P.J. Fleck says his goal is to expand TCF Bank Stadium to 85,000 seats in 3 years!

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fan of Ray Williams said:
I am going to assume it was taken out of context. Maybe he meant start plans in 3 years.....
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Pretty sure this would be the intent.

Picture a good season this year, a West Division Championship next year, then a B1G Championship year 3. If that happens interest and excitement will be very high and demand for tickets will exceed supply this generating talk of expansion. This talk goes a couple of years and if the team continues its success, then year 5 or 6 starts construction of an addition...

This is the.absolute fastest it could go IMO unless some big deep pocketed alumni drops $100M into the equation around year 2-4 (I don't see that happening)

Fun to dream about and hope etc.... Probability is around 0.5% in my humble opinion.
 

You guys are missing the message. Expanding the stadium is a throwaway line. Fleck can't do it and he knows he can't. The important message he wanted to get out is the 40 million funding gap (no idea where those numbers come from). He wants the public and the administration to hear that he is fighting an uphill battle. I don't really like his schtick but getting this message out is a good move.
 

Given that WMU rarely filled a 30,000 capacity stadium in Fleck's tenure their, getting 30,000 additional people to come to TCF to cheer for the home team is a bit farfetched.
 

I have no problem with Fleck's optimism. Regardless of how far-fetched. I'd be curious how many alumni that live out of state would be willing to travel back to see a game or two a year for a powerhouse program. In 2003 I attended "the game that shall not be discussed" and then vowed to not attended another Gopher game. Moved to Atlanta in 2005 and have not been back to attend another. If the Gophers were perennial Big 10 contenders I would try to arrange my schedule to get back for a game or two each year.
 

GopherBulldog said:
I have no problem with Fleck's optimism. Regardless of how far-fetched. I'd be curious how many alumni that live out of state would be willing to travel back to see a game or two a year for a powerhouse program. In 2003 I attended "the game that shall not be discussed" and then vowed to not attended another Gopger game. Moved to Atlanta in 2005 and have not been back to attend another. If the Gophers were perennial Big 10 contenders I would try to arrange my schedule to get back for a game or two each year.
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This is what consistent and big time winning will do....thousands of times over.

Now, just how do we accomplish the winning part?
 


I like his optimism. Go back and look at what he has accomplished; D1 WR at 5-9 175lbs. NFL WR for two years or whatever, NFL assistant coach and now head coach of a Big Ten program. I am sure the same guys that told him he was too small, too short, too slow etc. did not take him seriously either. I say don't underestimate what he can get done. He is unique and you will meet people like this in life. At minimum, he is drawing a line in the sand for the U to hold up their end of the bargain. He will win here I believe that. Do you think he is as capable of achieving Barry Alvarez type status? If your answer is yes then you have a reason to believe. He will do great things here including expanding TCF.
 

He better learn that the non-Viking capacity is 50805. He has the capacity wrong. Sheesh!!!!
 

I can't figure out if folks on Gopher Hole are taking everything PJ says seriously, or if they're just riffing off the hyperbole they usually see....

 

The Gophers won the 1960 national championship before the Vikings came and had an average attendance of 57,033. Yes, this is a different era. However, this is a true Vikings town, and they just built a $1 billion stadium that holds 66,000. I'd love it if interest in Gopher football encouraged a stadium expansion, but we'll never need more than about 10,000 more seats for the long term.

Coincidentally, the plan for expansion is to expand in increments of 10,000. But not by adding a few rows all the way around the stadium -- it would add three sections of 10,000. That would probably make the stadium look odd, but I guess there are odd-looking stadiums out there.
 



The stadium was designed to add a third deck. Just guessing that if they did that it'd expand the seating to something like 85K.
 

Even the highest echelon programs have trouble selling out their stadiums when the "dark times" hit, like 9 win seasons. With escalating ticket costs and cheaper and cheaper 60-70 inch UHD/OLED TVs bringing the experience into your living room I see attendance at stadiums stagnating at best. Now, if the Gophers start winning the west consistently and the Vikes stink+high cost for Ziggworld tix then there's a chance at filling it up.
 

Screw that. Make it bigger than the Big House! Accepting mediocrity again.
 

Winnipegopher said:
You guys are missing the message. Expanding the stadium is a throwaway line. Fleck can't do it and he knows he can't. The important message he wanted to get out is the 40 million funding gap (no idea where those numbers come from). He wants the public and the administration to hear that he is fighting an uphill battle. I don't really like his schtick but getting this message out is a good move.
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Think Fleck is comparing Gophs to Mich/OSU for football budgets.

http://www.pennlive.com/pennstatefootball/index.ssf/2016/06/who_are_the_richest_and_poores.html
 



I would be happy if they just added concessions and bathrooms to the upper concourse.

