(01-18-2013 10:32 AM)BrianNowicki Wrote:  

(01-18-2013 10:13 AM)exCincy Kid Wrote:  I mentioned this in my earlier comments but the NCAA never mandated a 30K seat stadium as a DIA requirement.

That may be, but I'm pretty sure the MAC instituted a mandate that said a certain percentage of their schools had to have at least a 30K seat stadium......not everyone, just a percentage.

Also, the NCAA did de-classify most, if not all of the MAC to I-AA for one year.....think it was 1982. I honestly cannot remember what bylaw they used to do this, and I believe most MAC schools refused to recognize the de-classification. Do you remember the details surrounding that one eCK?

Not paying their athletes the Division I-A going rate.

The new facilities will help with recruiting. If you've ever been inside the old field house at McGuirk you would be shocked that it wasn't a high school.

I'm excited for more improvements in the future. New bathrooms and concessions need to be built under the stands, and the gates around the stadium need to be renovated. They also need a new paint job on all of the concrete.

The "old school" feel can be nice, but we do need to rejuvenate the place a little bit.

I also agree that we should never add more than 25,000 seats. The atmosphere of a small stadium is something you can not replicate (ask Red Sox fans).

I am very excited for work to begin on the new facility and think it will go a long toward showing the school's commitment to football. Idealy Umass would be building a brand new 25k on campus stadium, however that will probably never happen(unless Jack Welch steps up). So, we'll have to make due with our 17k seat stadium for a weeknight game and maybe homecoming and make the best of the Gillette situation for the rest of the games.

Brian,
Your memory is very good..yes, in 1982 the MAC was classified IAA for one year. The conference and our membership did not recognize the designation, and the MAC refused to participate in the DIAA playoffs (even though a number of MAC teams were ranked in that classification that year). What I can't remember is the pretense that the NCAA used to do so. The MAC still acts like it never really happened.

(01-18-2013 01:40 PM)exCincy Kid Wrote:  Brian,
Your memory is very good..yes, in 1982 the MAC was classified IAA for one year. The conference nad our membership did not recognize the designation, and the MAC refused to participate in the DIA playoffs (even though a number of MAC teams were ranked in that classification that year). What I can't remember is the pretense that the NCAA used to do so. The MAC still acts like it never really happened.

The NCAA put in place more stringent guidelines based on stadium size and attendance. Only Toledo and CMU met the criteria.

BocaRocket: When we discuss MAC facilities today the younger among us would be very surprised to see how far the conference has come since the late 70's/early 80's. Until some stadium improvements were made later, stadiums like Ball State and EMU literallly had 10-15 rows of wooden bleachers on the away side of the stadiums. I am pretty sure that when my brother was at BSU in the early 80's they had just 10 rows on the away side. The then stadium capacities for Miami and CMU were 14,900, and 20,000, respectively. There were no stadium suites or impressive workout centers such as you see today, either. I think Peden just seated around 20K as well then, maybe less.

(01-17-2013 08:28 PM)exCincy Kid Wrote:  What MAC requirement for stadium capacity? I'm not aware of any such rule, and in fact many MAC schools (like Miami) have actually down-sized (or should I say "right-sized") their stadiums in recent years now that having 30K seats is meaningless. Most here will recall that during one phase of the NCAA trying to impose DIA attendance requirements you had to average 17K per year or 17K once every four years if you had a 30K capacity stadium. That rule is long gone.

The MAC doesn't have a requirement for stadium capacity but at a benchmark the average on campus stadium size in the MAC currently is 26,500.

If you asked me I would say a 25,000 seater is a MAC level stadium. The standard for "Big Time" is 60,000 seats. The Big East did require 40,000 (Big Time standard 25-30 years ago) seats to be part of that conference but they are no longer holding to that.

(01-18-2013 10:31 AM)Boca Rocket Wrote:  

(01-18-2013 09:04 AM)onlinepole Wrote:  

(01-18-2013 12:49 AM)UofToledoFans Wrote:  I like the UMASS draw ups. It looks nice, the stadium will always look full, and it will probably be rowdy! It reminds me of Buffalo, only Buffalo has huge bleachers in the endzones that no one sits in. If only EMU could downsize a little bit. Rynearson is cool, but a high school stadium would suffice for them as of late.

