OWH: Now Is the Time to Reconfigure Memorial Stadium

[Mavric]

Quote

This could be the right time to reconfigure the stadium.

 

Give it a good cleansing. Remodel some bathrooms or add more. Tear up the bleachers and put in wide stadium seats. Or widen the number of seats on those bleachers. New bleachers, yes.

 

In the process, you lose seating, lose capacity. But many college officials think smaller stadium sizes figure into the future of college sports. And now, who knows? After this pandemic, more folks nationwide might settle into a habit of watching games on TV.

 

I know Husker fans are a source of pride and impressing recruits. But is 80,000, or 75,000, any less passionate? Are they less intimidating?

 

Getting down to that number won’t be easy. It will be controversial. Let’s see what the pandemic shakes out.

 

But a smaller, cleaner, more spacious and fan-friendly stadium might be the way to maintain a healthy new sellout streak.

 

[84HuskerLaw]

While seating comfort is a good thing generally I seriously doubt that anyone in the Ath Dept is even considering blowing a few million $ on a scheme to reduce future ticket revenues!   They are more than likely trying to figure out how to pay the light bills and keep most of the “essential” staff paid.  

 

They have big bldg plans that were going to be tricky before the virus mess, and now very ify.  

Cutting seating has not been a priority.  Sell outs are not at risk if you dont have games or if seating is limited by law or regulatory fiat. 

[knapplc]

Downsizing is going to be a necessity, I think, in coming years as more and more people watch from home, but now is not the time to do any kind of major work on Memorial Stadium.

[Red Five]

1 hour ago, knapplc said:

Downsizing is going to be a necessity, I think, in coming years as more and more people watch from home, but now is not the time to do any kind of major work on Memorial Stadium.

 

Not only will more people watch from home, but the younger generation are just not the die hard husker fans that many of us were growing up.  Basically anyone born from the mid-90s on doesn't have too many memories of Nebraska competing at the highest level for natty, let alone a conference title.

[Mavric]

1 hour ago, knapplc said:

Downsizing is going to be a necessity, I think, in coming years as more and more people watch from home, but now is not the time to do any kind of major work on Memorial Stadium.

 

I believe they have done a little downsizing a couple times over the past few years.  I think all they did was just widen the allotted seat space - thus reducing the number of seats in a row - in a couple of areas of North and South Stadium.  Probably not really what he's talking about but it could be accomplished without a major re-work.  Even replacing the benches to do that wouldn't be a huge project.

 

Curious what the renewal rate is for this year.  Most of the renewals were due before the virus craziness but there are also a lot of seats available and people might not be jumping on them as quickly as they have in the past, for a variety of reasons.

[knapplc]

5 minutes ago, Mavric said:

 

I believe they have done a little downsizing a couple times over the past few years.  I think all they did was just widen the allotted seat space - thus reducing the number of seats in a row - in a couple of areas of North and South Stadium.  Probably not really what he's talking about but it could be accomplished without a major re-work.  Even replacing the benches to do that wouldn't be a huge project.

 

Curious what the renewal rate is for this year.  Most of the renewals were due before the virus craziness but there are also a lot of seats available and people might not be jumping on them as quickly as they have in the past, for a variety of reasons.

 

Yeah, they did that for sure in North stadium, way up top - the year after we moved down.

 

 

[I am I]

9 hours ago, knapplc said:

 

Yeah, they did that for sure in North stadium, way up top - the year after we moved down.

 

 

We have seats way up north for a decade or little more. The last ‘comfy’ game we went to was v Gill w KS... it’s elbow to asses and I love it for every other game. 
 

widening seats is okay but I think we don’t know the explosion of people interest in getting out yet, people are ready to go. I’m ready to go and live life. 
If this season only allows 50k in the stadium or whatever, those seats will be filled 

[Cdog923]

Reducing seats = increasing demand. I don't doubt that it will happen again at some point. 

[Moiraine]

13 hours ago, 84HuskerLaw said:

I seriously doubt that anyone in the Ath Dept is even considering blowing a few million $ on a scheme to reduce future ticket revenues!

 

 

Reducing the # of seats does not = reducing ticket revenue. If the experience is improved enough, they can charge more per ticket.

[84HuskerLaw]

4 hours ago, Moiraine said:

 

 

Reducing the # of seats does not = reducing ticket revenue. If the experience is improved enough, they can charge more per ticket.

Sure but filling the seats remains important as the message it sends with empty seats is weak demand and lost fan interest, especially on fair weather days etc.  

To make seats more roomy to make meaningful difference you’d have to add about 20% to each one  and that would cut about 15,000 seats. Raise tickets another 20% is tough when market price is already below face prices for most games. 

Many games you can buy tickets at $30 or so before the games.  I always viewed the difference as a donation and convenience deal.  Even in 1995 at the pinnacle of Husker football tickets were hard to sell for many games.  These days its probably really tough.  

Add a roof and maybe one more home game and maybe you could get more attendance $ over the long term IF you put a winning team on the field.  Bond interest rates are low enough it might be doable.  

[BigRedBuster]

On 5/5/2020 at 1:03 PM, Mavric said:

 

I believe they have done a little downsizing a couple times over the past few years.  I think all they did was just widen the allotted seat space - thus reducing the number of seats in a row - in a couple of areas of North and South Stadium.  Probably not really what he's talking about but it could be accomplished without a major re-work.  Even replacing the benches to do that wouldn't be a huge project.

 

Curious what the renewal rate is for this year.  Most of the renewals were due before the virus craziness but there are also a lot of seats available and people might not be jumping on them as quickly as they have in the past, for a variety of reasons.

I think this is the only thing they possibly would do in most of the stadium.  This season looks like possibly a season where numbers at the games are going to be down.  So, widen the seats.  They won't put in permanent stadium seats because that locks them into never increasing capacity (reducing seat size) again.  

 

The only areas where I could see them putting in permanent stadium seats is possibly some of the premium spots between the 20s.  They would then boost the cost of the seats to make up for it.

[Cdog923]

1 hour ago, BigRedBuster said:

I think this is the only thing they possibly would do in most of the stadium.  This season looks like possibly a season where numbers at the games are going to be down.  So, widen the seats.  They won't put in permanent stadium seats because that locks them into never increasing capacity (reducing seat size) again.  

 

The only areas where I could see them putting in permanent stadium seats is possibly some of the premium spots between the 20s.  They would then boost the cost of the seats to make up for it.

 

How would you widen the seats without switching to a stadium-type of a seat? Repaint the numbers on the benches and reduce the amount of tickets sold? Genuinely curious here. 

[BigRedBuster]

17 minutes ago, Cdog923 said:

 

How would you widen the seats without switching to a stadium-type of a seat? Repaint the numbers on the benches and reduce the amount of tickets sold? Genuinely curious here. 

Don’t know exactly but, they’ve adjusted the width a number of times. I always thought they would need to replace the bench top. 

[Loebarth]

Arrowhead Stadium holds just under 77,000 with real seats. Not sure why Memorial Stadium doesn't do the same. Well... I understand why they didn't but I don't understand why now they won't remodel the seating. It's way past time to do so.

[knapplc]

55 minutes ago, Cdog923 said:

 

How would you widen the seats without switching to a stadium-type of a seat? Repaint the numbers on the benches and reduce the amount of tickets sold? Genuinely curious here. 

 

That's exactly how they do it. The bench is 36 feet long, each "seat" is 18 inches of space, so you have 24 seats per row. Give each seat 22 or 24 inches, you cut down on seats in the row but everyone has more room.

 

And specifically, those benches have a cover, they just replace the cover with plastic or metal or whatever those things are, and they all come preprinted.