(07-10-2015 09:43 PM)Zipfanatik Wrote:  

(07-10-2015 07:56 PM)The Flash Wrote:  Hmmm, maybe they shouldn't have built that giant albatross of a stadium with 30K+ plus seats that sit empty. Proenza's ego is going to bite them for years...

We could have built it bigger if the damn baseball field wasn't in the way.

(07-10-2015 07:56 PM)The Flash Wrote:  Hmmm, maybe they shouldn't have built that giant albatross of a stadium with 30K+ plus seats that sit empty. Proenza's ego is going to bite them for years...

I don't think that Akron's attendance at the Rubber Bowl in the years following their MAC championship was bad for being a dump so far away from campus, so building a big (for MAC standards) stadium wasn't completely illogical in the planning stages. No one could've foreseen how badly Ianello would've screwed up the team, and when you're raising a bunch of money all at once to go 'all in' on a new facility, it's hard to think small and keep things realistic with regards to sizing.

Nevertheless, I tend to agree with your conclusions. Akron would've been best off if when they were building Infocision to either shrink down the upper deck of the non-press box sideline or eliminate it altogether, giving them a capacity in the lower 20's and allowing them to use the savings to increase funding for their football or other sports programs. If they ever needed to expand in that scenario, they could've just laid down some concrete and added seats to the grass knoll.

(07-11-2015 01:32 PM)Love and Honor Wrote:  

(07-10-2015 07:56 PM)The Flash Wrote:  Hmmm, maybe they shouldn't have built that giant albatross of a stadium with 30K+ plus seats that sit empty. Proenza's ego is going to bite them for years...

I don't think that Akron's attendance at the Rubber Bowl in the years following their MAC championship was bad for being a dump so far away from campus, so building a big (for MAC standards) stadium wasn't completely illogical in the planning stages. No one could've foreseen how badly Ianello would've screwed up the team, and when you're raising a bunch of money all at once to go 'all in' on a new facility, it's hard to think small and keep things realistic with regards to sizing.

Nevertheless, I tend to agree with you. Akron would've been best off if they had either shrunk down the upper deck of the non-press box sideline or eliminated it altogether, giving them a capacity in the lower 20's and allowing them to use the savings to increase funding for their football or other sports programs. If they ever needed to expand in that scenario, they could've just laid down some concrete and added seats to the grass knoll.

Akron really did not have a choice. The Rubber Bowl was essentially unusable anymore. They had to one of these three options.

1. build a new stadium

2. Fix the rubber bowl (from what I understand this option was more expensive than building their new stadium).

3. Drop football and the MAC altogether.


Option 3 was right out in the administrators minds. Option 2 was more expensive overall which is why they decided to build a new stadium. Now you can talk about the exact nature of the stadium but honestly making it even smaller would probably not change the price tag enough to make much of a difference. Also while it looks nice Akron's stadium is not one of the more expensive types so I don't think they did a bad job in that regard considering their situation assuming they were dedicated to keeping football.

(07-11-2015 01:42 PM)Sultan of Euphonistan Wrote:  Akron really did not have a choice. The Rubber Bowl was essentially unusable anymore. They had to one of these three options.

1. build a new stadium

2. Fix the rubber bowl (from what I understand this option was more expensive than building their new stadium).

3. Drop football and the MAC altogether.


Option 3 was right out in the administrators minds. Option 2 was more expensive overall which is why they decided to build a new stadium. Now you can talk about the exact nature of the stadium but honestly making it even smaller would probably not change the price tag enough to make much of a difference. Also while it looks nice Akron's stadium is not one of the more expensive types so I don't think they did a bad job in that regard considering their situation assuming they were dedicated to keeping football.

I was unclear in my post above, I was referring to shrinking or eliminating the upper deck of Infocision. Yeah, the Rubber Bowl was a dump and they needed to get out, but they could've scaled back the new stadium if they were realistic and knew that the odds of Akron drawing such big crowds for extended periods of time were relatively unlikely.

