Next steps revealed for USF Bulls’ on-campus football stadium

[bullstampede9922]

1 hour ago, Rocky Style said:

It's a huge wasted opportunity, but we still eventually had to make moves or basically quit altogether.  My contention has always been to not blame the fans but the people who were supposed to be building and selling the product.  We needed someone (anyone) with a vision and who got the big picture before it was going to happen.  Also, the event of UCF officially passing us really helped slap the "status quo" people in the face.   That awakening has been very entertaining for me to watch.  If this happens, remember that "connected" people said with authority that it would never happen in our lifetimes and most people just believed them.  It's a nice microcosm for life in general.

If you think about it, they had a mediocre football team for 17 years before our existence.   It took the birth of USF football and early domination to light a fire under their fans / administration that mediocrity wasn't acceptable.  I think the same thing just happened when we were passed over for the BIG12.  

[Triple B]

On 8/12/2022 at 10:45 AM, bullstampede9922 said:

If you think about it, they had a mediocre football team for 17 years before our existence.   It took the birth of USF football and early domination to light a fire under their fans / administration that mediocrity wasn't acceptable.  I think the same thing just happened when we were passed over for the BIG12.  

Mediocre or not, they had a football program and were slowly building a fanbase. Back when they started one, there wasn't the immediate avenues programs could take to get a quick boost like there have been in recent years. Love or hate the pasty white player killer who fell into their laps, GOL is the reason they are where they are today.

Meanwhile we were handed a seat to the Big Boys Table without hardly breaking a sweat and the only one who acted like they belonged was CJL. Just an observation but the Administration and the fanbase had little clue what it was going to take to compete at that level. We probably still would have been left behind at the next realignment but we may have been better prepared for the later ones ..... and totally agree that the Big 12 shun spurred some outside of Athletics to get their collective heads out of their asses but I think MK and then CJS were trying to gear up from the time they got here.

 

[GoBulls84]

2 hours ago, 12inchtaint! said:

Just guessing here- but thinking that the breakdown will look like this- Total cost 300-325M, factor in 25M in cost overruns.  $170-200M financed, 70M in donations, then remainder in state or developer funding for mixed use of stadium (retail/class/etc).  

Still blows my mind that through all these years, past administrations while in the Big East haven't been able to get this done.  The speed that this admin has been able to push this through has been insane.  This is going to happen. 

The donations part is what blows me away from the numbers discussed. How long did it take us to fund the IPF once they announced it? And then within a year of announcing we're formally looking to build a stadium, we're talking about near $100M raised for the OCS? We've got like $10M in donations publicly announced, I'm curious who is throwing down the bigger chunk of change, or how many different donors are ponying that up. If they're looking to finance $100-200M, that makes me think they've already got someone with a big chunk lined up and they're expecting or hopeful of others.

[Triple B]

Assume the info in this Times article today is probably already in this thread somewhere but there's some stuff I hadn't seen yet ....

tampabaytimes

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TAMPA — Three companies submitted proposals to build USF’s propose

 

[12inchtaint!]

13 minutes ago, GoBulls84 said:

The donations part is what blows me away from the numbers discussed. How long did it take us to fund the IPF once they announced it? And then within a year of announcing we're formally looking to build a stadium, we're talking about near $100M raised for the OCS? We've got like $10M in donations publicly announced, I'm curious who is throwing down the bigger chunk of change, or how many different donors are ponying that up. If they're looking to finance $100-200M, that makes me think they've already got someone with a big chunk lined up and they're expecting or hopeful of others.

Last I heard they were at about $25M in donations without actively asking us normal fans for money yet.  Once they have plans and make it official, I would estimate that in 1-2 years of fundraising they can get $10M out of the normal fans, and most likley raise $40-50M through large donors/corporate sponsors/naming rights sales.   Once they announce this there should be quite a snowball effect with the alumni/corporate base.   If the wins happen on the field then fundraising will be even easier.  The avenues to get money with a stadium are much wider, they are going to be able to extract naming rights revenue, concessions contract revenue, parking revenue, etc.  Just eliminating the albatross of a stadium lease will bring in added revenue.

[Jim Johnson]

3 hours ago, 12inchtaint! said:

Still blows my mind that through all these years, past administrations while in the Big East haven't been able to get this done.  The speed that this admin has been able to push this through has been insane.  This is going to happen. 

2 hours ago, Rocky Style said:

It's a huge wasted opportunity, but we still eventually had to make moves or basically quit altogether.  My contention has always been to not blame the fans but the people who were supposed to be building and selling the product.  We needed someone (anyone) with a vision and who got the big picture before it was going to happen.

 

Let's not forget in 2007 and 2008 when USF football as at the height of its success... the university was fulfilling it's Big East commitments to the OTHER athletic facilities.  THREE new stadiums and a new Basketball facility were all built at the same time and opened in 2011.  Adding an IPF or an OCS to that mix would have stretched resources thin.  More than $50 million in new and renovated facilities -- a large percentage of which were funded through private donations.

 

 

[Jim Johnson]

3 minutes ago, 12inchtaint! said:

Last I heard they were at about $25M in donations without actively asking us normal fans for money yet.  Once they have plans and make it official, I would estimate that in 1-2 years of fundraising they can get $10M out of the normal fans, and most likley raise $40-50M through large donors/corporate sponsors/naming rights sales.   Once they announce this there should be quite a snowball effect with the alumni/corporate base.   If the wins happen on the field then fundraising will be even easier.  The avenues to get money with a stadium are much wider, they are going to be able to extract naming rights revenue, concessions contract revenue, parking revenue, etc.  Just eliminating the albatross of a stadium lease will bring in added revenue.

It also will bring in added expenses... loan repayments.  $200 millon in loans is $1 million PER MONTH in loan payments...  $12 million per year.

Renting at Raymond James for 6 games per year is less than $1 million PER YEAR.

Adverstising and naming rights will make up the difference... but operating a stadium is not a profit-making venture.

[Triple B]

7 minutes ago, Jim Johnson said:

Let's not forget in 2007 and 2008 when USF football as at the height of its success... the university was fulfilling it's Big East commitments to the OTHER athletic facilities.  THREE new stadiums and a new Basketball facility were all built at the same time and opened in 2011.  Adding an IPF or an OCS to that mix would have stretched resources thin.  More than $50 million in new and renovated facilities -- a large percentage of which were funded through private donations.

I had no problems at all with the facilities upgrades they did first, especially the Sun Dome considering it was supposedly a major factor in getting the invite over the ****heads. Those other facilities were embarrassing for a BCS program but some more attention should have been paid towards an IPF/football facility, at least preliminarily.

[Triple B]

9 minutes ago, Jim Johnson said:

It also will bring in added expenses... loan repayments.  $200 millon in loans is $1 million PER MONTH in loan payments...  $12 million per year.

Renting at Raymond James for 6 games per year is less than $1 million PER YEAR.

Adverstising and naming rights will make up the difference... but operating a stadium is not a profit-making venture.

Was about to post something similar. The want for an ocs was not about the bottom line ...

[12inchtaint!]

3 minutes ago, Triple B said:

Was about to post something similar. The want for an ocs was not about the bottom line ...

Correct, but the hit to the programs overall budget may not be as big as people think when they get to cut out the lease payment and actually keep parking/concessions.