UTSA breaks ground on Park West Fieldhouse



https://www.utsa.edu/today/2022/07/story...house.html

But thats not the exciting thing... the exciting news are regarding a new baseball stadium and a new basketball/volleyball arena.

(07-28-2022 12:10 PM)UTSAMarineVet09 Wrote:  UTSA breaks ground on Park West Fieldhouse



https://www.utsa.edu/today/2022/07/story...house.html

But thats not the exciting thing... the exciting news are regarding a new baseball stadium and a new basketball/volleyball arena.

It's encouraging to see UTSA pursuing multiple facilities. Especially ln light of the athletic facilities war across the USA campuses. One question. Why does UTSA have such difficult fundraising? The football facility not only did not include an IPF but didn't even have the funds to place a roof over a practice field. That roof costs little to nothing. Same for baseball/softball stadiums. Both are low-cost projects when it comes to facilities, yet UTSA must partner with community organizations to raise the funds and still struggles. It's a bit surprising considering the size of the enrollment and alumni base. Granted, SA does not have a significant number of corporate offices but one would assume UTSA has a number of successful alumni in the area that can assist. Not meant to be a critical post, just curious and seeking information.

Happy to see UTSA investing in facilities! Going forward, we need UTSA to be a major factor.

As large a university as UTSA is, located in a large city like San Antonio, I just don't think they should have a problem getting donations and commitments from large corporations and individual "deep pocket" donors.

Congrats much needed with the baseball stadium. Seems like an upgrade to the existing stadiums grandstand (which I assume is on campus) would be the best solution.

So is the basketball arena itself getting any improvements?

(07-28-2022 01:08 PM)The WEST is the BEST Wrote:  

(07-28-2022 12:10 PM)UTSAMarineVet09 Wrote:  UTSA breaks ground on Park West Fieldhouse



https://www.utsa.edu/today/2022/07/story...house.html

But thats not the exciting thing... the exciting news are regarding a new baseball stadium and a new basketball/volleyball arena.

It's encouraging to see UTSA pursuing multiple facilities. Especially ln light of the athletic facilities war across the USA campuses. One question. Why does UTSA have such difficult fundraising? The football facility not only did not include an IPF but didn't even have the funds to place a roof over a practice field. That roof costs little to nothing. Same for baseball/softball stadiums. Both are low-cost projects when it comes to facilities, yet UTSA must partner with community organizations to raise the funds and still struggles. It's a bit surprising considering the size of the enrollment and alumni base. Granted, SA does not have a significant number of corporate offices but one would assume UTSA has a number of successful alumni in the area that can assist. Not meant to be a critical post, just curious and seeking information.

I think there are a lot of different factors at play. UTSA is only 53 years old, the school did not sponsor athletics until 1981, so our athletic department is only 41 years old. So we dont have the old money that a lot of the older universities in Texas have. We only have about 145k alumni.

San Antonio, while being the 24th largest metro in the country, is #182 in the country in per capita income. San Antonio only has 3 fortune 500 companies. Compared that to Houston that has 24 and Dallas-Fort Worth has 23.

Another reason would be that our previous administration did not want to take out loans to build our facilities. The previous President and AD didnt think that a university our age should be taking out loans to improve facilities, so they just tried to focus on fundraising.

(07-28-2022 03:31 PM)UTSAMarineVet09 Wrote:  

(07-28-2022 01:08 PM)The WEST is the BEST Wrote:  

(07-28-2022 12:10 PM)UTSAMarineVet09 Wrote:  UTSA breaks ground on Park West Fieldhouse



https://www.utsa.edu/today/2022/07/story...house.html

But thats not the exciting thing... the exciting news are regarding a new baseball stadium and a new basketball/volleyball arena.

