(01-06-2022 01:57 PM)OKIcat Wrote: Seems to me the only possibility will be adding another tier of seating and luxury boxes on the east side. That also makes sense in terms of the available footprint for increased traffic flow. The west side is completely landlocked. I can live with the narrow concourses and portable restrooms six or seven Saturdays a year on that side of the stadium given the quality of experience we enjoy with passionate fans and exciting teams.
Having said that, Cunningham makes it clear we shouldn't rush into anything based upon 2021. A coach moves on, we experience a couple of four win seasons against what suddenly seems to be daunting competition in the Big 12, and demand for seats goes the wrong direction. He's a pretty thoughtful leader.
I think you can also add one section of upper-tier general seating on the left of Dieterle and another section or two of box seating to the right of it without crowding the building/blocking out too much natural light to the building. That, along with adding the luxury boxes/suites on the east side as you mentioned is probably about the max that can be done without major restructuring. Maybe fill in the corners somehow on the open end of the "horseshoe" (sorry, I'm bad with directions).
But any addition or more than 2,000 seats or so has to come with some sort of improvements in terms of flow, restrooms, amenities, parking, etc. As another poster said in the thread, 45k is probably about the max in terms of a sweet spot without making it too crowded or undertaking a prohibitively expensive engineering project. Nearly all stadium renovations in college football in the future will involve decreasing seats in favor of more luxury seating, amenities, and comfort save for programs like ours that are on the rise.
I could envision a point in time in the next 20 years where a P5 program with an aging 70,000-seat stadium replaces it with a really nice 50,000-seat stadium. I hear on Columbus radio all the time about how Ohio Stadium is badly in need of renovation and is now too big for current demand (they only drew 76k for the Akron game this season). At some point, you'll see them decrease capacity to somewhere in the 80,000-90,000 range. Others will do the same. 45,000 used to be perceived as small-time, but that won't be the case much longer. The newest P5 stadiums, 3 of which are in the new Big 12, are:
TDECU Stadium (Houston) - 40,000
McLane Stadium (Baylor) - 45,140
Huntington Bank Stadium (Minnesota) - 50,805
Bounce House (UCF) - 44,206
I can't envision any need to ever expand beyond 50k, and 45k is probably the sweet spot.
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John Cunningham Interview W/ Ch 9
