant for those homeowners with all the noise generated from the crowds. Plus, there's no room for expansion without demolishing those neighborhoods and the big buildings that surround the stadium.
Aside form that, it looks nice. It does go to show though that if Tulane can build a $60-70 million dollar OCS that a school like Memphis could do the same and even bigger. However, I do think and believe that with a new admin in place and new leadership that Memphis will be next in line for its own OCS sooner than later.
(This post was last modified: 06-20-2013 04:30 PM by PennyPerry.)
Disagree on the stadium size limiting P5 opponents. There are several stadiums in the 30-35k capacity range that have had no problems booking great opponents. The bigger issue why some of the P5 don't want to play in those "small" locations is because they don't want to go to a rusty, dumpy stadium in Logan, UT or Jonesboro, Arkansas. We're offering a suite-laden stadium in New Orleans, LA. There will be suitors. Hell, Notre Dame played at Wake Forest two years ago (31,500). Very, very similar to Yulman in capacity and quality. SMU is 32k capacity and has Texas Tech coming this year and Texas A&M coming next year.
Also, screw the neighbors. That issue's been settled. Tulane won. And if you look at the diagrams, you can clearly see the potential for additional decks over the North, South, and East sides of the stadium.
I wonder how SMU fans feel about the decision to build Ford Stadium (32k capacity)? Huge mistake for your program?
(06-20-2013 04:43 PM)OUGwave Wrote: Disagree on the stadium size limiting P5 opponents. There are several stadiums in the 30-35k capacity range that have had no problems booking great opponents. The bigger issue why some of the P5 don't want to play in those "small" locations is because they don't want to go to a rusty, dumpy stadium in Logan, UT or Jonesboro, Arkansas. We're offering a suite-laden stadium in New Orleans, LA. There will be suitors. Hell, Notre Dame played at Wake Forest two years ago (31,500). Very, very similar to Yulman in capacity and quality. SMU is 32k capacity and has Texas Tech coming this year and Texas A&M coming next year.
Also, screw the neighbors. That issue's been settled. Tulane won. And if you look at the diagrams, you can clearly see the potential for additional decks over the North, South, and East sides of the stadium.
I wonder how SMU fans feel about the decision to build Ford Stadium (32k capacity)? Huge mistake for your program?
The expansion possibilities are small though. At best, only 10,000 additional seats could be added, increasing capacity to only 40,000. Take Houston for example. They are building their new 40,000 seat stadium the right way. It's in open area which allows it to drastically expand in time without any concerns. No neighbors around to be bothered. That's major for impressing a BCS conference like the Big 12.
(This post was last modified: 06-20-2013 05:01 PM by PennyPerry.)
Tulane could always play a game in the Super Dome. That should negate any scheduling conflicts if Tulane has a good relationship with the stadium owners. That's a problem they WANT to have.
As for expansion, let's worry about them filling up the stadium they have before building upon it. That's a problem they want also.
SMU can't fill their 35k seat stadium yet. Tulane will have to work to get 25k.
(06-20-2013 04:43 PM)OUGwave Wrote: Disagree on the stadium size limiting P5 opponents. There are several stadiums in the 30-35k capacity range that have had no problems booking great opponents. The bigger issue why some of the P5 don't want to play in those "small" locations is because they don't want to go to a rusty, dumpy stadium in Logan, UT or Jonesboro, Arkansas. We're offering a suite-laden stadium in New Orleans, LA. There will be suitors. Hell, Notre Dame played at Wake Forest two years ago (31,500). Very, very similar to Yulman in capacity and quality. SMU is 32k capacity and has Texas Tech coming this year and Texas A&M coming next year.
Also, screw the neighbors. That issue's been settled. Tulane won. And if you look at the diagrams, you can clearly see the potential for additional decks over the North, South, and East sides of the stadium.
I wonder how SMU fans feel about the decision to build Ford Stadium (32k capacity)? Huge mistake for your program?
The expansion possibilities are small though. At best, only 10,000 additional seats could be added, increasing capacity to only 40,000. Take Houston for example. They are building their new 40,000 seat stadium the right way. It's in open area which allows it to drastically expand in time without any concerns. No neighbors around to be bothered. That's major for impressing a BCS conference like the Big 12.
Right, but a few basic facts:
Houston has 32,000 undergraduate students.
Tulane has 8,000 undergraduate students.
Houston has tons of land.
Tulane is land locked.
