(10-11-2021 10:26 AM)CitrusUCF Wrote:  So the facilities aside, I'm still interested as to whether Howard could have national pull as the HBCU Harvard as it were. ...

The question for Howard is whether it would have any additional pull with a cellar dwelling Go5 team than it does now ... because there is no certainty at all of Howard moving up to FBS and then not residing in the cellar of whichever conference admitted them.

One element that must be respected in this "thought experiment" is that Howard are certainly not going to move to FBS at a time when such a move risks killing the MEAC, so the two specific scenarios are, "if the MEAC collapses, would Howard consider moving up to FBS", and "if the MEAC has collapsed and Howard has moved to the CAA or Patriot, would it consider moving up to FBS" ...

... and it remains entirely unclear exactly what benefit they would derive from doing so.

I'll save you guys a whole lot of keystrokes......................................NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(10-11-2021 11:01 AM)Schadenfreude Wrote:  What about Audi Field, home of D.C. United? The XFL used it. It has 20,000 seats. It isn't that far, either. (A straight shot down the Green Line.)

As noted before, it already has a tenant with priority use through mid to late October each year.

If Howard averages 3,982 a game now, on campus, the demand to rent a 20,000 seat stadium is negligible at this point; of course, it begs the question what kind of FBS opponents want to play in a facility that small? Hard to see games with Coastal Carolina or Georgia Southern selling out the place, either.

(10-11-2021 02:21 PM)DFW HOYA Wrote:  

(10-11-2021 11:01 AM)Schadenfreude Wrote:  What about Audi Field, home of D.C. United? The XFL used it. It has 20,000 seats. It isn't that far, either. (A straight shot down the Green Line.)

As noted before, it already has a tenant with priority use through mid to late October each year.

If Howard averages 3,982 a game now, on campus, the demand to rent a 20,000 seat stadium is negligible at this point; of course, it begs the question what kind of FBS opponents want to play in a facility that small? Hard to see games with Coastal Carolina or Georgia Southern selling out the place, either.

I ultimately don’t disagree with your concerns about Audi as a long or even mid-term solution, but I will say that stadium size isn’t the factor it used to be. Charlotte’s is 15,314. UMass, 17K. Coastal added seats to get to 21,000. Tulane built new at 30,000. ODU rebuilt to get to a shade under 22K. Attendance is down as a whole. So Audi at 20 is short-term doable, if you can work around United’s schedule.

At the very least, if they could get their on-campus to 15 (per Wikipedia, there was a plan to expand to 14 in the early 90s that never got off the ground), or at least close enough, they could play one or two games at Audi or FedEx, which would help get their average over 15,000 (essentially the UMass plan, but with a much closer NFL stadium). Howard did play at Audi this season, losing the Hampton in the revival of The Real HU rivalry.

EDIT TO ADD: That may actually be the best solution if they play most of their games on-campus — host an HBCU school each season at FedEx and market it as the D.C. Classic or something like that. Classics, particularly neutral-site ones in big cities, can draw 50 to 60,000 fans. Even if you only get 25 or 30, that might be enough to get you through the 15,000 attendance requirement.

All of this presumes there’s an appetite for FBS at Howard, which of course is unlikely. But as the thread title says, thought experiment.

(10-11-2021 02:21 PM)DFW HOYA Wrote:  

(10-11-2021 11:01 AM)Schadenfreude Wrote:  What about Audi Field, home of D.C. United? The XFL used it. It has 20,000 seats. It isn't that far, either. (A straight shot down the Green Line.)

As noted before, it already has a tenant with priority use through mid to late October each year.

If Howard averages 3,982 a game now, on campus, the demand to rent a 20,000 seat stadium is negligible at this point; of course, it begs the question what kind of FBS opponents want to play in a facility that small? Hard to see games with Coastal Carolina or Georgia Southern selling out the place, either.

That capacity is pretty close to a number of FBS schools, including UMass, Coastal Carolina, Western Kentucky, Old Dominion, Ball State, Florida International, and Northern Illinois, all of which are under 24,000 seats.

Look, Howard needs to figure out how to win in FCS before it should be moving up. But I don't think the capacity of that stadium would be a big obstacle. (And if they ever needed more seats, I suppose there is at least a chance a new NFL stadium could be built in the District.)