Upper Deck Expansion

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FreakyDeke

FreakyDeke

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First of all, it's frustrating paying full price for season tickets when you can currently get them basically free from a scalper. I get that, and expansion would only make that worse, along with more empty seats or more badger/hawkeye fans. However, if we are EVER going to expand (a guy can dream of 80,000 packed into TCF, right?) and the Vikings could pay for it now, rather than awful temp seats, I would maybe be in favor of that if we could do something like this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Soundersfcqwestfield.jpg

The Seattle Sounders block off the upper level of the Seahawks' stadium, and it doesn't look as ridiculous as the Twins upper deck tarp did. It's not ideal, but if we got a free expansion out of the deal it does make sense if we ever plan on having a stadium on par with Camp Randall or Kinnick in terms of capacity. Obviously, if our attendance is never going to be higher than 50,000-ish, we shouldn't. Thoughts?
 

I think that looks marginally less tacky than temporary bleachers would for the 1-2 seasons the Vikings play at TCF. People can understand why those are there, but no one would understand why the U let a permanent addition be built on to our stadium if we didn't have the demand for it (heck, or even the 50k we have now). I'd rather the U pay for it down the road using money the stadium itself brings in when full every week. Just my opinion.
 

I don't have any $ figures, but I seriously doubt the Vikings would be willing to pay for permanent seating
expansion in the upper deck. Pretty hard to get a return on upper deck expansion in one or two years.
 

station19 said:
I don't have any $ figures, but I seriously doubt the Vikings would be willing to pay for permanent seating
expansion in the upper deck. Pretty hard to get a return on upper deck expansion in one or two years.
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This. The Vikings only need enough seats to cover their season ticket holders. That's 3,000-5,000 seats currently. There is no need to pay for permanent expansion (which would look silly at that size anyway) when they could be paying for temp seating. Both types of seating will be bleacher, so there is no amenity loss for the STH.

But to get back to the original question, assuming the Vikes are crazy enough to pony up I still think the U should decline and take the temp seat option. All it takes is the AD getting greedy to go back to the bad old days where the seats were sold to opposing fans. Keep in mind that in years that Nebby travels they very well could be "sold out" to "season ticket holders" who are just Husker fans/brokers who would then be willing to unload them to Iowa or WI fans for dirt cheap. Gameday atmosphere won't improve with shortcuts. The U needs to build demand organically or we'll have the issues on the same scale as Purdue, Indiana, and Northwestern (i.e. too many empty seats/cheap seats available for people to want to be STH). As already noted, we have the problem now, it's just not as bad.
 

GoAUpher said:
This. The Vikings only need enough seats to cover their season ticket holders. That's 3,000-5,000 seats currently. There is no need to pay for permanent expansion (which would look silly at that size anyway) when they could be paying for temp seating. Both types of seating will be bleacher, so there is no amenity loss for the STH.

But to get back to the original question, assuming the Vikes are crazy enough to pony up I still think the U should decline and take the temp seat option. All it takes is the AD getting greedy to go back to the bad old days where the seats were sold to opposing fans. Keep in mind that in years that Nebby travels they very well could be "sold out" to "season ticket holders" who are just Husker fans/brokers who would then be willing to unload them to Iowa or WI fans for dirt cheap. Gameday atmosphere won't improve with shortcuts. The U needs to build demand organically or we'll have the issues on the same scale as Purdue, Indiana, and Northwestern (i.e. too many empty seats/cheap seats available for people to want to be STH). As already noted, we have the problem now, it's just not as bad.
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At this point since we don't need the additional capacity, I would rather the Viings rent money be spent on upgrading TCF like adding some escalators, adding backs to more seats, enhancing concession areas (including the beer garden) etc. Sounds like the Vikings will pay for a heated field and they will need it for games in December and January, but since the Gophers home season ends by the third week in November at the latest, they really don't need it...
 