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Word said:
I would be happy if they just added concessions and bathrooms to the upper concourse.

Sent from my Commodore 64 using Tapatalk.
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How about some porta potties on the roof?
 




Fans should plan on filling thise seats also.

Question. How many temp seats did the vikings add and is there even room for 30k?. Would a third tier be needed or something?


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#coacheslivesmatter
 

PMWinSTP said:
Definitely would have to remove them for the Iowa games...just sayin'.
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N473vwq.jpg
 

CentralGopher said:
Fans should plan on filling thise seats also.

Question. How many temp seats did the vikings add and is there even room for 30k?. Would a third tier be needed or something?


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#coacheslivesmatter
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I think the Vikings added something like 2,000 seats. Any permanent expansion would be a third deck.
 

CentralGopher said:
Fans should plan on filling thise seats also.

Question. How many temp seats did the vikings add and is there even room for 30k?. Would a third tier be needed or something?


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#coacheslivesmatter
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Think it was about 2,000 temp seats. The place was built to add seats using a 3rd deck. I would want the open end to stay that way if there is expansion. Would be OK if they put temp seating (that looked nice and like it fit) there to bridge the need for more seating until additional deck could be completed.
 

minibeaver said:
If you dream of those things, I don't see why you wouldn't dream of expanding the capacity. I've thought about it alot. If we start to see significant improvement in wins on the field, beating our rivals, I'd imagine there would be an increase in demand for tickets. The 85 number can be argued, but the idea of needing to expand capacity if the team is having as much success as PJ expects it to is not too far-fetched imo.
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Because I don't care how many people are in the stands. Maybe I'm the minority's, but if I go to a game I don't care if 55K or 85K people are there. Doesn't matter to me in the least. What I hate is empty seats.


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PMWinSTP said:
The place was built to add seats using a 3rd deck.
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Can we get the guy in here again who said they somehow didn't actually build the stadium for expansion? / he claimed to have seen some sort of architectural data that indicated that?

That was a fun discussion.
 


lol maybe we could build a section of affordable seats that we could fill then.
 

In his Sat. after practice question and answer session, PJF was encouraging everyone to bring oars to the scrimmage and they were planning on doing something special with them. Could this be a cost saving measure to adding additional seating. The whole upper deck could be made of oars!!
 

BleedGopher said:
per Shama:

You have to give P.J. Fleck credit for ambition and vision. The new Gophers football coach hasn’t even completed the team’s spring practice schedule, but last Friday night he was talking about expanding the seating capacity of TCF Bank Stadium.

The dynamic 36-year-old arrived in Minneapolis January 6 after four years as head coach at Western Michigan, and he started pointing the program toward eventual Big Ten and (yes) even national championships. On Friday evening he stood in front of a packed room at the DoubleTree Hotel in St. Louis Park and spoke about creating a lot more ticket buyers at TCF Bank Stadium.

“You see, we have 55,000 seats in our stadium, but my plan already three years down the road is to expand it to 85,000,” Fleck told an audience of high school and youth football coaches.

Fleck wants to grow his program’s budget and referenced a “certain rival” who has $40 million more in budget than the Gophers. How to catch up?

“(Add) 30,000 more seats,” Fleck said. “But to be able to do that we have to connect people who don’t even like football.”

http://shamasportsheadliners.com/




Go Gophers!!
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When the pro sports leave town, lots building are demolished around the Bank to make room for parking and tailgating, we have 20 years of Rose bowls and a few National championships under our belts, I will get in the boat and row up Niagara falls with all 85K.
 

Let's start out by filling the first 50,000 seats we have with Gopher fan first. You have to grow the fan base some before you make statements like that building the other deck. This team wasn't able to fill 60,000 seats for the decades in the Metrodome, no need not to think big but let's not put it out there.
 

gopherdudepart2 said:
Let's start out by filling the first 50,000 seats we have with Gopher fan first. You have to grow the fan base some before you make statements like that building the other deck. This team wasn't able to fill 60,000 seats for the decades in the Metrodome, no need not to think big but let's not put it out there.
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He was sharing his vision for HIS and the State's program. He's trying to get people excited about the team, maybe people that haven't really paid much attention in the past. You can't expect different results from a coach if he just comes in and does the same thing others have done. He's trying, and he's trying the only way he knows how, which is to be himself.

At the end of the day, some folks like the Fleck type personality, and others don't. I lived in Minnesota long enough to know exactly which of PJ'S statements are gonna bother folks up there, no need for me to come to Gopherhole, click on literally ANY thread, and read about it.
 

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