(02-01-2023 05:49 PM)Claw Wrote:  

(02-01-2023 05:42 PM)Milwaukee Wrote:  

(01-30-2023 11:02 AM)Claw Wrote:  

(01-29-2023 07:51 PM)ken d Wrote:  

(01-29-2023 01:44 PM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  I just mapped it out, the Liberty Bowl is 2.3 miles from the Campus. Yes, it's an ageing facility, but it's more than adequate and the location isn't so much worse than an OCS that you'd want to drop hundreds of millions replacing it with something 2 miles down the road. As others have noted, Memphis' issues are largely unrelated to the Stadium.

What would an on-campus stadium give Memphis? Would it improve their attendance? More important, would it increase their revenues? If more students were to attend their games, would they sell more tickets or just have more seats filled with no additional revenue and probably a lot of debt service for many years into the future? Spend your money on something else.

At the risk of cutting my own school's throat, I am going to answer that question.

Here's what an on-campus stadium would give The University of Memphis:

- Higher ticket prices. The current stadium is 55,000 seats. We need a 35-40K seat facility to drive ticket prices. The city needs a larger stadium to support the Liberty Bowl game and the Southern Heritage Classic. The hotel and restaurant revenue from out-of-towners attending these games is in the millions. This is one reason the city opposes an on-campus stadium.

- Secondary Revenue - The city owns the current stadium. Money from parking, concessions, suite sales, signage advertising, naming rights, and all non-football events goes to the city. The university gets a cut of some of these for our game days, but not all of them. That's a lot of money, and it's one reason they city has never supported on-campus facilities for the university.

- Jobs The city controls the employment for stadium workers from groundskeepers to parking attendants and all points in between. This is used as a political tool for local politicians to reward their supporters with some extra cash working various stadium jobs (or perhaps being paid for them when they didn't actually work). Other schools hire students to do a lot of these jobs or use them to supplement the income of other school employees. Contracts or stadium services and repairs also fall into the same political arena. Another reason the city doesn't support an on-campus stadium.

- Political Advantage The University can bring the Governor or other state officials to a suite to see a game and those people will never place their feet on the campus. The city owns their own suites as well, and influential figures will find their way into the city's clutches even at a Tiger game. Control of the suites and having them on the campus would increase dignitaries time on the campus dramatically as it is now essentially none. Keep in mind men's basketball is played downtown at the FedExForum. We need those players on campus to see what needs to be done. Perhaps another reason the city doesn't support an on-campus stadium?

- Miscellaneous
High school students attending games never see the campus.

TV coverage never shows the campus.

Restaurants and retailers supporting the school would benefit greatly from the additional business. (There is virtually nothing around the current stadium).

Alumni attending games remain detached from their campus, schools, departments, and faculty. Alumni giving is low.


I could go on some more, but by now you should get it. The University of Memphis is a state school - not a city school. The city has numerous interests in owning and controlling the football stadium, but without the university as a tenant, it would be difficult to justify. Since they own the stadium, the city reaps the vast majority of the benefits of ownership. That's where we have been for 100 years, and it is not going to change for another 25 to 50 years. The city has secured funding for major upgrades to the stadium. Memphis' plight will continue for a few more decades at least.

Building a smaller stadium so Memphis can raise ticket prices seems like a Bizzaro World idea to me. Do Memphis fans want to pay much higher prices for their tickets?

It's hard to sell season tickets to people who can walk up the day of the game and get a seat.

Exactly! This is why there is a trend for smaller venues. Another reason for that is that young people don't seem as interested in attending sports events as they were in the past.

(01-31-2023 07:27 PM)bill dazzle Wrote:  [quote='Alanda' pid='18754379' dateline='1675210178']
Thanks for the responses. I've also felt there were other factors that held more weight than having an OCS, but did believe that probably the main purpose was it showed a schools financial commitment to the program which some of you said as well. And tying in with that, supposedly at least one of the things that hurt Memphis in the latest round based on some with inside info is that donation level and one of them added demographics as an issue. That was vague so I don't know the exact meaning of that. I think our biggest problem is that we are just behind the other schools is progress. Even with football I would say there wasn't a serious attempt at trying to build a winning program till 2012 when Justin Fuente was hired. Past coaches seemed to get hired being given promises that were left unmet.