Redbird said:
At this point since we don't need the additional capacity, I would rather the Viings rent money be spent on upgrading TCF like adding some escalators, adding backs to more seats, enhancing concession areas (including the beer garden) etc. Sounds like the Vikings will pay for a heated field and they will need it for games in December and January, but since the Gophers home season ends by the third week in November at the latest, they really don't need it...
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I'd rather the rent money be spent on anything BUT the things you mentioned. We have more seat-backs than almost any college stadium in the country already. The bleachers are perfect for a) students b) visitors c) fans who don't care and want to save some donation money d) fans who want to save minimum donation money but can afford $45/seat for the chairbacks they up-sell. Not a single season-ticket holder in the stadium doesn't already have the option for a chair back seat. As for escalators... Are you kidding me? We've already got elevators for handicapped, elderly, and disabled. We don't need escalators to get up to the concourse from ground level - it's a whopping 2 stories of stairs, MAYBE, that facilitate large numbers of people much better than escalators can (they'd remove stair space and move at a slower pace than the stairs). Not to mention facilitating laziness (yes, my own personal opinion injected in there).

There are plenty of other ways that type of money could go to better use (marketing dept, fund for bball practice facility, fund for Mariucci and Williams upgrades, the list goes on).
 

The NFL has never been more popular in this country. No sport has ever reached the level of popularity that the NFL is currently at. With that, the Vikings are moving from a 64,111 seat stadium (27th largest) to a 65,000 seat stadium (will be 26th largest).

TCF Bank Stadium had a one year honeymoon and based on the history of this state with all of its pro/college sports, should never be expanded. Any increase in fan support/interest/ticket demand will be temporary. They put up temporary bleachers for a game (maybe the Nebraska game?) and that would suffice if there was an uptick in fan interest like the '03 Michigan game (which didn't even sell out).
 

Never be expanded? Never is an awfully long time. Yes, attendance decreased after the initial season, but a better product on the field might well have kept the attendance - the Brewster regime didn't exactly inspire confidence. We can't conclude that any increase in attendance would be a temporary matter. The Gophers have had only four winning Big Ten seasons since 1973. That doesn't build up attendance. If the Gophers have some success, such as averaging more than one winning Big Ten season per decade, demand for tickets may very well rise beyond the current capacity.
 

RodentRampage said:
Never be expanded? Never is an awfully long time. Yes, attendance decreased after the initial season, but a better product on the field might well have kept the attendance - the Brewster regime didn't exactly inspire confidence. We can't conclude that any increase in attendance would be a temporary matter. The Gophers have had only four winning Big Ten seasons since 1973. That doesn't build up attendance. If the Gophers have some success, such as averaging more than one winning Big Ten season per decade, demand for tickets may very well rise beyond the current capacity.
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Agree with you. Plenty of college stadiums above the 75,000 mark for attendance, and they seem to fill them just fine. Build a tradition of winning and great atmosphere combined with great continued marketing of the entire UofM product and we could support it. The NFL COULD have bigger stadiums, but with the size of seats, suites, club areas, etc they now build in, it wouldn't be possible to have a 100,000+ seat stadium. Their logic is they can make more off one really nice seat than 3 bleacher or regular seats (and take it a giant step further with the large number of suites and clubs).
 




RodentRampage said:
Never be expanded? Never is an awfully long time. Yes, attendance decreased after the initial season, but a better product on the field might well have kept the attendance - the Brewster regime didn't exactly inspire confidence. We can't conclude that any increase in attendance would be a temporary matter. The Gophers have had only four winning Big Ten seasons since 1973. That doesn't build up attendance. If the Gophers have some success, such as averaging more than one winning Big Ten season per decade, demand for tickets may very well rise beyond the current capacity.
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I agree with you.

2009 Attendance 50,805 (100% capacity)
2010 49,513 (97.5%)
2011 47,714 (93.9%)

I seriously doubt attendance would decline as greatly this season, even though the schedule is worse. If we follow the trend, and the season goes badly, be might dip another 3.5% to 46,000 or so. That means that the AD only needs to sell 4100 tickets a game to sell out. That's a total of only 29,000 tickets to sell--that's only the equivelent of 1-1/2 Wild games.

