Post details: Leery of stadium expansion05/12/09
Permalink 03:26:33 pm, Categories: -Football by Steve Sipple
Leery of stadium expansion
According to the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, Texas Tech officials have a master plan for an 85,000-seat stadium.
Mind you, that's a long-range projection. In the meantime, growth will occur a few thousand seats at a time. Toward that end, Texas Tech is taking the seemingly sensible step of increasing capacity to 61,000 by the middle of next season.
Under the current plan, Tech will add 3,000 seats on the northwest corner of Jones Stadium and 3,000 seats on the northeast corner, in addition to the east-side stadium building whose suites and club seats will have room for another 1,000 or so.
If I were an athletic administration official virtually anywhere, I'd be leery about adding many seats at this time (there have been discussions about expanding the east side of Memorial Stadium in Lincoln).
It's not so much our nation's financial crisis that would concern me -- signs point to the crisis subsiding in a year or so -- it's the proliferation of events and options on cable television. It's become very easy for fans to just stay home and watch games on TV.
As far as Texas Tech goes, I'd be leery about any longterm expansion plan because I wonder how much longer Mike Leach will remain at the school. Nebraska's unbelievable sellout streak -- 297 games and counting -- has withstood coaching instability in recent years.
Instability at Tech might be another story . . .