They aren't the same schools and they aren't in the same situations. If we ultimately only expand to 40k, that's fine. That is probably bigger than at least 10 P5 stadiums.
I'm fine with 40k seating being an end game with 45k capacity. I think that is the perfect size for Tulane. Keeps demand in good times but seats enough in Okay. Bad times need to go away
(06-20-2013 06:07 PM)JDTulane Wrote: I'm fine with 40k seating being an end game with 45k capacity. I think that is the perfect size for Tulane. Keeps demand in good times but seats enough in Okay. Bad times need to go away
Sure. I also think you would have to admit we are probably years away from making that a viable fit for us, based on actual attendance at games. Vandy's stadium, in the SEC, with an almost identical enrollment profile, has a listed "capacity" of 39k, FWIW.
As I said, I think the idea that you cannot get a P5 program to visit you in a 30k stadium is laughable and a total fiction from the HateTula.net trolls (really a great website thats been ruined by three bitter clowns who are so narcissistic they make Justin Beiber look like St. Francis). These schools care more about the destination than the stadium size. We aren't Monroe or Arky State. SMU has had no issues getting home dates against the Big 12, SEC, and PAC 12. That is the model for Tulane right now. Crawl, then walk, then run. With a capital outlay entirely based on donations, TU will probably increase it's athletic budget by $3-4m a year just by having the stadium, even with no increase in ticket sales, due to suite licenses, advertising revenue, concessions, parking, hospitality fees, etc.
This is a no brainer. If someone gave you money for a house, owned free and clear, would you take it? Or would you keep paying paying rent in your current house because it had 2 extra bedrooms that you weren't using anyway? From a long term stability and growth perspective, this isn't even a debate, as far as I'm concerned. The rest is all ego.
(This post was last modified: 06-20-2013 06:44 PM by OUGwave.)
(06-20-2013 09:23 PM)JDTulane Wrote: We're 10 years of winning away from 40k attendance and after 5 years of winning I don't doubt they'd expand to meet that.
It depends on what level of winning, but I disagree. I think your Boise State Broncos have won considerably, and mostly only "sell out" (as in actual people, not reported figures) their 37k "capacity" stadium for the biggest opponents, right? I mean, there are games when clearly they could get another 5k in there, so its not just the size of the stadium limiting them from 40k actual bodies. Now, I realize Boise is smaller than New Orleans, but they've also had considerable winning and don't have LSU 90 minutes away and pro football.
I would say that if we average 8 wins a year (that would be some years of 6-7 wins and some years of 10) for 10 years, we could *maybe* get to the point where we have 35k warm bodies in seats (bear in mind that apart from the SEC, I think most schools wildly inflate their attendance numbers with tickets distributed/sold numbers. So when you see a school reporting 38k, its just as likely to be 26k, when USM reports 25k in a winless season, I'm betting its a half full stadium of maybe 16k).
I took a look through the transcript of the stadium forum for last September, and they are on the record as saying that there is an expansion possibility of a 6k deck on the homeside, which would bring us to 31k physical seats -- which, in addition to the SRO party decks and additional SRO seats would push capacity to 36k. I could see Tulane expanding to 36k capacity within 5-6 years of opening if there is sustained winning or a bigger conference asks us to. I don't actually think, knowing the size of our school, they would demand more than that. And I also think that Tulane has likley discussed this with both the conferences that we aspire to membership in.
I don't want to be argumentative about it, I just think people are making some really flawed assumptions about attendance when they suggest Tulane needed to build a 40k capacity stadium.
(05-30-2013 05:42 PM)JDTulane Wrote: wish it was 35k 40k sro but we can get there. alas thats all i have to say on it until its built. roll wave
-------Just wondering/hoping that when UL Cajuns play there that the game will be in the Dome----If the Cajuns bring 45K like the No Bowl and Tulane brings 2K---that amount won't fit in the new stadium---Btw Cajun Field will be at least 45K capacity at that time!!! Guys I am only kidding and hope we can pack a larger venue than the new stadium!!! Think that would be a win win!!!
(This post was last modified: 06-21-2013 08:13 PM by exflash.)
(06-21-2013 08:21 PM)PirateTreasureNC Wrote: I swear every time I read Yulman I think Yutani Corp from the Alien movies.
-------thought that the ECU fans were great at the NO Bowl---Young and old it is such a relief getting away from the LSU stuff----OH and Same about the Tulane fans that came to Lafayette ---- In fact in the last few years playing at S Miss and Houston along with baseball at Rice have been nice trips!!!
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