Why the 30k stadium is the best option

[Lm77]

Initially, I was skeptical of the proposed stadium. It's the best way to go.

• We are self-financing it. It is FAU's stadium from day 1. We control all events and all revenue. We would lose all control with the larger stadium proposals. IMO, this is the most significant benefit to the proposed design
  
• It's a very traditionally designed stadium - horseshoe and single rake (no overhang)
  
• There have been no large stadiums built in the past 15 years. The largest is the new Minnesota stadium, at 50k. Instead, more amenities, like luxury boxes, are included. Large stadiums are a thing of the past and unnecessary because...
  
• They project a luxury box will be $45000 a season... at $10 a ticket for a normal seat and 6 home games a season, one luxury suite is equivalent to 750 sold out seats. A few dozen luxury suites is equivalent to a tens of thousands of sold-out seats (with far less parking needed). There are *very* few luxury suites in the SBC.
  
• A larger stadium requires more parking and more maintenance
  
• The horseshoe design makes it trivial to add extra seating for big games. It's simple to place temporary bleachers in the open end zone (this is what Minnesota plans to do). Also, Dolphin Stadium isn't going anywhere if there's every a really big event.
  
• Because the stadium is the UCF design, it can eventually be expanded to 65000 seats
  
• Also because it's the UCF design, we can be assured that we will have facilities at least on par with or exceeding the state-of-the-art in CUSA. Conference affiliation is about facilities and academics. The new stadium makes us a perfect fit for CUSA. It also puts us right on par with UCF for recruiting and future conference shifts (and USF may veto UCF for the Big East...).
  

The bottom line is that seating capacity is highly overrated. It's about the luxury suites and flexibility, which the proposed design will have plenty of.

We just need to make sure we don't forget the water fountains...

[rdownin1]

Even though you say the number of seats are over rated, i would like to see lots of people come out to the games one day!

[Bytor]

It is a good option for us at this point in time, 30K is a fairly good size stadium, especially for FAU right now, it will allow us time to grow the fan base and if we get to the point that we sell-out every game, then demand for tickets will be at premium, thus elavating the status of the program which of course you can then build something like Clemson did to close-in their end-zone last year.

By 2010, I can see FAU drawing 20-25K fans per game, with a sell-out for the first game.

[Bytor]

And like Lm mentioned, we will have control of the stadium, that is worth it's own weight in gold.

[illinoisowl]

Howard, after the vote, said that he now prefers the smaller venue because if the games sell out, available tickets become a hot commodity.

Thats more likely to happen for a while with a smaller stadium. Eventually it may be like the swamp.

[Talon]

Illi you are dead on with your post about the Swamp

[rdownin1]

as long as it can one day be something to be proud of!