@Native Georgian and bullet - No idea how I messed that up. Everything I looked at talked about Turner Field and I still typed they built a new stadium. NG I would take your info as fact and not opinion. And bullet thanks for the added info for Houston.

@Frank - The academics side has been an ongoing debate as well for its impact. Just like how msu35 posed this question about stadiums, shere khan brought up comparing schools based on acceptance rate and graduation rate as we were still waiting to find out about R1 classification. So I made this thread comparing those numbers for the schools in conference at the time using College Scorecard. What stood out to me the most is Memphis has a withdrawal rate problem. Most schools I looked at had higher transfer rates than withdrawal rates, but it was the opposite for Memphis. Bill already talked about who the university primarily serves and the lack of preparation they get. Life happens so there will always be people that withdraw, but the numbers for Memphis are so high that lack of preparation is obvious. I think when I looked at it back then almost 1/3 of the students in that group withdrew. In the most recent one out of 10k+ students it's "down" to 27%. Add to that 22% transferred. If donation level and demographics are an issue we are going to have a hard time building that up, among other things, if the school is losing almost half of it's students at a time.

@Matt - Thanks for the added insight on that debacle. There have been some changes since then. Memphis among five other Tennessee schools used to be under the same Regents as the community colleges. In 2017 the state made the change allowing each of those schools to have their own Board of Regents. The Memphis DMA has a chance for some growth. Ford and SK Innovation are building BlueOval City which will begin truck production in 2025. It's just a bit over 50 miles from Downtown Memphis. Unfortunately it's still going to take some time before all these changes show their benefits.

@Bryan - Screw that walk. It is long. In the late 90s I started having some car trouble, had to park near the stadium (I think it was by the Children's Museum), and walk back to my dorm which was probably the closest on-campus building to the stadium. I definitely wouldn't want to walk there AND back.

@Gitanole - Florida State took a good amount of our "exciting highlight clips on the right side of the score" production. But I think most Memphis fans were happy for Norvell and for what he did for Memphis. And I'm glad that it looks like he's getting y'all back on track. I became a casual FSU fan after he got hired.

@ken_d - I think Memphis would definitely make more money. In an old interview with former AD Tom Bowen, he said the only money Memphis makes from FB and Men's BB is ticket sales. After another Memphis poster (Browning Hall) helped me remember Syracuse. I've been on the "copying them" horse ever since.

@Mike and Mike - Thanks for the clarification. By the time I got to Rutgers I tunnel-visioned on satellite campuses. So when Rutgers' site said five smaller campuses I didn't consider they were equal. Looking at the Google map I treated College Avenue as the primary despite it looking smaller than the other locations.

I've never understood the penalty for transfer rates. Why should a school get penalized if its freshman transfer to Ivy League schools- I think a school should be rewarded for that if anything.

Students actually withdrawing from a college is a much bigger problem.

(01-30-2023 08:09 PM)mikeinsec127 Wrote:  

(01-29-2023 09:08 PM)RutgersMike Wrote:  The main campuses of Rutgers University are located in the cities of New Brunswick and Piscataway. The original Rutgers Stadium was a Great Depression WPA project built in Piscataway which replaced Neilson Field in New Brunswick; total distance between the sites - maybe 5 miles at most.

After the D1/D1AA split, Rutgers did play two “home” games at Giants Stadium every year to meet the 30,000 stadium capacity requirement that was a former NCAA rule. But Rutgers never had a “satellite “ campus in East Rutherford. When Rutgers Stadium was rebuilt in the early 90’s, we did play our entire season at Giants Stadium.

All correct. The Bush Campus - where the stadium is located is in Piscataway, but it is not a satellite campus. It is one of the five campuses that make up RUNB. Actually, most of Rutgers varsity sports are housed in Piscataway on the Livingston/Bush Campuses. This is not at all like Temple which had its "On campus stadium" located on the Ambler Campus which is 13 miles from the main campus.

