Now that Marshall has turned CUSA into a premier soccer conference we should discuss facilities.

Marshall plays at Hoops Family Field at the Veterans Memorial Soccer Complex.

The stadium was built in 2013 and sits on the site of the old Veteran's Memorial Fieldhouse, home to the Marshall University Men's and Women's Basketball teams until the Cam was built in the 1980s. The 'Vet' seats just over 1,000 fans and at the time was only 1 or 2 fields in all of college soccer with the highest level of FIFA playing surface.










https://herdzone.com/sports/2018/6/11/fa...-html.aspx

Tech is still building a new soccer facility on campus right next to the new softball stadium. They share a building in between that houses their offices and locker rooms. I haven't seen any updates on the soccer field progress but it should be very nice when finished.

CLT plays on Transamerica Field, which is also home to our Track & Field programs. We have a natural grass pitch, and the teams practices on another field to keep this in great game day shape. The stadium seats 4000.

We have hosted foreign Olympic teams preparing for the games in Atlanta (1996), and several pro teams. We have plans to build a new soccer specific stadium.



Outside the stadium we have several of our collection of bronze statues for every sport we offer.

(05-19-2021 11:53 AM)Surbadger Wrote:  Marshall plays at Hoops Family Field at the Veterans Memorial Soccer Complex.

The stadium was built in 2013 and sits on the site of the old Veteran's Memorial Fieldhouse, home to the Marshall University Men's and Women's Basketball teams until the Cam was built in the 1980s. The 'Vet' seats just over 1,000 fans and at the time was only 1 or 2 fields in all of college soccer with the highest level of FIFA playing surface.










https://herdzone.com/sports/2018/6/11/fa...-html.aspx

I wonder if it's possible to upgrade seating capacity? I really think we could average 5,000 attendance if capable.

clt provides a view from outside of our stadium

(05-19-2021 12:03 PM)rileylives Wrote:  I wonder if it's possible to upgrade seating capacity? I really think we could average 5,000 attendance if capable.

The main problem is that the stadium is landlocked between both commercial and residential properties. I do not know if stands could be extended up from the current bleachers or if you could fit stands on the opposite side of the field.

Nothing fancy for us yet. At our Park West facility, we have the soccer stadium and stands on one side, and track stadium and stands on the other. We only have women's soccer though unfortunately.

Opened in 1991, the ODU Soccer Complex has a capacity of 4,000 with stands along the west side of the field and a grassy picnic area on the right side (with a grill and beer sales). There are also multiple lighted practice fields and the soccer building which has offices, locker rooms, team rooms, a two-story entrance lobby, and outdoor patio, overlooking the soccer playing field.

The Rice facility isn't anything super fancy.

Capacity of 1500 seats and also serves as our track stadium.

https://riceowls.com/images/2019/7/30/20...&mode=crop

(05-19-2021 12:11 PM)Surbadger Wrote:  

(05-19-2021 12:03 PM)rileylives Wrote:  I wonder if it's possible to upgrade seating capacity? I really think we could average 5,000 attendance if capable.

The main problem is that the stadium is landlocked between both commercial and residential properties. I do not know if stands could be extended up from the current bleachers or if you could fit stands on the opposite side of the field.

There seems to be enough room to push the fence back and put some seats in on either side of the west goal.

Note: The next to last pic of the series of pictures of our facility is the original facade of Veteran’s Memorial Field House

(05-19-2021 12:03 PM)rileylives Wrote:  I wonder if it's possible to upgrade seating capacity? I really think we could average 5,000 attendance if capable.

I don't think we need a 5K seat stadium but at the end of 2019 it was proven the people of Huntington if you are playing well and have something to play for they will come. The UK game that was 2 ranked teams matched up (UK 15 Marshall 20) drew over 2K and 3 weeks later the attendance record for that game was broken another 2K+ showed up for Marshall' 1st ever game in the NCAAs a 2-1 win over WVU. I would think expanding it to 2.5K is doable and probably about the right size.

I was hoping Hamrick was going to hire Concord's Luke Duffy for the women's coach last year. He has about the same resume minus the College Cup Finals at Concord on the women's side as Grassie had on the men's side at Charleston.

Here is Hoops Family Field from Google Earth.

Hoop's Family Field -- Google Earth

Thing is if we're selling out regularly, we're leaving money on the table. You want to expand when you're consistently over 85% capacity. We're going to be consistently 200% of capacity. At the very least they need to extend the bleachers the full sideline and store the extra goals somewhere else.

(05-19-2021 11:53 AM)Surbadger Wrote:  

That picture is already outdated. There’s been an addition…

Someone mentioned in some thread here earlier that Huntington was laid out in grids, and boy are they right. It becomes very clear when you look at it on Google Earth. I can see that it would be very impractical to try and grow that facility due to the roads.

MTSU has a 1,500 seat facility. It’s a decent stadium IMO.

https://goblueraiders.com/sports/2014/7/...44223.aspx

We could easily extend the bleachers from goal line to goal line and probably get our capacity to around 3,500 which I think would be a great starting point moving forward.

I think we could get 5k for some games but I don’t think we could average that many YET. We could def average 2k/game though.

Just wait until the fall. Every U-12 team in the region and their families will be at home games now. Lol

(05-19-2021 04:31 PM)herdfan129 Wrote:  We could easily extend the bleachers from goal line to goal line and probably get our capacity to around 3,500 which I think would be a great starting point moving forward.

I think we could get 5k for some games but I don’t think we could average that many YET. We could def average 2k/game though.

Going sideline to sideline you could probably get another 2K there. A 2.5-3K stadium would probably be abourt right for Huntington and Marshall. We could always put seats on the building itself. (I kid I kid, Ive seen 1000 to many threads over the years from people wanting seats on the Shewey Building).

Although the stadium fence could be elongated and bleachers could go behind the goal on the left. Say 250 or so.

(05-19-2021 05:51 PM)THUNDERStruck73 Wrote:  Just wait until the fall. Every U-12 team in the region and their families will be at home games now. Lol

That can only be a good thing. The athletic department should maybe blackout a game our two, maybe just the exhibition games and have a "Youth Soccer Night". Sortta like 'Jam The Cam".