msu35 posed the question in another thread with a baseline of moving from a 40k stadium. Curiosity got the best of me so I wanted to see how that looked. I originally planned to only go back to 2000 to save time, but then changed to 30 years ago before settling on 1990. Because of this I do not know if there were any schools that made the same move before 1990. I also looked at all sizes instead of just above 40k. I used this Wikipedia page as a quick reference for build dates. The following list only includes schools who built their new stadium on the main campus.



The main thing that stood out to me was that three of the five schools that moved from stadiums over 40k were in the same conference as Memphis at different points. I realized after the fact that I didn't keep a proper track of ownership of the older stadium as I was doing this. But from what I remember Colorado State is the only school in this list that owned the previous off-campus stadium. Most of the schools moved into smaller stadiums. Louisville has since expanded seating past the previous stadium's capacity.

Other Notes
*N. Texas, SMU, Houston, Utah, and Stanford tore down their old OCSs and built new ones. N. Texas built the new one in a different location than the old OCS.
*Georgia State built a new 24,333 capacity stadium after playing in the Georgia Dome. Still off the main campus, but they own the stadium.
*Hawaii is currently playing on campus till the new Aloha Stadium is built.
*Rutgers has a stadium on a satellite campus. The old stadium was torn down and replaced with a new one.
*SDSU bought San Diego Stadium and its property from the city. The stadium was demolished, the land became or became a part of their satellite campus, then a new stadium was built.
*Buffalo built a higher capacity OCS in 1993. The older OCS is in use for other purposes.
*Northwestern owns their stadium located away from the main campus. They have plans to tear down their old 47k stadium and replace it with a 35k stadium.


Also from discussions about the subject since my time joining the message board, I would see other schools getting mentioned that play off campus. I looked a little deeper into their situations, and it seems like the debates are similar to ours.

For example with UCLA this blog post (I found out Northwestern's plan here) from Oct. talked about an OCS. This post has a tweet from Troy Aikman and I've seen other fans saying something similar about wanting an OCS that is at least 30k. However this article talks about the issues UCLA had/have with getting an OCS. One of those is that they have a contract with the Rose Bowl till 2044 with no opt out clause. They also give away free tickets to help fill empty seats. The article says that hasn't been successful.

In all this was pretty interesting to look at.

(01-22-2023 10:38 PM)Alanda Wrote:  msu35 posed the question in another thread with a baseline of moving from a 40k stadium. Curiosity got the best of me so I wanted to see how that looked. I originally planned to only go back to 2000 to save time, but then changed to 30 years ago before settling on 1990. Because of this I do not know if there were any schools that made the same move before 1990. I also looked at all sizes instead of just above 40k. I used this Wikipedia page as a quick reference for build dates. The following list only includes schools who built their new stadium on the main campus.



The main thing that stood out to me was that three of the five schools that moved from stadiums over 40k were in the same conference as Memphis at different points. I realized after the fact that I didn't keep a proper track of ownership of the older stadium as I was doing this. But from what I remember Colorado State is the only school in this list that owned the previous off-campus stadium. Most of the schools moved into smaller stadiums. Louisville has since expanded seating past the previous stadium's capacity.

Other Notes
*N. Texas, SMU, Houston, Utah, and Stanford tore down their old OCSs and built new ones. N. Texas built the new one in a different location than the old OCS.
*Georgia State built a new 24,333 capacity stadium after playing in the Georgia Dome. Still off the main campus, but they own the stadium.
*Hawaii is currently playing on campus till the new Aloha Stadium is built.
*Rutgers has a stadium on a satellite campus. The old stadium was torn down and replaced with a new one.
*SDSU bought San Diego Stadium and its property from the city. The stadium was demolished, the land became or became a part of their satellite campus, then a new stadium was built.
*Buffalo built a higher capacity OCS in 1993. The older OCS is in use for other purposes.
*Northwestern owns their stadium located away from the main campus. They have plans to tear down their old 47k stadium and replace it with a 35k stadium.


Also from discussions about the subject since my time joining the message board, I would see other schools getting mentioned that play off campus. I looked a little deeper into their situations, and it seems like the debates are similar to ours.