(07-10-2015 09:02 PM)The Flash Wrote:  At crAkron, yes. They needed a new stadium, but not one that seats 30K. That was all Proenza "thinking big" without the budget or rationale. This is the same guy that had Super Bowl ads featuring himself. You tell me...

Hold it Flash!

The Stadium seats 27k(you are adding the Grass seats, which are 3k max) to get to 30k

You know as well as I do that the Rubber Bowl was one of the worst in College Football and a new Stadium was needed(FYI, Dix Stadium is not that great.).

Dr. Proenza at the time was the face of the University, we had to sell that because that is all we had at the time(and the ads was local, not National unless someone tells me otherwise).

The Stadium size was needed because, IMHO, was bait to go to another Conference and to capture High School games/Playoffs(Big Business here in the area).

(07-11-2015 07:10 PM)lance99 Wrote:  

(07-10-2015 09:02 PM)The Flash Wrote:  At crAkron, yes. They needed a new stadium, but not one that seats 30K. That was all Proenza "thinking big" without the budget or rationale. This is the same guy that had Super Bowl ads featuring himself. You tell me...

Hold it Flash!

The Stadium seats 27k(you are adding the Grass seats, which are 3k max) to get to 30k

You know as well as I do that the Rubber Bowl was one of the worst in College Football and a new Stadium was needed(FYI, Dix Stadium is not that great.).

Dr. Proenza at the time was the face of the University, we had to sell that because that is all we had at the time(and the ads was local, not National unless someone tells me otherwise).

The Stadium size was needed because, IMHO, was bait to go to another Conference and to capture High School games/Playoffs(Big Business here in the area).

That being said. You're paying for it now... How'd that work out.

Never said Dix was great. It's not, but at least Kent lives within its means.

I guess they don't teach basic economics at a "polytechnical" university... lol

(07-11-2015 08:34 PM)The Flash Wrote:  That being said. You're paying for it now... How'd that work out.

Never said Dix was great. It's not, but at least Kent lives within its means.

I guess they don't teach basic economics at a "polytechnical" university... lol

Akron had to pay the price to stay FBS and you know it.

Keep in mind that Kent State never had a sellout until they reduced the seating number to 25k(or even lower), even when they were crazy good in the early/mid 1970's, they could not sellout. It took you guys to have a huge campaign to have a hard 90k attendance for a season and the Akron game to even pull off your first sellout. That is fact!

Kent lives within their means? This President of yours tried to destroy you guys in everything other than Basketball and Baseball. Also fact!

Sounds like more than a few MAC schools are struggling financially....in athletics and as a whole.

How much less would it have been to build a stadium a little smaller? Would the maintenance costs be any less? I don't think it would have helped much to build a stadium for 24K. 27K is hardly out of line, IMO.

(07-12-2015 08:49 AM)NIU007 Wrote:  How much less would it have been to build a stadium a little smaller? Would the maintenance costs be any less? I don't think it would have helped much to build a stadium for 24K. 27K is hardly out of line, IMO.

This is an excellent point.

Slicing the capacity of a stadium 30% does not lower the price tag 30%. I think Infocision Stadium cast the zips about 65 million. I suspect if you scale the stadium down to 24K (20% capacity decrease) you might shave a 10-12% off.

If I had to put up one complaint about what Akron did with that stadium it would be they did not make the field big enough for other sports like soccer (or so I've been told).

(07-10-2015 02:43 PM)HuskieJohn Wrote:  Hustle Belt says baseball is not required by the MAC. So there you go.

Why do we all have baseball? To be D1 you need 16 sports. I know NIU has 17-18 depending on if you count indoor/outdoor women's track as 1 or 2 sports.

There are cheaper sports to operate than baseball for purposes of fulfilling the D1 requirement. The reason we all have (had) baseball is because it was required by the MAC. If the MAC did remove the baseball requirement, it seems to have been done very secretly. There is no mention on the mac-sports.com website (that I could find) and nobody is able to provide proof that this was done and when. I'm sure the Zips didn't want to become homeless; dropping their baseball program seems to be the best evidence that the MAC no longer requires it.