What MAC program is filling up it's stadium at this point or averaging 75% of capacity. When NIU had endzone bleachers the seating capacity was at or near 30K but hardly anyone sat in them. Present seating is 24K and top attendance this year was 18-19K. Rynearson would look fuller if visiting MAC fans showed up to the games also. If NIU ever got a date other than the Friday after Tday, I'd make the trip.

Toledo was at 84.5% of capacity in 2011 and 78.3% in 2012(I'm sure OU was above 75%). BGSUX@UT drew 28,115 this season to the GB. Toledo also had 24,124 for UCinn Bearcats. Coastal Carolina(4th game of the season} was attended as well or better than any of the other MAC schools on the Rocket home schedule(Late season game with Akron was an attendance killer-14,589. Otherwise attendance would have been about 83% capacity vs 78.3%). Besides BGSUX, opponents that historically draw well in the GB are OU and Miami U. Average FBS home attendance is around 45,000-46,000 and FCS is about 9,000-10,000.

Ohio was at 91% capacity in 2012 (over 100% capacity in 2 games).

Found an interesting link from the Jim Grobe years at OU to a Peden expansion that has never happened, didn't know that was on deck.

http://www.ohio.edu/ohiotoday/winter00/d...peden.html

(01-18-2013 10:32 AM)BrianNowicki Wrote:  

(01-18-2013 10:13 AM)exCincy Kid Wrote:  I mentioned this in my earlier comments but the NCAA never mandated a 30K seat stadium as a DIA requirement.

That may be, but I'm pretty sure the MAC instituted a mandate that said a certain percentage of their schools had to have at least a 30K seat stadium......not everyone, just a percentage.

Also, the NCAA did de-classify most, if not all of the MAC to I-AA for one year.....think it was 1982. I honestly cannot remember what bylaw they used to do this, and I believe most MAC schools refused to recognize the de-classification. Do you remember the details surrounding that one eCK?

There was a lot of politics involved with the declassification when it happened. Most schools declassified to 1-AA however were perfectly comfortable with decision.

The MAC and Big West were reclassified as 1-A for a few different reasons.

1) There was a split among the major conferences between those that place a value on the traditional NCAA negotiated TV agreements (B1G and PAC) and other conferences like the SWC and SEC (the CFA) that were fighting for more control (leading to the Oklahoma vs. NCAA decision in 1984) of TV rights and also fighting scholarship reductions and academic reform.

The B1G and PAC to help fortify their voting positions supported the reinstatement of the MAC and Big West.

2) For geographical reasons there was a sense at the top level of college football that their should be at least 2 Division 1-A conferences within the Midwest.

East: ACC/Eastern Independents
South: SEC/Southern Independents
Midwest: B1G/MAC
Central: SWC/WAC
Pacific: PAC/Big West

There was some number balancing that was going on here and keep in mind the MAC at the time only had 10 schools in it.

Southern Indy (9): Va Tech, South Carolina, Miami, Florida State, Southern Miss, Tulane, Memphis, Louisville, Cincinnati

Eastern Indy (10): Penn State, Pitt, West Virginia, Syracuse, Army, Boston College, Rutgers, Temple, Navy, East Carolina

For a nice 100 team top division it made a lot of sense to keep the MAC in the picture.

3) The performance of the MAC from 1968-1975 just a few years before the reclassification was excellent at the national level.

The attendances and facilities may not have been there at the top level with the MAC but they out performed the ACC over that time period on the football field.

(01-18-2013 07:07 AM)Miami (Oh) Yeah ! Wrote:  

(01-18-2013 05:13 AM)emu steve Wrote:  

(01-18-2013 12:49 AM)UofToledoFans Wrote:  I like the UMASS draw ups. It looks nice, the stadium will always look full, and it will probably be rowdy! It reminds me of Buffalo, only Buffalo has huge bleachers in the endzones that no one sits in. If only EMU could downsize a little bit. Rynearson is cool, but a high school stadium would suffice for them as of late.

I think we all know how Rynearson grew to 30K (NCAA mandated it over 20 years ago).

I wish EMU would block out sections in both Rynearson and even the banner end of the upper deck at the Convo.

As many know, no matter who good the EMU crowd might be the visitor side of Rynearson will always be nearly empty.