For example with UCLA this blog post (I found out Northwestern's plan here) from Oct. talked about an OCS. This post has a tweet from Troy Aikman and I've seen other fans saying something similar about wanting an OCS that is at least 30k. However this article talks about the issues UCLA had/have with getting an OCS. One of those is that they have a contract with the Rose Bowl till 2044 with no opt out clause. They also give away free tickets to help fill empty seats. The article says that hasn't been successful.

In all this was pretty interesting to look at.

I agree and I appreciate all of the effort you put into digging this up. Very interesting. I noticed that most of the schools actually migrated to lower capacity stadiums in the process, something that most people here agree should be the case if Memphis were to eventually go the OCS route. Should help increase ticket prices and yield better optics compared to empty seats.

Regarding falling attendance, it seems to be a broad trend across the football landscape in general. It's hard to tear people away from their couches and distractions to attend games. Perhaps we'll see stadiums get smaller and smaller as more people choose television over watching in person. Back when many of the large stadiums were built, options were limited, and people didn't have access to every game like they do now.

Not this again

(01-23-2023 09:46 AM)Eagleonpar Wrote:  Not this again

Instead of thinking of this as a stadium discussion, why not think of it as an attendance discussion.

Our crowds sizes are okay for where we are in the conference ladder. When you look at the stadium sizes around the nation, the Liberty Bowl is a big stadium. We tend to think a crowd of 35K to 40K is mall because we have UTK across the state. It's not. In the world of college football we are drawing good crowds.

We have two problems. One is our stadium is too large, but two, and maybe more importantly, we compare ourselves to SEC schools. It's not the correct way to measure our success.

(01-23-2023 09:46 AM)Eagleonpar Wrote:  Not this again

Why stir up drama if you don't care to read it? He's only presenting data and the takeaway is as mentioned above that it's an interesting evaluation of downward trending stadium capacity.

(01-22-2023 10:38 PM)Alanda Wrote:  msu35 posed the question in another thread with a baseline of moving from a 40k stadium. Curiosity got the best of me so I wanted to see how that looked. I originally planned to only go back to 2000 to save time, but then changed to 30 years ago before settling on 1990. Because of this I do not know if there were any schools that made the same move before 1990. I also looked at all sizes instead of just above 40k. I used this Wikipedia page as a quick reference for build dates. The following list only includes schools who built their new stadium on the main campus.



The main thing that stood out to me was that three of the five schools that moved from stadiums over 40k were in the same conference as Memphis at different points. I realized after the fact that I didn't keep a proper track of ownership of the older stadium as I was doing this. But from what I remember Colorado State is the only school in this list that owned the previous off-campus stadium. Most of the schools moved into smaller stadiums. Louisville has since expanded seating past the previous stadium's capacity.

Other Notes
*N. Texas, SMU, Houston, Utah, and Stanford tore down their old OCSs and built new ones. N. Texas built the new one in a different location than the old OCS.
*Georgia State built a new 24,333 capacity stadium after playing in the Georgia Dome. Still off the main campus, but they own the stadium.
*Hawaii is currently playing on campus till the new Aloha Stadium is built.
*Rutgers has a stadium on a satellite campus. The old stadium was torn down and replaced with a new one.
*SDSU bought San Diego Stadium and its property from the city. The stadium was demolished, the land became or became a part of their satellite campus, then a new stadium was built.
*Buffalo built a higher capacity OCS in 1993. The older OCS is in use for other purposes.
*Northwestern owns their stadium located away from the main campus. They have plans to tear down their old 47k stadium and replace it with a 35k stadium.


Also from discussions about the subject since my time joining the message board, I would see other schools getting mentioned that play off campus. I looked a little deeper into their situations, and it seems like the debates are similar to ours.

For example with UCLA this blog post (I found out Northwestern's plan here) from Oct. talked about an OCS. This post has a tweet from Troy Aikman and I've seen other fans saying something similar about wanting an OCS that is at least 30k. However this article talks about the issues UCLA had/have with getting an OCS. One of those is that they have a contract with the Rose Bowl till 2044 with no opt out clause. They also give away free tickets to help fill empty seats. The article says that hasn't been successful.

In all this was pretty interesting to look at.

