Today's Official OCS thread/FAU unveils drawing of stadium

[Guest]

Just moved some off-topic replies.  Keep the discussion about OCS, please.

[bulldozier1]

Will it ever be truly fiscally possible to build a Ray Jay Jr. on campus?  Seriously, construction costs are going up daily, at a higher rate than banks give or charge in interest.

If USF waits and waits and waits I feel the costs will eventually become totally prohibitive to building.  Once again look at Doak and the Swamp.  They were not always as nice as they are now, but as the programs grew in stature renovations have been made as more money poured in.  Now, they are both considered cathedrals of football in the south.

you stick with singing and I will take care if construction costs; they are actually going down as of late I know that is how i make my living. If you adjust for inflation they should continue to decrease in the near term. The housing market slump and less demand for China has eased some of the price pressures.

You seem new so I will try to explain this rationally to you and give you the benefit of the doubt.

USF started football from scratch about 15 years ago with an unprecedented idea that the team would not start until they had raised enough money. There was an article about this in Sports Illustrated and it went into the failure and struggle of UCif and UAB to start with little money and raise on the fly. The start of the program was brought about by the purchase of the Buccaneers by the Glazer family; the Culverhouses where huge donors to USF and had said that they did not want competition for football in Tampa. Most of the large money donors gave large onetime gifts and yearly gifts to reach the goal of starting the team. You see that has created a team that has developed like no other team ever.

There is a limit of large donors able to give in such a short time in excess of what they did in the onetime and subsequent yearly payments. It is a little too early to tap them for a stadium that is not needed at present time. UCif had no place to play and had to settle for a stadium that was 1/2 of the amount they had planned with the thought of trying to expand down the road.

Many fans outside of some in the area think that us playing in a stadium that will be hosting another Super Bowl in 2009 is pretty **** nice. USC and UM have gained national attention playing in an off campus stadium and have done well. Most other traditional large colleges are in small towns so they have to build a place to play. There are not that many large college teams in cities that have NFL stadiums we are lucky. Raymond James is actually more centrally located to the fan base as a whole and seems to be set up to host football (see Super Bowls and Bucs)

The Glazers do not own the stadium nor do they get it for free they pay $375,000 a game to play there; if USF paid that we could probably do a lot more I think we now pay $100,000 maybe a little more per game. The stadium was voted on by the taxpayers of Tampa and passed in an open ballot.

It costs considerably more to renovate or add onto a structure than it does to build it the first time; this is my job I know this to be a fact. FAU can add 10,000 seats to the stadium now for only 5 million more; when they expand it will be in the 30 million range if I had to guess.

Why would we build a stadium for so few disgruntled fans and risk not having enough money to improve other athletic facilities; and run the risk of alienating large donors with requests for more money when they seem to enjoy RJS along with the players, most of the season ticket holders, and the coach.

Great post!