(08-05-2015 10:58 AM)Ken Barna Wrote:  Dear Love and Honor,
Who looks to demolish stadiums, or for that matter to downsize them? Maybe schools in the MAC, but most others are not looking to reduce the footprint of their stadiums. One can go as far back as 1903 when Harvard built their stadium (out of reinforced concrete) and they are still using it today.
Didn't Akron build their stadium to hold 30,000 spectators? How about Western and Central? I haven't seen any talk of down sizing there? Maybe it's just an Ohio thing for the MAC, but then.....Akron.

Where are you going with that?

Akron did downsize from the Rubber Bowl(35,000) when Infocision was built. Also the size is due to the fact High School Football is big business here and was built to draw State Playoff Games/Title Games.

I don't think it would make any difference at all if EMU downsized to, say, 24,000 capacity.

(08-05-2015 11:22 AM)NIU007 Wrote:  I don't think it would make any difference at all if EMU downsized to, say, 24,000 capacity.

You could go lower than that.

Dear Friends,
Eastern is not planning on down sizing. Let us worry about the size of our stadium, and you can worry about the size of yours.

(08-05-2015 10:58 AM)Ken Barna Wrote:  Who looks to demolish stadiums, or for that matter to downsize them?

Sporting teams that find themselves with a stadium too large for their needs. Georgia State wants to demolish a lot of Turner Field in turning it into a college FB stadium ... and using the land freed up for other purposes as well.

A right-sized stadium can indeed do a lot for game day atmosphere ... one of the advantages that the Columbus Crew had in the early days of the MLS was they had a right sized stadium while some of their rivals were playing in football stadiums that were oversized for their fan base.

Akron needed to build a new stadium, since their former stadium was getting shut down, and a 30,000 seat stadium only cost a bit more than a 20,000-25,000 stadium would have cost. But it will take more than a single successful season for those extra seats to be of any use.

(08-05-2015 11:23 AM)utpotts Wrote:  

(08-05-2015 11:22 AM)NIU007 Wrote:  I don't think it would make any difference at all if EMU downsized to, say, 24,000 capacity.

You could go lower than that.

How low would you go?

I think I would start elsewhere if trying to increase attendance.

I don't want to derail this thread, but there are a lot of NASCAR tracks that should consider demolishing some of their stands because empty stands look awful on television.

(08-05-2015 11:08 AM)lance99 Wrote:  

(08-05-2015 10:58 AM)Ken Barna Wrote:  Dear Love and Honor,
Who looks to demolish stadiums, or for that matter to downsize them? Maybe schools in the MAC, but most others are not looking to reduce the footprint of their stadiums. One can go as far back as 1903 when Harvard built their stadium (out of reinforced concrete) and they are still using it today.
Didn't Akron build their stadium to hold 30,000 spectators? How about Western and Central? I haven't seen any talk of down sizing there? Maybe it's just an Ohio thing for the MAC, but then.....Akron.

Where are you going with that?

Akron did downsize from the Rubber Bowl(35,000) when Infocision was built. Also the size is due to the fact High School Football is big business here and was built to draw State Playoff Games/Title Games.

Yes, that was the flip side of the limited cost differential between a 20,000 and a 30,000 seat stadium ... the larger stadium also had more prospective customers, over and above its use by the Zips.

One design when you have substantially different capacity requirements for different events is the stacked two deck design where you can tarp over the top deck and the "extra" seats on the top deck visually go away.

Quote:Dear Friends,
Eastern is not planning on down sizing. Let us worry about the size of our stadium, and you can worry about the size of yours.

Dear Ken,

Nobody's worrying about EMU's over-sized stadium.

Quote:I don't think it would make any difference at all if EMU downsized to, say, 24,000 capacity.

I don't think it'd make any difference if EMU downsized to 4,200. Would look more packed. Put Pepsi machines at the top of each column going down, and they could still claim 8k!

Dear toddjnsn,
After you get your butts kicked by Michigan State and Ohio State you won't be filling your over-sized stadium except with discarded refreshment containers.

(08-05-2015 06:10 PM)toddjnsn Wrote:  

Quote:Dear Friends,
Eastern is not planning on down sizing. Let us worry about the size of our stadium, and you can worry about the size of yours.

Dear Ken,

Nobody's worrying about EMU's over-sized stadium.

Quote:I don't think it would make any difference at all if EMU downsized to, say, 24,000 capacity.

I don't think it'd make any difference if EMU downsized to 4,200. Would look more packed. Put Pepsi machines at the top of each column going down, and they could still claim 8k!

+1

(08-05-2015 10:58 AM)Ken Barna Wrote:  Dear Love and Honor,
Who looks to demolish stadiums, or for that matter to downsize them? Maybe schools in the MAC, but most others are not looking to reduce the footprint of their stadiums. One can go as far back as 1903 when Harvard built their stadium (out of reinforced concrete) and they are still using it today.
Didn't Akron build their stadium to hold 30,000 spectators? How about Western and Central? I haven't seen any talk of down sizing there? Maybe it's just an Ohio thing for the MAC, but then.....Akron.

List of teams who have recently downsized their current stadium or built a new stadium with a smaller capacity:

College:
Baylor
Minnesota
Kentucky
Stanford
Washington
Arizona State
California
Purdue
Illinois
Colorado

NFL:
Washington Redskins
Jacksonville Jaguars
Oakland Raiders
Kansas City Chiefs
Miami Dolphins
Cleveland Browns
Buffalo Bills

I'm sure I missed several others. Nope. No one does it.