(07-12-2015 10:24 AM)Bull_In_Exile Wrote:  

(07-12-2015 08:49 AM)NIU007 Wrote:  How much less would it have been to build a stadium a little smaller? Would the maintenance costs be any less? I don't think it would have helped much to build a stadium for 24K. 27K is hardly out of line, IMO.

This is an excellent point.

Slicing the capacity of a stadium 30% does not lower the price tag 30%. I think Infocision Stadium cast the zips about 65 million. I suspect if you scale the stadium down to 24K (20% capacity decrease) you might shave a 10-12% off.

If I had to put up one complaint about what Akron did with that stadium it would be they did not make the field big enough for other sports like soccer (or so I've been told).

I have been saying that from the start it was either no football or a new stadium and they were not going to save much by going much smaller. 27K is not a large stadium and is well within MAC size.

As for soccer I think they may have built or were going to build their new soccer stadium already so that may not have been needed at that point.

(07-10-2015 02:43 PM)HuskieJohn Wrote:  Hustle Belt says baseball is not required by the MAC. So there you go.

Why do we all have baseball? To be D1 you need 16 sports. I know NIU has 17-18 depending on if you count indoor/outdoor women's track as 1 or 2 sports.

The decision was that having common team sports for M&W in all three seasons was a strategic benefit.

A couple of years ago, there was a rumor that Akron wanted to start hockey. Then thought was that hockey would only be possible if baseball or another men's sport was dropped. Perhaps this is the first of many announcements.

The possible forming of a new hockey conference is out there. Could Akron want to be part of it?

New CCHA

BGSU
Akron* - new team
Buffalo* - new team
Mercyhurst
ROBERT Morris
Niagara
Canisius
RIT

Hockey can actually make money, while baseball in the Midwest cannot.

The issue though would be where to play?

Will Buffalo be next to drop baseball?

Lacrosse would happen long before Hockey. Akron doesn't have anywhere for a hockey team to play.

(07-15-2015 09:01 PM)NoDak Wrote:  Will Buffalo be next to drop baseball?

That's what I'm thinking. Or maybe EMU.

(07-15-2015 09:09 PM)uakronkid Wrote:  Lacrosse would happen long before Hockey. Akron doesn't have anywhere for a hockey team to play.

Isn't the JAR being remodeled? Too bad the events center in downtown Akron was canned.

Lax makes more sense if there's not an arena. Be like Cleveland St and attract wealthy east coaster kids.

Akron should not be adding to their financial woes right now. No sport is going to fix Akron's p[problems and right now could only hurt them.

(07-15-2015 09:37 PM)Sultan of Euphonistan Wrote:  Akron should not be adding to their financial woes right now. No sport is going to fix Akron's p[problems and right now could only hurt them.

Cleveland State dropped Wrestling and Baseball (Wrestling was later saved) in order to start a Lacrosse program. Why? Because Lacrosse is rapidly becoming the sport of choice for rich suburban kids, who bring the support of their rich suburban parents.

Not saying it's going to happen at Akron. But it makes more sense if you're struggling financially and looking for donors or a self-supporting program compared to keeping a sport that's nothing but a relic of decades past like Baseball.

(07-15-2015 09:01 PM)NoDak Wrote:  A couple of years ago, there was a rumor that Akron wanted to start hockey. Then thought was that hockey would only be possible if baseball or another men's sport was dropped. Perhaps this is the first of many announcements.

The possible forming of a new hockey conference is out there. Could Akron want to be part of it?

New CCHA

BGSU
Akron* - new team
Buffalo* - new team
Mercyhurst
ROBERT Morris
Niagara
Canisius
RIT

That isn't the new CCHA, that's Atlantic Hockey plus BG and some startups. I can't see a real, new CCHA (with Miami, WMU, BG, and ND as base members) ever happening because Miami and WMU will not move down from the NCHC for a conference full of startups and unspectacular programs (even if it does mean better geography). The only way anything like that could've happened is if OU and Kent State maintained DI programs, became successful, and came together again with the help of some new programs. But in that case the CCHA probably wouldn't have fallen apart.