Let's see how the Kill factor, Teague factor, ticket marketing consultant plan (MARKET MARKET MARKET), student ticket plan (MARKET MARKET MARKET), booze plan, and season results for 2012 play out--maybe we don't have this conversation next year...but we still will...

A lot of moving pieces here.
 

Good question and a lot of good answers. I agree it wouldn't make sense to add permanent seating at this time even if much of the cost would be paid by the vikings (which it wouldn't). However, I also agree that "never" is a long time and I do believe that sustained winning would grow a fan base large enough for an expansion or two in 10K steps waaaay down the road.

In the end I doubt I will see the need for a TCF expansion in my lifetime but I hope I am wrong on that and I am convinced the only word that should never be used to describe the prosects of expansion is.. "NEVER"
 

We're never going to need 70,000+ seats...even if we go to the Rose Bowl 3 years in a row.
 



NateDawgUM said:
We're never going to need 70,000+ seats...even if we go to the Rose Bowl 3 years in a row.
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I suppose we will find out if what the affects on attendance will be once we win the Rose Bowl three years in a row. Since the Gophers haven't done better than the Sun Bowl, we don't have enough information to make a prediction. We may well need to expand to 60,000. 70,000, who knows. I would guess we wouldn't have demand for 80,000, but that kind of success would be unknown territory.
 

highwayman said:
I agree with you.

2009 Attendance 50,805 (100% capacity)
2010 49,513 (97.5%)
2011 47,714 (93.9%)

I seriously doubt attendance would decline as greatly this season, even though the schedule is worse. If we follow the trend, and the season goes badly, be might dip another 3.5% to 46,000 or so. That means that the AD only needs to sell 4100 tickets a game to sell out. That's a total of only 29,000 tickets to sell--that's only the equivelent of 1-1/2 Wild games.

Let's see how the Kill factor, Teague factor, ticket marketing consultant plan (MARKET MARKET MARKET), student ticket plan (MARKET MARKET MARKET), booze plan, and season results for 2012 play out--maybe we don't have this conversation next year...but we still will...

A lot of moving pieces here.
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Does anybody ever actually believe these attendance numbers? I'm sorry but every time I see someone quote them I get sick. I think that the only 3 100% capacity games at TCF were Air Force, California, and MSU, all in the first year. And that season had PLENTY of low-turnout games. Yes, I understand that it's "ticket sales" and not attendance, but the U honestly doesn't come close to bringing those people in. Just because tons of brokers bought tickets doesn't mean there's a demand.

And I would think 3 Rose Bowls in a row would have such an impact on fan interest, recruiting, and so much more that we could definitely sustain some success after that, enough to warrant at least a 10k expansion...
 

Just Win Baby. If the expectation was making a run for the Roses and 8 plus wins a year all bets are off, and if they won the Big 10, 3 years in a row your ticket would be gold.
 

RailBaronYarr said:
Does anybody ever actually believe these attendance numbers? I'm sorry but every time I see someone quote them I get sick. I think that the only 3 100% capacity games at TCF were Air Force, California, and MSU, all in the first year. And that season had PLENTY of low-turnout games. Yes, I understand that it's "ticket sales" and not attendance, but the U honestly doesn't come close to bringing those people in. Just because tons of brokers bought tickets doesn't mean there's a demand.

And I would think 3 Rose Bowls in a row would have such an impact on fan interest, recruiting, and so much more that we could definitely sustain some success after that, enough to warrant at least a 10k expansion...
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You can be sick if you want, but the number is tickets sold. The U is not allowed by law to inflate the numbers. They aren't a local NBA team. It may not be in-game attendance, but the number of tickets sold is a fact, and can't be "fluffed".
 

husker70 said:
Just Win Baby. If the expectation was making a run for the Roses and 8 plus wins a year all bets are off, and if they won the Big 10, 3 years in a row your ticket would be gold.
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Why would the Gophers enter the Kentucky Derby?
 


The solid data we have for comparison is tickets sold, that's what every other school is reporting. If someone wants to gather the butts in seats data, that's fine, but it isn't meaninful to compare butts in seats for the U vs. tickets sold at other schools.
 

