I wonder if they are planning a sky box structure like the one on the west upper deck or will the new seating areas be in the area below the east upper deck? Does anyone know?
Tanner's plan for premium seating on east side
- Thread starter gamecockox
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It hasn't been designed yet, though I would bet it will mirror the one built above the west upper. They *could* also build premium seating on either side of the scoreboard above the north end zone with fittings for an eventual upper deck above.
He said something about a net loss of 600 or so seats. Imo, losses of that number indicate the 'red level' seats between the upper and lower decks on the East side would take the 'hit' in seat losses, which would take our official seating capacity BELOW 80,000.
The thought of a glass cage extending the entire length of the underside of the East Upper is simply . . . sickening! Make more $$$ the honest way: improve recruiting and coaching, win more games more often and then charge more $$$ for seats in W-B. Simple . . . and also prettier.
Go ahead and piss off more Gamecock fans like Hyman did . That should be fun to watch .
yup...maybe they should install a premium football team for more than 3 years...then the money will come.
I don't care anything at all about "premium" seating or luxury box seats.
Tanner better figure out how to win some games, or he can just chop off the east side of the stadium.
Both the Falcons and Braves new stadiums will have fewer seats than the ones they are replacing. Of course they will have the swankier premium seating. Maybe we are going that route.
I would say to Tanner it's nice to have premium seats and the money they bring but they can go empty too. Ask the Hawks. Until they started winning you could throw a rock in those premiums and not hit anyone. Now they are winning and it's a hot ticket. Anyway whatever Ray does with the seats is fine with me but he better make the right hires to keep them filled.
I would say to Tanner it's nice to have premium seats and the money they bring but they can go empty too. Ask the Hawks. Until they started winning you could throw a rock in those premiums and not hit anyone. Now they are winning and it's a hot ticket. Anyway whatever Ray does with the seats is fine with me but he better make the right hires to keep them filled.
Of course you don't care. You don't pay. I'm sure RT is scared sh*tless over your threat.
Yawn.
Not to burst anyone's bubble, but most colleges are downsizing their stadiums to give the ticket holder more with less capacity. It's a proven fact that most stadiums are not selling out or making it worthwhile to go bigger, but to go smaller and charge more for the experience and rights to buy those seats. So Ray obviously is smarter than most of the contributors on this site including me!
1000 premium seats bring in way more income than 3000 regular seats. The math is pretty simple. Premium seats have a minimum seat fee of $1150. The highest non premium seat fee is $395. Not to mention you have to be silver spur or higher for a premium seat. Every premium seat sells out in the stadium each year and there is a waiting list for boxes at $50k each. Do the math, Alabama has like 160 suites at an average cost of around $100k each. We have like 20 at $50k each. So Alabama makes $15 million more a year than we do just off suites. I know we aren't Alabama, but we have a desperate need for more suites and donors who will gladly pay for them. If you wanna keep up with the jones you need to at least be able to afford a house on the same street. Right now our stadium isn't even in the same neighborhood as a lot of the stadiums in the sec.
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Season tickets sales are at or already surpassing last year. Membership has probably dropped slightly, but the upgrades in donations and membership level are rising. Plenty of butts in the right seats.
The people that sit in the zone come and go. We have sat there for years and there are always new faces around us. We gave up 2 of our 6 seats zone seats for 2 extra in the west club today. With the price increase last year the zone cost to much for me to just give away tickets and it has gotten where We rarely use all 6.
However Suites are a totally different story, they never come available and if there were some to be had they would be scooped up immediately. I wouldn't be surprised if some private money hasn't offered to build a group of suites in the north end zone. At a projected cost of 8-10 million if you believe what has been published they could easily recoup their money and a nice profit off a 20-30 suite project. Of course USC doesn't want to share the revenue so I doubt they would be interested.
However Suites are a totally different story, they never come available and if there were some to be had they would be scooped up immediately. I wouldn't be surprised if some private money hasn't offered to build a group of suites in the north end zone. At a projected cost of 8-10 million if you believe what has been published they could easily recoup their money and a nice profit off a 20-30 suite project. Of course USC doesn't want to share the revenue so I doubt they would be interested.
"Enhancing the game day experience" is the phrase I hear again and again. Wifi everywhere, HDtvs everywhere, HD jumbotrons, etc. I would think if you're in the construction of and retrofitting stadiums you should have a lot of business opportunities
But I continue to maintain that folks aren't going to shell out premium seat and suites money if there is a lousy, mediocre product. Only have to look around the league to see that finding a good coach is harder than building things. Even Florida, LSU and Bama have flubbed hires in the recent past. So that next hire is crucial.
But I continue to maintain that folks aren't going to shell out premium seat and suites money if there is a lousy, mediocre product. Only have to look around the league to see that finding a good coach is harder than building things. Even Florida, LSU and Bama have flubbed hires in the recent past. So that next hire is crucial.
All I can say is we certainly aren't wasting $63,000,000 to downsize our facilities like those idiots in Taterville are doing to a perfectly fine Littlejohn.