Give it up; we have a near perfect feasibility study that Shirley, RC and Mike Rose $hit-canned upon receipt that showed the stadium would handily pay for itself; Shirley used the student fee money to build a near $70 Million barely used student center……so that key source of bond repayment is gone for another 10 years

The State looks ready to commit $730 million to renovate FDX Forum and the Stadium; we can’t get that for on campus

We will, however, have 2nd to none facilities…..enabling the Pres and AD to fully commit to NIL efforts

(01-23-2023 04:44 PM)bigbob Wrote:  

(01-22-2023 10:38 PM)Alanda Wrote:  msu35 posed the question in another thread with a baseline of moving from a 40k stadium. Curiosity got the best of me so I wanted to see how that looked. I originally planned to only go back to 2000 to save time, but then changed to 30 years ago before settling on 1990. Because of this I do not know if there were any schools that made the same move before 1990. I also looked at all sizes instead of just above 40k. I used this Wikipedia page as a quick reference for build dates. The following list only includes schools who built their new stadium on the main campus.



The main thing that stood out to me was that three of the five schools that moved from stadiums over 40k were in the same conference as Memphis at different points. I realized after the fact that I didn't keep a proper track of ownership of the older stadium as I was doing this. But from what I remember Colorado State is the only school in this list that owned the previous off-campus stadium. Most of the schools moved into smaller stadiums. Louisville has since expanded seating past the previous stadium's capacity.

Other Notes
*N. Texas, SMU, Houston, Utah, and Stanford tore down their old OCSs and built new ones. N. Texas built the new one in a different location than the old OCS.
*Georgia State built a new 24,333 capacity stadium after playing in the Georgia Dome. Still off the main campus, but they own the stadium.
*Hawaii is currently playing on campus till the new Aloha Stadium is built.
*Rutgers has a stadium on a satellite campus. The old stadium was torn down and replaced with a new one.
*SDSU bought San Diego Stadium and its property from the city. The stadium was demolished, the land became or became a part of their satellite campus, then a new stadium was built.
*Buffalo built a higher capacity OCS in 1993. The older OCS is in use for other purposes.
*Northwestern owns their stadium located away from the main campus. They have plans to tear down their old 47k stadium and replace it with a 35k stadium.


Also from discussions about the subject since my time joining the message board, I would see other schools getting mentioned that play off campus. I looked a little deeper into their situations, and it seems like the debates are similar to ours.

For example with UCLA this blog post (I found out Northwestern's plan here) from Oct. talked about an OCS. This post has a tweet from Troy Aikman and I've seen other fans saying something similar about wanting an OCS that is at least 30k. However this article talks about the issues UCLA had/have with getting an OCS. One of those is that they have a contract with the Rose Bowl till 2044 with no opt out clause. They also give away free tickets to help fill empty seats. The article says that hasn't been successful.

In all this was pretty interesting to look at.

Give it up; we have a near perfect feasibility study that Shirley, RC and Mike Rose $hit-canned upon receipt that showed the stadium would handily pay for itself; Shirley used the student fee money to build a near $70 Million barely used student center……so that key source of bond repayment is gone for another 10 years

The State looks ready to commit $730 million to renovate FDX Forum and the Stadium; we can’t get that for on campus

We will, however, have 2nd to none facilities…..enabling the Pres and AD to fully commit to NIL efforts

Did you add something in there? If you did, it isn't apparent.

(01-23-2023 09:46 AM)Eagleonpar Wrote:  Not this again

To you and bigbob the intent of this wasn't another "Memphis needs an OCS" thread. In fact I don't think I've seen msu35 show support for one. This was about seeing if and how many other schools had made that kind of move. If you notice there is no info saying the schools had a positive or negative impact from the move. Only what they have done.

Like Claw and msu35 said it's probably more about low or decline in attendance and how schools have adjusted their stadium needs to that.

(01-22-2023 10:57 PM)msu35 Wrote:  I agree and I appreciate all of the effort you put into digging this up. Very interesting. I noticed that most of the schools actually migrated to lower capacity stadiums in the process, something that most people here agree should be the case if Memphis were to eventually go the OCS route. Should help increase ticket prices and yield better optics compared to empty seats.