Parking for Rynearson is adjacent to the press box side so there is no need to sit on the visitor side.

I assume there are limited concessions too. (I have never sat there. It is completely isolated from the rest of the stadium/parking).

Speaking of this, we as a conference need to do a better job as a conference facilitating pressbox and camera angles during ESPN broadcast or just MACDN streams. We all need to build small press boxes on the smaller visitor's side to accomodate camera crews. I see the same thing when I watch games broadcast at EMU, Kent, Miami, Central, etc. The camera crew mount their cameras in the main pressbox and all is shown on TV is the much smaller, less impressive visitor stands and they have less fans in the stands. Ive been to these stadiums so I know how much better they'd look from the angle, but casual viewers would never know that and see a smaller visitor side that is half empty and no press box.

How the cameras portray the game is a marketing tool and our stadiums and courts are studios and should be optimized as such to best showcase the product. This cant be overly expensive to do and should be a conference-wide initiative.

.

You have no idea how much this would cost. The press boxes we have now are prepped and wired for TV as they sit. That's why you see production trailers close by. If you wanted to put things on the opposite side, every union TV guy would laugh at you. It already takes 5-6 hours to set up for a game.


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(01-18-2013 04:12 PM)exCincy Kid Wrote:  BocaRocket: When we discuss MAC facilities today the younger among us would be very surprised to see how far the conference has come since the late 70's/early 80's. Until some stadium improvements were made later, stadiums like Ball State and EMU literallly had 10-15 rows of wooden bleachers on the away side of the stadiums. I am pretty sure that when my brother was at BSU in the early 80's they had just 10 rows on the away side. The then stadium capacities for Miami and CMU were 14,900, and 20,000, respectively. There were no stadium suites or impressive workout centers such as you see today, either. I think Peden just seated around 20K as well then, maybe less.

Peden was at 17,500 seats in the early 80's, all wooden bleachers (though the grandstands had concrete under the wood).

The 30,000 seat stadium/17,000 paid ticket requirement that was noted on this thread didn't come into effect until 1990. It was legislation pushed by the SEC and CUSA who feared increased recruiting competition with all of those southern schools trying to move up. It eventually did affect CUSA as the Sun Belt had a better season in 2012.

After failing to halt migration with a stadium paid ticket requirement the focus turned to counting actual attendance as a new barrier for remaining at the top level. In 2004 a 15,000 actual attendance rule was passed but once many leagues realized that their schools could be in danger with an audit they changed it to a 15,000 paid attendance rule.

This was in conjunction with other new rules at the time such as having to annually average 5 FBS home games against fully transitioned members. This was the rule that eventually did in the WAC as they were caught in a position where they would have to transition too many FCS members at once to stay viable. They already upgraded 2 schools to the FBS ranks (Texas St, UTSA).

There was also a couple of moratoriums in the 2000's that prevented any schools from migrating to FBS for most of the decade. It may be why the MAC delayed getting a 13th school on board for so long.

It would be safe to say though any FBS program must play in at least a 15,000 seat stadium large enough to meet the paid attendance requirement. UMass at 17,000 is OK for MAC play with the new football facilities attached.

The new rule for FBS migration is a good one; requiring an invite from a preexisting FBS conference. Had that rule been in place in 1998 and the 30k/17k paid rule stayed that would have prevented a lot of Sun Belt move ups and the formation of that football conference.

(01-18-2013 04:51 PM)Love and Honor Wrote:  Found an interesting link from the Jim Grobe years at OU to a Peden expansion that has never happened, didn't know that was on deck.

http://www.ohio.edu/ohiotoday/winter00/d...peden.html

That Peden Expansion plan has taken some twists and turns since it was first created almost 15 years ago.

As GaliaCat mentioned on here, this expansion was always going to be done in phases and the end goal was a stadium that had an SRO of 35,000 (counting mound seating).

The first expansion was to lower the field, add the mound AND put in endzone seating to move to 26,000. The school found that it was going to be too costly to add endzone seating so instead they decided to create a performance area for the Marching 110. When the expansion was done that left capacity at only 24,000 which nobody complained about because it definitely was an upgrade.