It's encouraging to see UTSA pursuing multiple facilities. Especially ln light of the athletic facilities war across the USA campuses. One question. Why does UTSA have such difficult fundraising? The football facility not only did not include an IPF but didn't even have the funds to place a roof over a practice field. That roof costs little to nothing. Same for baseball/softball stadiums. Both are low-cost projects when it comes to facilities, yet UTSA must partner with community organizations to raise the funds and still struggles. It's a bit surprising considering the size of the enrollment and alumni base. Granted, SA does not have a significant number of corporate offices but one would assume UTSA has a number of successful alumni in the area that can assist. Not meant to be a critical post, just curious and seeking information.

I think there are a lot of different factors at play. UTSA is only 53 years old, the school did not sponsor athletics until 1981, so our athletic department is only 41 years old. So we dont have the old money that a lot of the older universities in Texas have. We only have about 145k alumni.

San Antonio, while being the 24th largest metro in the country, is #182 in the country in per capita income. San Antonio only has 3 fortune 500 companies. Compared that to Houston that has 24 and Dallas-Fort Worth has 23.

Another reason would be that our previous administration did not want to take out loans to build our facilities. The previous President and AD didnt think that a university our age should be taking out loans to improve facilities, so they just tried to focus on fundraising.

UCF didn’t start until 1976, and we built our IPF in 2005 and our stadium in 2007.

(07-28-2022 04:02 PM)BraveKnight Wrote:  

(07-28-2022 03:31 PM)UTSAMarineVet09 Wrote:  I think there are a lot of different factors at play. UTSA is only 53 years old, the school did not sponsor athletics until 1981, so our athletic department is only 41 years old. So we dont have the old money that a lot of the older universities in Texas have. We only have about 145k alumni.

San Antonio, while being the 24th largest metro in the country, is #182 in the country in per capita income. San Antonio only has 3 fortune 500 companies. Compared that to Houston that has 24 and Dallas-Fort Worth has 23.

Another reason would be that our previous administration did not want to take out loans to build our facilities. The previous President and AD didnt think that a university our age should be taking out loans to improve facilities, so they just tried to focus on fundraising.

UCF didn’t start until 1976, and we built our IPF in 2005 and our stadium in 2007.

Didn't UCF already have basketball in 1969? And I think that UCF has had football since 1979. Football is the cash cow for collegiate athletics, and while you've had a football program for over 40 years now, we're only entering year twelve.

UCF also has over 70,000 students (CRAZY number!). That's a lot more money flowing in with an enrollment that large. Plus, I think your university was also founded as a space-grant school to support the growing space program at Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral, so we're talking even more big money there; pretty grandiose beginnings.

UTSA's story of origin is far more humble, so aside from what UTSAMarineVet09 shared, that's another reason it has taken us longer to build athletic facilities. When we finally started our football program, the original plan was to compete as an FCS for 5 years before looking at moving up. But literally after our first year as an FCS, the WAC came calling, and we found ourselves in FBS in year 2 of our program. Then C-USA came calling, and we were suddenly in C-USA in year 3 of our football program.

We already had basketball, baseball, and various other sports at the time. And there were rumblings prior to starting football about possible facility upgrades. When we committed to starting football though, that all went by the wayside. Competing at the FBS level in just our second year of football forced us to scramble to build up our football program quickly. Our other facilities (like baseball, softball, basketball) continued to struggle in the meantime. Now that we've gotten our football program on a decent forward trajectory, we're turning our focus back to some of our other facilities, and I'm hoping we'll see some positive developments soon because we can really use 'em.

Awesome UTSA! So many posters have been complaining about the 6 additions... but I've been confident all along that each would invest big and rapidly rise to being solid P6 programs. Rice and UNCC with stadium expansions or renovations. UNT, UAB. This conference is going to be just fine in a few years. Looking forward to the new rivalries.

While I'm not a UTSA fan, I am happy to see another future AAC program step up and invest in their athletics. That will be good for all of us.