Having an on-campus stadium doesn't have nearly as much importance as you'd think. There are a bunch of P5 schools who don't ow or control their home field stadium. What really matters is how well the stadium is maintained, how bad is the neighborhood around it and can a school fill it. Places like UAB, UCF and Memphis found themselves left out of a couple of rounds of realignment, because all of those stadium issues we negatives. On the other hand, daU, Pitt and GaSt have all benefited by having access to stadiums that were well maintained and in decent (safe on game day) locations.

I beg to differ. There are some p5 schools with poor attendance who don't own or control their home field stadium, true, but guess how many SEC schools neither own nor control their home field stadium. Or B1G schools? Clemson? FSU? In fact, I believe that UCLA is the only current or future P2 schools in that position, though I'm not certain of every single B1G school and there might be a couple of others.

The difficulty with Memphis is that the Liberty Bowl is just close enough to campus to be within walking distance. The city wants to maintain it and it's not 20 miles away like UCLA's or Miami's stadium. An on campus stadium would certainly be better, but with a price tag of a couple hundred million bucks it would be unlikely to ever pay for itself and would also be unlikely to significantly increase support and interest in the football team.

I recall some area of focus with on-campus venues was to retain a sense of campus community, especially at schools with a modest or high commuter or "weekday resident" population. That "culture" schools tackle, where they want to keep the students on-campus to build that "traditional" community feel other schools have, it's an expensive change to chase. A stadium alone won't do that, but, it's sometimes a part of the greater vision. I'm just not sure how high up the list it needs to be if schools want to pursue it.

(01-29-2023 09:08 PM)RutgersMike Wrote:  The main campuses of Rutgers University are located in the cities of New Brunswick and Piscataway. The original Rutgers Stadium was a Great Depression WPA project built in Piscataway which replaced Neilson Field in New Brunswick; total distance between the sites - maybe 5 miles at most.

After the D1/D1AA split, Rutgers did play two “home” games at Giants Stadium every year to meet the 30,000 stadium capacity requirement that was a former NCAA rule. But Rutgers never had a “satellite “ campus in East Rutherford. When Rutgers Stadium was rebuilt in the early 90’s, we did play our entire season at Giants Stadium.

Barely one mile. I've walked it many times.

I know I'm going to regret asking this...but where's green with the update on Miami's sort-of-near-campus stadium?

(02-01-2023 04:47 PM)_C2_ Wrote:  You expect me to believe the South Bronx isn't ghetto and impoverished?

My family spent a week in NYC last month. From what I could tell, all of NYC, even the South Bronx, exists in an elitist and wealthy bubble. We saw everything except Staten Island, I guess it might be rough there.

(02-03-2023 12:53 AM)Poster Wrote:  I've never understood the penalty for transfer rates. Why should a school get penalized if its freshman transfer to Ivy League schools- I think a school should be rewarded for that if anything.

Students actually withdrawing from a college is a much bigger problem.

I agree and for as much as I don't like the NCAA I try to give them credit when it's due. At some point for athletics they introduced something called Graduation Success Rate which addresses the "transfer penalty". But retention % is something Memphis still needs to address better.

(02-03-2023 03:05 PM)The Cutter of Bish Wrote:  I recall some area of focus with on-campus venues was to retain a sense of campus community, especially at schools with a modest or high commuter or "weekday resident" population. That "culture" schools tackle, where they want to keep the students on-campus to build that "traditional" community feel other schools have, it's an expensive change to chase. A stadium alone won't do that, but, it's sometimes a part of the greater vision. I'm just not sure how high up the list it needs to be if schools want to pursue it.

Yeah. Even though this is intended for multiple schools, this is a really good summary of our situation.

(02-03-2023 03:27 PM)GarnetAndBlue Wrote:  I know I'm going to regret asking this...but where's green with the update on Miami's sort-of-near-campus stadium?

I read that thread before. Some of the responses were funny.

(02-03-2023 03:35 PM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  

(02-01-2023 04:47 PM)_C2_ Wrote:  You expect me to believe the South Bronx isn't ghetto and impoverished?