Once complete in 2001, growth in Ohio football leveled off. The word on the street was Ohio would build a deck to push capacity to 28,000 IF the school somehow was invited to another conference. The design indoor practice facility once planned to be 1/2 away was changed to being adjacent to the football stadium with a drawing showing a deck that would leverage the IPF as building support. This is back in 2008.

Ohio then changed the design of the IPF to be freestanding, larger with a track and that is scheduled to be complete on Fall of 2013. The question then has been what does that do to existing plans to add a deck?

Quote:It’s been in the works for five years; has been rumored to include a track, the opposite, and back again; and has grown into a hot topic around campus.

Ohio officials are sticking to a loose timeline that has the unnamed multipurpose center opening in time for Fall Semester 2013.

http://thepost.ohiou.edu/content/multipu...icials-say

http://www.ohiobobcats.com/MultiPurposeCenter/

Ohio's AD has been active in trying to better market Ohio football and the result is that the school had a few games near the 26,000 mark (Akron and New Mexico State) where some temporary seating had to put into the stadium to accommodate the crowds while up to 1,000 were turned away. Its no longer a question if joining another conference for another expansion. An upper deck project will be officially fundraised for once the IPF is complete in 9 months.

The deck will raise the capacity of Peden Stadium somewhere between 28,000 and 32,000 once complete. I'm thinking they may lean toward the high side with the design because if they want to position the program for for the Big East, the smallest stadium in the conference is 30,000 seats.

Temple (68,500 seats)
Memphis (62,500 seats)
East Carolina (50,000 seats)
Central Florida (45,000 seats)
South Florida (41,500 seats)
Connecticut (40,000 seats)
Houston (40,000 seats)
Cincinnati (35,000 seats)
Navy (34,000 seats)
SMU (32,000 seats)
Tulsa (30,000 seats)
Tulane (30,000 seats)

BE average stadium size (39,000)
BE average attendance 2013 (30,000)

What's the point of going to 28,000 seats when for 1-2 million more you could be at 32,000 seats? If Ohio stays in the MAC it can boast the largest on campus stadium in the conference at 32,000.

(01-18-2013 04:12 PM)exCincy Kid Wrote:  BocaRocket: When we discuss MAC facilities today the younger among us would be very surprised to see how far the conference has come since the late 70's/early 80's. Until some stadium improvements were made later, stadiums like Ball State and EMU literallly had 10-15 rows of wooden bleachers on the away side of the stadiums. I am pretty sure that when my brother was at BSU in the early 80's they had just 10 rows on the away side. The then stadium capacities for Miami and CMU were 14,900, and 20,000, respectively. There were no stadium suites or impressive workout centers such as you see today, either. I think Peden just seated around 20K as well then, maybe less.

NIU also had this wooden bleacher crap on our East side until the 1995 season.
Amazing how far we have come in less than 20 years.

No offense but I hate NIU's stadium. The student section runs behind one whole side of the stadium, so there is no good or bad side to be with the ball for visiting team. Unlike an endzone student section where it's loud coming out of the endzone, and loud going in. It's also behind the home team, so it's not a problem for the visiting team being heckled. Which you want at a home field. NIU wins their games at home, so it must work for em, but I don't think it's loud or hard to play at, at all.

The endzone building is nice. The home side has an undeeded rediculous ramp, that goes back and forth the length of the field probably 7 or 8 times. And the press boxes besides EMU may be the worst in the conference.

NIU needs some work...

(01-21-2013 05:15 PM)UofToledoFans Wrote:  No offense but I hate NIU's stadium. The student section runs behind one whole side of the stadium, so there is no good or bad side to be with the ball for visiting team. Unlike an endzone student section where it's loud coming out of the endzone, and loud going in. It's also behind the home team, so it's not a problem for the visiting team being heckled. Which you want at a home field. NIU wins their games at home, so it must work for em, but I don't think it's loud or hard to play at, at all.

The endzone building is nice. The home side has an undeeded rediculous ramp, that goes back and forth the length of the field probably 7 or 8 times. And the press boxes besides EMU may be the worst in the conference.

NIU needs some work...

NIU is...................... quite aware of the current failings at Huskie Stadium.

Most unfortunately for the Huskie Faithful, the university is still not always committed to smart decisions surrounding the fan experience (see PigDog, see moving the regular fans to the Convo Center for tailgating etc etc.)