So happy for the Roadrunners. Proud Texan in Alabama. Proud to be in a league with them.

clt says this sounds like uab, getting taxpayer money.

u don't use ur money,
spend somebody's else money

(07-29-2022 05:37 AM)templefootballfan Wrote:  u don't use ur money,
spend somebody's else money

I’d gladly take public funds for a public institution like Memphis without hesitation in today’s environment. Unfortunately for Tiger first fans, the Griz have first priority at the trough.

The most important takeaway positively impacting us all is UTSA’s investment in their athletic program.

We used private funds for our upgrades. Stadium was a public / private partnership. We went out and raised it. UTSA will be able to do the same in a city like SA.

Tiger 1983 hit the nail on the head.

(07-28-2022 07:39 PM)ghostofclt! Wrote:  clt says this sounds like uab, getting taxpayer money.

Fiscally, UAB could of gone it alone and did on all projects except the football stadium. With the stadium, the politics of leaving Birmingham out would have been a hurdle. They wanted in on it more than UAB needed them in on it. Birmingham has already hosted the AL state football championships, a bowl game, the USFL, the World Games, and Garth Brooks in a stadium that UAB, it’s donors and sponsors payed the majority of. Any public funds used were so the city could have access to our stadium.

(07-28-2022 04:52 PM)Volkmar Wrote:  

(07-28-2022 04:02 PM)BraveKnight Wrote:  

(07-28-2022 03:31 PM)UTSAMarineVet09 Wrote:  I think there are a lot of different factors at play. UTSA is only 53 years old, the school did not sponsor athletics until 1981, so our athletic department is only 41 years old. So we dont have the old money that a lot of the older universities in Texas have. We only have about 145k alumni.

San Antonio, while being the 24th largest metro in the country, is #182 in the country in per capita income. San Antonio only has 3 fortune 500 companies. Compared that to Houston that has 24 and Dallas-Fort Worth has 23.

Another reason would be that our previous administration did not want to take out loans to build our facilities. The previous President and AD didnt think that a university our age should be taking out loans to improve facilities, so they just tried to focus on fundraising.

UCF didn’t start until 1976, and we built our IPF in 2005 and our stadium in 2007.

Didn't UCF already have basketball in 1969? And I think that UCF has had football since 1979. Football is the cash cow for collegiate athletics, and while you've had a football program for over 40 years now, we're only entering year twelve.

UCF also has over 70,000 students (CRAZY number!). That's a lot more money flowing in with an enrollment that large. Plus, I think your university was also founded as a space-grant school to support the growing space program at Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral, so we're talking even more big money there; pretty grandiose beginnings.

UTSA's story of origin is far more humble, so aside from what UTSAMarineVet09 shared, that's another reason it has taken us longer to build athletic facilities. When we finally started our football program, the original plan was to compete as an FCS for 5 years before looking at moving up. But literally after our first year as an FCS, the WAC came calling, and we found ourselves in FBS in year 2 of our program. Then C-USA came calling, and we were suddenly in C-USA in year 3 of our football program.

We already had basketball, baseball, and various other sports at the time. And there were rumblings prior to starting football about possible facility upgrades. When we committed to starting football though, that all went by the wayside. Competing at the FBS level in just our second year of football forced us to scramble to build up our football program quickly. Our other facilities (like baseball, softball, basketball) continued to struggle in the meantime. Now that we've gotten our football program on a decent forward trajectory, we're turning our focus back to some of our other facilities, and I'm hoping we'll see some positive developments soon because we can really use 'em.

Yes...UCF Basketball started out in Div III in the 2nd year after UCF opened (then FTU), which was the 1969-1970 season. UCF Hoops moved up to Div II in 1975 and then joined Div I as an Independent in 1985.

UCF Football became the first team to win a BCS or NYD6 Game that played in every main NCAA division (1979: Div III, 1982: Div II, 1990: Div I-AA, 1996: Div I-A.

That looks nice! UTSA is one of my favorite additions. Looking forward to seeing what yall can do.