My family spent a week in NYC last month. From what I could tell, all of NYC, even the South Bronx, exists in an elitist and wealthy bubble. We saw everything except Staten Island, I guess it might be rough there.

You couldn't have covered every city block. Not buying it.

(02-03-2023 03:35 PM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  My family spent a week in NYC last month. From what I could tell, all of NYC, even the South Bronx, exists in an elitist and wealthy bubble. We saw everything except Staten Island, I guess it might be rough there.

LOL ok

I can literally go on youtube and look at people posting videos going through the South Bronx or any neighborhood for that matter and judge for myself what I see and think about it.

(02-03-2023 09:28 PM)darkdragon99 Wrote:  I can literally go on youtube and look at people posting videos going through the South Bronx or any neighborhood for that matter and judge for myself what I see and think about it.

I'm too lazy, unwilling, what's the verdict?

I honestly dont enjoy watching that kind of content. Too depressing.

South Bronx has come a long way, though. Philly's worse.

Tampa Bay Sports Writer sideswipes USF with Stadium comment.

I mean, if you can drop $100 million readily to renovate a stadium and it being about the same size or bigger than Washington State, that's still saying something.

I doubt the stadium renovation is the clincher. Being able to spend lots of money when you need to is the real lead. If SMU has to prove it can hang, it can spend it to prove that.

(01-30-2023 10:32 AM)Captain Bearcat Wrote:  

(01-30-2023 06:43 AM)DawgNBama Wrote:  

(01-30-2023 04:14 AM)Milwaukee Wrote:  [quote='_C2_' pid='18749981' dateline='1674972784']
Pitt is an example of a school that had a large on-campus stadium, but gave it up to play in an NFL stadium. Most seem to agree that they made the right decision.

UPMC was a huge reason for that though, and the Steelers/Panthers home is not far from UPitt's campus at all.

One that really worries me is UNLV, but they are a G5. UNLV gave up the Silver Bowl to play at the Raiders new stadium, but I continue to have my doubts about that arrangement long-term.

I think Pitt's football decline can be marked to the decision to go off-campus.

It's farther away than it seems on Google Maps - it's a 15 minute bus ride on a very good day.

The tailgate experience at Pitt football games is almost non-existent. It loses the advantages of bringing alumni and visiting fans to campus.

However, Pitt's campus faces tremendous land constraints. At only 132 acres and hemmed in by very steep hills and other major land-hungry institutions such as Carnegie Mellon, they are almost certainly the 2nd most landlocked major college campus in America (other than Columbia). (Marquette has slightly less land but a lot fewer students).

This is not accurate. Pitt had a football decline and had its darkest times in the 1990s playing in Pitt Stadium. Since moving to Heinz Field attendance is better and the football team has been at least average or better since 2001 and has been one of the biggest conference realignment success stories having the 2nd most wins in the ACC since joining.

The tailgate experience is pretty robust IMO. Not saying SEC level, but all of the lots within a mile radius are full of tailgaters, just like they are on Sundays. Way better than Pitt Stadium where there were very limited places to tailgate. Student involvement has also exploded in recent seasons, which has mostly made being off campus a moot point since the North Shore is more convenient for most fans. The Stadium is a tad too big and the yellow seats highlight every no show. That is really the only drawback for Pitt.

(02-03-2023 03:35 PM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  

(02-01-2023 04:47 PM)_C2_ Wrote:  You expect me to believe the South Bronx isn't ghetto and impoverished?

My family spent a week in NYC last month. From what I could tell, all of NYC, even the South Bronx, exists in an elitist and wealthy bubble. We saw everything except Staten Island, I guess it might be rough there.

NYC has seen a ton of gentrification even in areas that used to be full blown war zones. That all being said, call me the next time you are up in NYC and I'll give you a tour of a few hoods that will turn your hair white. Incidentally, even most people who live in NYC have never been to Staten Island. Unless you live there, the only reason to go there is as a short cut from Brooklyn to Newark Airport or the Jersey Shore.