BTW the visitors bench used to be on the East side of stadium, which is the same side as the student sections. I'll be the first to say that many, many students took things way to far, but man it was funny to see dog biscuits rain down on Wake Forest, and the entire student section throwing small rubber bouncy balls onto the field en mass during timeouts...

The verbal abuse was, how do say it............ ruthless. But back then, the security was handled by the ROTC who alternated between providing security, looking the other way, and partaking in shenanigans...

(01-21-2013 05:15 PM)UofToledoFans Wrote:  No offense but I hate NIU's stadium. The student section runs behind one whole side of the stadium, so there is no good or bad side to be with the ball for visiting team. Unlike an endzone student section where it's loud coming out of the endzone, and loud going in. It's also behind the home team, so it's not a problem for the visiting team being heckled. Which you want at a home field. NIU wins their games at home, so it must work for em, but I don't think it's loud or hard to play at, at all.

The endzone building is nice. The home side has an undeeded rediculous ramp, that goes back and forth the length of the field probably 7 or 8 times. And the press boxes besides EMU may be the worst in the conference.

NIU needs some work...

The away team sideline was in front of the student section until 2005 when the MAC decided that for safety reasons that they would no longer allow it for the WHOLE conference.

For the East stands the fans on the North side typically have all students who are more rambunctious than the fans on the South side (past the band) who are typically non-students.

The crazy ramp on the West side is just for the top 1/3rd of the stadium. Yes its annoying but unfortunately its not used that much.

Yes our "suite"/media box is a pile of yuck. NIU fans are expecting a renovation of the West stands by 2017 and a completely new box with real suites and a modern media deck by the end of the decade. Likely sooner but athletics wont talk about it until our IPF is fully funded (latest word is less than $200k to go).

In the immediate future we are getting a new scoreboard and sound system this upcoming season. Also rumored to be getting ribbon screens on the bottom edge facing of the stands (where our advertisements were). Along with this there may be a change to our berm which may involve grass seating but that is the least confirmed rumor.

(01-21-2013 05:35 PM)HuskieJohn Wrote:  

(01-21-2013 05:15 PM)UofToledoFans Wrote:  No offense but I hate NIU's stadium. The student section runs behind one whole side of the stadium, so there is no good or bad side to be with the ball for visiting team. Unlike an endzone student section where it's loud coming out of the endzone, and loud going in. It's also behind the home team, so it's not a problem for the visiting team being heckled. Which you want at a home field. NIU wins their games at home, so it must work for em, but I don't think it's loud or hard to play at, at all.

The endzone building is nice. The home side has an undeeded rediculous ramp, that goes back and forth the length of the field probably 7 or 8 times. And the press boxes besides EMU may be the worst in the conference.

NIU needs some work...

The away team sideline was in front of the student section until 2005 when the MAC decided that for safety reasons that they would no longer allow it for the WHOLE conference.

That is not true. When we played at Miami in 2006, the Miami students were directly behind the NIU bench.

I know we changed it at Miami (due to league rule), but not sure if it lasted more than a year or so.....if Love and Honor, Miami Oh Yeah or Dick see this thread maybe they can recall the details.

(01-21-2013 05:46 PM)huskiebob Wrote:  

(01-21-2013 05:35 PM)HuskieJohn Wrote:  

(01-21-2013 05:15 PM)UofToledoFans Wrote:  No offense but I hate NIU's stadium. The student section runs behind one whole side of the stadium, so there is no good or bad side to be with the ball for visiting team. Unlike an endzone student section where it's loud coming out of the endzone, and loud going in. It's also behind the home team, so it's not a problem for the visiting team being heckled. Which you want at a home field. NIU wins their games at home, so it must work for em, but I don't think it's loud or hard to play at, at all.

The endzone building is nice. The home side has an undeeded rediculous ramp, that goes back and forth the length of the field probably 7 or 8 times. And the press boxes besides EMU may be the worst in the conference.

NIU needs some work...

The away team sideline was in front of the student section until 2005 when the MAC decided that for safety reasons that they would no longer allow it for the WHOLE conference.

That is not true. When we played at Miami in 2006, the Miami students were directly behind the NIU bench.

Joe Novak complained at a Miami game and made this happen for the entire league.