(11-01-2013 09:39 AM)adcorbett Wrote:  

(10-31-2013 02:58 PM)panama Wrote:  

(10-31-2013 11:13 AM)adcorbett Wrote:  

(10-31-2013 05:56 AM)panama Wrote:  Ultimately for most schools it's no different than spending $60m or $80m on an academic building.

This part is true, although that is not a "normal" expenditure for an academic building. My point was when you compare the annual cost of an on-campus stadium vs. renting someone else's, you cannot conveniently forget that you also had to invest $50-$100 million upfront in said stadium when doing a cost analysis. .

I am sorry but how is that different from our business or law school buildings?

How is it different? Well for one, they typically don't cost near that much. Comparing $50 million - $100 million investment to one 5/10% as much. We really want to go there? Yes there are some much larger schools that may build a $50 million academic building, which is usually more than just that anyway, but also is not a direct comparison because in most cases, they are not being built to replace an available equivalent within their city that their students could also have access too. But more importantly, the schools that are building new academic centers of that magnitude, are generally not the schools in the predicament who want an OCS but can't afford one.

(11-01-2013 05:45 AM)KnightLight Wrote:  The #1 and #2 largest University type events for most schools that helps bring DONATING Alumni (plus Univ Sponsors) to campus are College Football Games and College Basketball games.

Not lectures...not orchestra concerts...not theater events....its ON-CAMPUS COLLEGE FOOTBALL and ON-CAMPUS COLLEGE BASKETBALL (for most Univ).

That's just another reason why most Univ choose to have their facilities ON their campuses and usually fund them on their own...as it brings pocketbooks BACK to campus...that helps open up hundreds of millions of $$$$ in future donations.

That is a different argument. That is a positive you put on the other side, but not something that wipes it out all together. And that is also making a bold, and often faulty assumption, that the same people who go to games who then take the extra time to go back to and around campus, are not the same ones who would do so if the stadium was not on campus. A very shaky assumption. But one that is worth considering. But that changes not a word I said. That would just be another part of the cost value component.

Note that I never said an OCS is bad, or that off campus is better. I said you CANNOT discount the funds invested at the beginning in the cost value analysis, and only compare the upkeep and bond payments yearly to the cost of renting a stadium. You cannot forget the 8 or 9 figure upfront fee when comparing these two.

And this is where its situational. We are un Downtown Atlanta. Most of our original campus is converted or retrofitted business space downtown. Our new Law building will cost right at $80M. So in our case moving to stadium on campus would be no different than other department infrastructure moves over the last 100 years.