Regarding falling attendance, it seems to be a broad trend across the football landscape in general. It's hard to tear people away from their couches and distractions to attend games. Perhaps we'll see stadiums get smaller and smaller as more people choose television over watching in person. Back when many of the large stadiums were built, options were limited, and people didn't have access to every game like they do now.

Exactly. As media options have improved over the years for consumers, the need to go to the game has been impacted. The schools with the biggest fanbases are really the only ones that have the numbers to overcome that shift while still maintaining large attendance.

(01-23-2023 04:44 PM)bigbob Wrote:  

(01-22-2023 10:38 PM)Alanda Wrote:  msu35 posed the question in another thread with a baseline of moving from a 40k stadium. Curiosity got the best of me so I wanted to see how that looked. I originally planned to only go back to 2000 to save time, but then changed to 30 years ago before settling on 1990. Because of this I do not know if there were any schools that made the same move before 1990. I also looked at all sizes instead of just above 40k. I used this Wikipedia page as a quick reference for build dates. The following list only includes schools who built their new stadium on the main campus.



The main thing that stood out to me was that three of the five schools that moved from stadiums over 40k were in the same conference as Memphis at different points. I realized after the fact that I didn't keep a proper track of ownership of the older stadium as I was doing this. But from what I remember Colorado State is the only school in this list that owned the previous off-campus stadium. Most of the schools moved into smaller stadiums. Louisville has since expanded seating past the previous stadium's capacity.

Other Notes
*N. Texas, SMU, Houston, Utah, and Stanford tore down their old OCSs and built new ones. N. Texas built the new one in a different location than the old OCS.
*Georgia State built a new 24,333 capacity stadium after playing in the Georgia Dome. Still off the main campus, but they own the stadium.
*Hawaii is currently playing on campus till the new Aloha Stadium is built.
*Rutgers has a stadium on a satellite campus. The old stadium was torn down and replaced with a new one.
*SDSU bought San Diego Stadium and its property from the city. The stadium was demolished, the land became or became a part of their satellite campus, then a new stadium was built.
*Buffalo built a higher capacity OCS in 1993. The older OCS is in use for other purposes.
*Northwestern owns their stadium located away from the main campus. They have plans to tear down their old 47k stadium and replace it with a 35k stadium.


Also from discussions about the subject since my time joining the message board, I would see other schools getting mentioned that play off campus. I looked a little deeper into their situations, and it seems like the debates are similar to ours.

For example with UCLA this blog post (I found out Northwestern's plan here) from Oct. talked about an OCS. This post has a tweet from Troy Aikman and I've seen other fans saying something similar about wanting an OCS that is at least 30k. However this article talks about the issues UCLA had/have with getting an OCS. One of those is that they have a contract with the Rose Bowl till 2044 with no opt out clause. They also give away free tickets to help fill empty seats. The article says that hasn't been successful.

In all this was pretty interesting to look at.

Give it up; we have a near perfect feasibility study that Shirley, RC and Mike Rose $hit-canned upon receipt that showed the stadium would handily pay for itself; Shirley used the student fee money to build a near $70 Million barely used student center……so that key source of bond repayment is gone for another 10 years

The State looks ready to commit $730 million to renovate FDX Forum and the Stadium; we can’t get that for on campus

We will, however, have 2nd to none facilities…..enabling the Pres and AD to fully commit to NIL efforts

The student center gets extensive use. I’ve been in it extensively since it was built. It gets far broader participation by campus and community than a stadium would have.

The feasibility study was questionable. Few stadiums have paid for themselves and should not be expected to do so. We have not had a president successfully rally deep pocket donors and Corp support to pull off doing what the study said would be required.

Marc Daniels wrote an article comparing UCF and USF in the Stadium Wars.

Similar programs, different trajectories, the major difference On Campus Stadium.

Talk about a biased, snarky assassination job against South Florida by a homer for the Knights. Ha ha.

Where does one put an on campus stadium when the University is surrounded by residential area and businesses? Is the school rolling in so much dough that they can buy all of that out?

(01-30-2023 05:01 PM)Crazier Wrote:  Where does one put an on campus stadium when the University is surrounded by residential area and businesses? Is the school rolling in so much dough that they can buy all of that out?