(08-05-2015 08:40 PM)niubrad00 Wrote:  

(08-05-2015 10:58 AM)Ken Barna Wrote:  Dear Love and Honor,
Who looks to demolish stadiums, or for that matter to downsize them? Maybe schools in the MAC, but most others are not looking to reduce the footprint of their stadiums. One can go as far back as 1903 when Harvard built their stadium (out of reinforced concrete) and they are still using it today.
Didn't Akron build their stadium to hold 30,000 spectators? How about Western and Central? I haven't seen any talk of down sizing there? Maybe it's just an Ohio thing for the MAC, but then.....Akron.

List of teams who have recently downsized their current stadium or built a new stadium with a smaller capacity:

College:
Baylor
Minnesota
Kentucky
Stanford
Washington
Arizona State
California
Purdue
Illinois
Colorado

NFL:
Washington Redskins
Jacksonville Jaguars
Oakland Raiders
Kansas City Chiefs
Miami Dolphins
Cleveland Browns
Buffalo Bills

I'm sure I missed several others. Nope. No one does it.

ok let's get the Gophers straightened out... They were sharing a 64K seat professional stadium which was demolished and they built a 50K on campus stadium which is now being leased by an NFL team..

That's hardly a downgrade.

(08-05-2015 09:32 PM)Bull_In_Exile Wrote:  

(08-05-2015 08:40 PM)niubrad00 Wrote:  

(08-05-2015 10:58 AM)Ken Barna Wrote:  Dear Love and Honor,
Who looks to demolish stadiums, or for that matter to downsize them? Maybe schools in the MAC, but most others are not looking to reduce the footprint of their stadiums. One can go as far back as 1903 when Harvard built their stadium (out of reinforced concrete) and they are still using it today.
Didn't Akron build their stadium to hold 30,000 spectators? How about Western and Central? I haven't seen any talk of down sizing there? Maybe it's just an Ohio thing for the MAC, but then.....Akron.

List of teams who have recently downsized their current stadium or built a new stadium with a smaller capacity:

College:
Baylor
Minnesota
Kentucky
Stanford
Washington
Arizona State
California
Purdue
Illinois
Colorado

NFL:
Washington Redskins
Jacksonville Jaguars
Oakland Raiders
Kansas City Chiefs
Miami Dolphins
Cleveland Browns
Buffalo Bills

I'm sure I missed several others. Nope. No one does it.

ok let's get the Gophers straightened out... They were sharing a 64K seat professional stadium which was demolished and they built a 50K on campus stadium which is now being leased by an NFL team..

That's hardly a downgrade.

Its still a reduction of 14,000 seats

Those all had big stadiums. 30K is not big.

(08-05-2015 07:11 PM)Ken Barna Wrote:  Dear toddjnsn,
After you get your butts kicked by Michigan State and Ohio State you won't be filling your over-sized stadium except with discarded refreshment containers.

Ooh, snap!

Though not really plausible that WMU supporters would abandon them for losing to MSU and OSU ... indeed, odds are quite a number of teams are going to be beaten by both MSU and OSU this year.

Quote:Dear toddjnsn,
After you get your butts kicked by Michigan State and Ohio State you won't be filling your over-sized stadium except with discarded refreshment containers.

Dear Ken,

True, we will most likely get our butts kicked by both MSU & OSU. Same can be said for just about any team in the B1G who plays them both. But at least we won't be counting the *unused* refreshment containers with a Pepsi logo as a person in attendance.

I think EMU could shrink the stadium from 30k -> 20k without Any worries of running into too-few-seats. They could easily go 15k with room to squeeze more in for over-capacity, and they'll be 100% fine. However, that'd cost more money, and EMU already did their adjustments & redecorations, so that's not happening.

I do hope EMU improves under their new coach and gets to be around .500 every year. It'd help the conference.

It's not going to improve the status of the MAC if we're filling up 15K stadiums (stadia?).

(08-05-2015 08:40 PM)niubrad00 Wrote:  Teams who have recently downsized their current stadium or built a new stadium with a smaller capacity...I'm sure I missed several others. Nope. No one does it.

Not really recent, but when the Lions built Ford Field in the early 2000s they went from a capacity of nearly 80K at the Silverdome to around 65K at Ford Field.

(08-05-2015 11:06 PM)BruceMcF Wrote:  Though not really plausible that WMU supporters would abandon them for losing to MSU and OSU ... indeed, odds are quite a number of teams are going to be beaten by both MSU and OSU this year.

WMU may lose a few of the Walmart-B1G types, but for the most part, Bruce, you are right. A loss at Georgia Southern the week after the MSU game would be more likely to affect attendance going forward.

Ken's living in fantasy land, though, if he's expecting attendance at Waldo to plummet under any circumstances prior to the November MACtion games. WMU has a perfect storm of a home schedule through the first four games: MSU, Murray State (for CommUniversity Night, always a strong local draw), CMU, and Miami (for Homecoming). WMU has a great chance to average 25K+ through the first four games. After that is anyone's guess, but if WMU is still in the MAC hunt in November, the home MACtion games may also draw somewhat well (unlikely as well as the first four home games).