Its better to have people standing outside waiting to get into games than it is to have a stadium 80% full and no one outside hoping to get in. Gophers will have to do some serious winning over a longer time than 3 years to think about increasing the seating at TCF. I would love to see the time when Gopher Football could sell out game in and game out and actually have the seats filled by people at the game, but that time isn't now and it wont be for a while.
 

I'm a firm believer that 'it can happen here'. But until it does, we shouldn't.

I forgive you for visions of 80,000 fans cheering the 11-0 Gophers to victory over Iowa at TCF in the last game of the season. I have the same dreams.
 

Two words - Demand and Scarcity.

Why does every Springsteen concert in town sell out? Because there is a demand for the tickets, and a finite number of seats available.

With TCF Bank, the scarcity is there - only 50,000 seats available, which is not that much for a D1 football team. Now, the Gophs have to create the demand - and there's only 1 way to do that - WIN!.

The ideal situation - The Gophs show steady improvement under Kill, re-vitalize the Student Section, and start playing to packed houses. Next, they develop a waiting list for season tickets. Then, and only then, should the U even consider expansion. I understand that TCF was built to allow for an expansion of up to 80,000 total.
My question - could that be done in phases as demand warrants? Maybe 10,000 more seats first, and see if the demand is great enough to sell those out on a consistent basis.

One more point - ideally, the vast majority of seats would be sold to, and occupied by, Gopher Fans. I never want to go back to the days when half the Dome (and at least 1 bathroom stall) was filled by WI or IA fans.
 

Yes, TCF was built to be able to be expanced up to 80,000 in increments of 10,000.
 

I have come to my own conclusion that TCF should never be expanded unless it is for suite or club seating. Adding 10,000 bleacher seats will just go into the B10 coffers anyways and be divided up between all the schools, right? The only $$ the U gets to keep is seating donations and the $$ paid for suites and club seating, right? Even if the U rattles off 10 good years and 2 Rose Bowls I still don't see people buying season tickets over what the first year in TCF brought.

Suites and Club baby. That's it. The Nagurski Club.
 

GoGophers2005 said:
I have come to my own conclusion that TCF should never be expanded unless it is for suite or club seating. Adding 10,000 bleacher seats will just go into the B10 coffers anyways and be divided up between all the schools, right? The only $$ the U gets to keep is seating donations and the $$ paid for suites and club seating, right? Even if the U rattles off 10 good years and 2 Rose Bowls I still don't see people buying season tickets over what the first year in TCF brought.

Suites and Club baby. That's it. The Nagurski Club.
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What are you talking about?
 

GoGophers2005 said:
Adding 10,000 bleacher seats will just go into the B10 coffers anyways and be divided up between all the schools, right?
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Nope. The U keeps all their own ticket revenue. I believe some portion of total gate goes to the conference (don't recall all the details) but all in all the extra revenue would be the U's.

GoGophers2005 said:
The only $$ the U gets to keep is seating donations and the $$ paid for suites and club seating, right?
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Nope. See above. PSL's and premium seating fees are just more money on top. This is why schools like Michigan, OSU, PSU, WI, etc can have much more profitable athletic departments. They are selling out stadiums that much more than MN. Multiply that per ticket gain by 7 games and you're talking real money.
 

station19 said:
What are you talking about?
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Maybe he is confused by the fact that revenue is split from bowl games and the Big Ten Network equally. This is obviously not the case when it comes to ticket sales from rgularly scheduled games. I do have a question on whether there is a split bewteen the home and away teams and if so, what is that split?
 

station19 said:
What are you talking about?
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That was my first thought too, 19. What gets divided equally by all teams in the conference are Bowl Games earnings. What about NCAA basketball tournament proceeds?
 

Killjoy said:
I do have a question on whether there is a split bewteen the home and away teams and if so, what is that split?
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I really do recall reading that there was some element of this but I have no idea on the details. Will try to confirm via teh Google at some point. Totally sure that I could be wrong b/c I have nothing but a hazy memory to base this on.
 

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