Nah, there's room on campus for an adequate stadium that will serve the school's needs. If anything, the bigger issue would potentially be parking for games with high attendance.

(01-30-2023 04:55 PM)ArmoredUpKnight Wrote:  

Marc Daniels wrote an article comparing UCF and USF in the Stadium Wars.

Similar programs, different trajectories, the major difference On Campus Stadium.

Sorry, but the difference between UCF moving to the B12 & USF staying behind is not the OCS. If you guys flipped records the past decade and USF went to multiple NY6 games instead of UCF…..then USF would be in the B12 and not UCF…..even with them playing in an off campus stadium.

An OCS is not the golden ticket to a P5 invitation, it’s spending money on your program. (Renovations fit that definition) & improving your academic position if that is a perceived weakness.

(01-30-2023 05:10 PM)hk25 Wrote:  Sorry, but the difference between UCF moving to the B12 & USF staying behind is not the OCS. If you guys flipped records the past decade and USF went to multiple NY6 games instead of UCF…..then USF would be in the B12 and not UCF…..even with them playing in an off campus stadium.

An OCS is not the golden ticket to a P5 invitation, it’s spending money on your program. (Renovations fit that definition) & improving your academic position if that is a perceived weakness.

The hatred between the Bulls and the Knights is second to none. That joker just came in here to soft flex.

(01-30-2023 05:10 PM)hk25 Wrote:  

(01-30-2023 04:55 PM)ArmoredUpKnight Wrote:  

Marc Daniels wrote an article comparing UCF and USF in the Stadium Wars.

Similar programs, different trajectories, the major difference On Campus Stadium.

Sorry, but the difference between UCF moving to the B12 & USF staying behind is not the OCS. If you guys flipped records the past decade and USF went to multiple NY6 games instead of UCF…..then USF would be in the B12 and not UCF…..even with them playing in an off campus stadium.

An OCS is not the golden ticket to a P5 invitation, it’s spending money on your program. (Renovations fit that definition) & improving your academic position if that is a perceived weakness.

Those players committed because they enjoyed the atmosphere at the On-Campus Stadium.

(01-30-2023 05:16 PM)ArmoredUpKnight Wrote:  

(01-30-2023 05:10 PM)hk25 Wrote:  

(01-30-2023 04:55 PM)ArmoredUpKnight Wrote:  

Marc Daniels wrote an article comparing UCF and USF in the Stadium Wars.

Similar programs, different trajectories, the major difference On Campus Stadium.

Sorry, but the difference between UCF moving to the B12 & USF staying behind is not the OCS. If you guys flipped records the past decade and USF went to multiple NY6 games instead of UCF…..then USF would be in the B12 and not UCF…..even with them playing in an off campus stadium.

An OCS is not the golden ticket to a P5 invitation, it’s spending money on your program. (Renovations fit that definition) & improving your academic position if that is a perceived weakness.

Those players committed because they enjoyed the atmosphere at the On-Campus Stadium.

If the on-campus stadium is the sell, why do players go to Miami?

(01-30-2023 05:16 PM)ArmoredUpKnight Wrote:  Those players committed because they enjoyed the atmosphere at the On-Campus Stadium.

Aside from beating you when you roll into Memphis soon, I promise, nobody here cares about the Knights.

(01-30-2023 05:16 PM)ArmoredUpKnight Wrote:  

(01-30-2023 05:10 PM)hk25 Wrote:  

(01-30-2023 04:55 PM)ArmoredUpKnight Wrote:  

Marc Daniels wrote an article comparing UCF and USF in the Stadium Wars.

Similar programs, different trajectories, the major difference On Campus Stadium.

Sorry, but the difference between UCF moving to the B12 & USF staying behind is not the OCS. If you guys flipped records the past decade and USF went to multiple NY6 games instead of UCF…..then USF would be in the B12 and not UCF…..even with them playing in an off campus stadium.

An OCS is not the golden ticket to a P5 invitation, it’s spending money on your program. (Renovations fit that definition) & improving your academic position if that is a perceived weakness.

Those players committed because they enjoyed the atmosphere at the On-Campus Stadium.

And all along I thought it was because UCF made solid coaching hires & ran offensive & defensive schemes the players thought could take them to the next level.