The weird thing about the Littlejohn remodel is that they just did a tens of millions of dollars revamp to it, what, less than a decade ago?
Yep. It was in 2003 at a cost of $31 million. The new renovation is supposed to cost $63.8 million and will cut capacity to about 8,000 seats. Yes, you read that right. Their "new" basketball arena will only hold 8,000 fans. That's more than 4,500 fewer seats than our WOMEN'S basketball team averaged this past season.
That also means they will have dumped about $95 million into their sorry basketball program to have a tiny arena that STILL can't draw any major concert acts. The CLA just announced Paul McCartney and James Taylor. Littlejohn just had Josh Turner and Kevin Hart.
If Billy Brice drops below 80k seats so Tanner can create a bar for rich people to drink and hangout during games, he's a dumbass.
If he loses 600 nosebleed seats to make another $2-$3 million per year then he's a genius!
The six hundred figure leads me to believe he is planning a sky box structure a top the east upper mirroring the west. I think any attempt to place it below the upper deck would result in more seat loss than six hundred.
Him mentioning planning a football operations building adjacent to the new indoor facility could or would render the Floyd building useless. I believe once the luxury suites and operations building projects are taken care of that some type of north end expansion would appear on Tanners radar
Attendance is down everywhere, this is the new trend. At least for anyone with any business sense at all.
Exactly. Those top row nose bleed seats in the east upper are only full for 2 games a year anyway. Give the rich people something they want and it will open their billfolds.
Right. I love the insult thrown in at the end, John Gault. I guess you hangout on the free message board at 8:30 am because you're a captain of industry.
In any event, if the university thinks moving towards fewer seats for peasants so that they can leverage more cash from donors is a good strategy, we're in big trouble. Or does attendance no longer count? I shouldn't be surprised. The stadium is surrounded by industrial blight, fake rockets, railroad tracks, garbage and palm trees that have no business on the side of the stadium. The university has always looked at everything short term. Why not this? Sure, putting a winner consistently on the field is hard. And damn, cleaning up the area and improving the game day experience is costly. Let's just keep crowding people into dirty, un-shaded parking lots and put in some luxury boxes for a few fans. Problems solved.
How about putting a winner on the field more than three years at a stretch and then you'll see those wallets fly open. Just a thought.
Haha, I may not be a captain of industry, but I can tell time. Also, after 10 years of paying for the insiders forum I made the decision it was no longer worth my $10. That's why I'm on the free board. BTW, my comment on the previous message was not directed to you. It was a general statement about ADs and team owners.
There is a trend to fewer seats and a greater emphasis on premiums and suites all over. It's not a USC phenomenon at all.
As for attendance no longer counting, yeah, I'd have to say in certain situations it doesn't. Take at look at the average bowl game. Empty seats galore. But they do get the ratings so there you go. They will still be played (at least until the playoff gets expanded).
Finally, the last comment is spot on. This is why I am much more concerned with the next coaching hire than I am the building plans. If we get stuck with say, Brad Scott redux, Williams Brice will look like some suburban shopping malls do now.
The Stadium is much improved over the past years, and getting better as I type this. There is the Beast Board, huge general landscape/tailgate improvements, untold improvements in other football/athletic buildings, and now maybe some new lucrative (this means they earn lots of money!) luxury suites/boxes at W-B. If you can find something to complain about amidst all this, I strongly advise you to revise your negative attitude.
Like Quisp stated, more and more less butts is better. TV has taken the poor man's seats. If you aren't an alumni, or don't contribute substantially to the coffer, you are considered expendable. Most schools are looking in the 75000 range for the "GameDay experience". Everything else Is TV money to the schools. The bigger is better is bs. If the stadium is full with big money donors, and the TV money is out of site at 30-50 mil a year, I say good on ya. The level of giving will go up, and the university will prosper. That of course will depend on the product, but we are a small state with extremely limited fund raising ability, so the SEC rules. A lot of our kids can get an education and succeed based on that model. Mike Slive is a damn genius!!!! And he will be missed. He leveled the playing field between the industrial based northern schools and the poor southern schools in one fell swoop. Period. Get over it and get use to it.
Cockhorn I agree with you about boxes in the north endzone.....Old Dominion University's football stadium added boxes in their endzone, I could see a similar structure added above the present stands on both sides of the score board
Cockhorn I agree with you about boxes in the north endzone.....Old Dominion University's football stadium added boxes in their endzone, I could see a similar structure added above the present stands on both sides of the score board
That's exactly what I had in mind, with the scoreboard continuing where it is and then a modified upper deck could eventually be added above it.
Bottom line - Ray will prove himself to be utterly tone-deaf with the lifeblood of the fan base if he spearheads this initiative while the product on the field is anything less than consistently exciting/competitive. It feels very much to me like some BS one of our ADs pre-Hyman would have pulled to to distract the BoT from the mediocrity we're fielding, and that is scary.
Wow! I think the jury is still out on Tanner, but he is doing the right thing is regards to more premium seating. Everybody has their opinion. I think your comment makes you the dumbass.
