For all of you OCS peeps...

[BDYZR]

You can sit in the end zone and be a Green Jacket donor. It's those sections pretty much between the 40's that requir a higher donation.

[Guest]

Would love to see a dedicated Bulls stadium.  But when we do I don't want to start with a 30K seat HS looking arena.  I want us to have a sustained 60K fan base that justifies building a large facility that will not be under constructon every year as they try to cram in more seats. 

Don't do that $50/ticket model, that is NFL, get the most people in as possible at a reasonable price.  Seriously, I would rather stay at Ray Jay and fill it every week with $5 tickets than be on our own at $50 with 30K in the seats.

That's fine, but that isn't how you maximize revneues.

Not necessarily true.  Remember for every butt in the seat you have parking revenue (close to 100% profit), food and drink (95%+ profit), Fan base that buys shirts, hats, condoms..  on and on and on.. (think of what you own with the U on it).. all profit for the school.  PLUS the more people you get to the seats, the better local retention of people who want to attend the university as students, stay here to play, etc. 

That's not true...not true at all.

Parking - You have to pay attendants and even then USF won't control most parking. I'd imagine an OCS built near the athletic district would be bussing people in from the mall area. Parking in most cases would also be included in high level booster fees...

Food - Almost every sports venue contracts someone to come in and they split profits. The school isn't going to run their own here.

You can't argue with results. The reasons schools like Utah, WVU, Texas Tech, etc don't expand to 70,000+ seat stadiums is because the cost of the booster fee they can regulate in their smaller venues outweighs the money they would make from releasing the extra seats.

The Food would likely be rolled into the rest of the on-campus contract (currently with Aramark).

USF won't charge for parking - it will simply control access, and higher donors will have access to closer lots.  Most college campuses do not charge for parking... and parking will be all over campus.  The Mall will probably be just one option with the Bull Runner running so people who live close by don't have to drive to campus... the shopping centers at 56th and Fowler might also be an option if needed,

Finally, I can argue with results.

The schools you list are in very favorable positions -- they have enough demand for tickets that they can require donations and people will donate just for the right to buy tickets.  USF is not in that club and will not be.  USF could build a 50,000 seat stadium with 40,000-donation-required seats, but only sell 15,000 of them... and that will likely be the case for a generation or more.

So if you think USF won't build oncampus until it can make it an all-donor stadium, then it will never happen.

USF will need to operate like other schools with smaller fan bases... donations come from the desire to have amenities (like club access) not from the right to buy tickets.  My guess is USF won't be 'grandfathering in' the $100-per-year donors that have great seats when moving to a new stadium.

Heck, for some seats they might even look at Personal Seat Licenses as a way to fund the upfront cost... much like NFL teams do... buy a PSL for the right to donate for the right to buy the best seats.  For some of the non-donor seats, they might still sell a PSL for the right to buy tickets.

I think it will be a large stadium with capacity for selling a lot of tickets to non-boosters.

[Triple B]

Regarding the grandfathering, your seat selection is grandfathered in.  When we bumped up to GJ level a couple of years ago, we were sitting next to people who have had seats since the beginning and donate $100/year.

The difference is that the $1K donation (and up) gets you access to the Club Level.  The other people did not have that access even though their seats were next to ours.

Ricky, are you in a Green Jacket section?

Yes.  Sorry about that.  I was assuming.  We were put in a Green Jacket section which had just become a GJ section the year we joined.  Have since moved to 237 which is also currently a GJ section.  Pretty sure there are still grandfathered people in there.

That's what I was curious about ... if there were people sitting in current $1000 sections but only paying $100. That just doesn't seem right to me and I hope the only ones doing that, if any, are ones who honestly can's afford to pony up any more money.

[bull2saintleo]

If the decision were up to me, I would use Stanford Stadium in California as a guidemark for any USF stadium.  It's got a capacity of 50,000 with room to grow, and only cost $90 mil, rather than the excessive $288.5 mil that Minnesota's TCF Bank Stadium cost.

TCF Bank Stadium must have some crazy amenties, otherwise I don't know what they spent the money on.

[South_Florida_Flip]

There are probably a good deal of accounts who are grandfathered in.

There is also a real good chance that we have a good number of season ticket holders who purchased once we entered the Big East who would not be grandfathered.

[CousinRicky]

Regarding the grandfathering, your seat selection is grandfathered in.  When we bumped up to GJ level a couple of years ago, we were sitting next to people who have had seats since the beginning and donate $100/year.

The difference is that the $1K donation (and up) gets you access to the Club Level.  The other people did not have that access even though their seats were next to ours.

Ricky, are you in a Green Jacket section?

Yes.  Sorry about that.  I was assuming.  We were put in a Green Jacket section which had just become a GJ section the year we joined.  Have since moved to 237 which is also currently a GJ section.  Pretty sure there are still grandfathered people in there.

That's what I was curious about ... if there were people sitting in current $1000 sections but only paying $100. That just doesn't seem right to me and I hope the only ones doing that, if any, are ones who honestly can's afford to pony up any more money.

It is their right to stay in the seats at whatever level they first bought them.  These people had been there since the first game.  So I can understand that.  Should they ever want to change, or add, seats they would have to bump up to whatever the current level is for that section.

[Cow Pie]

If the decision were up to me, I would use Stanford Stadium in California as a guidemark for any USF stadium.  It's got a capacity of 50,000 with room to grow, and only cost $90 mil, rather than the excessive $288.5 mil that Minnesota's TCF Bank Stadium cost.

TCF Bank Stadium must have some crazy amenties, otherwise I don't know what they spent the money on.

Standford stadium was built in 1921...

The difference between the prices is time... maybe the expansion or renovation cost $90 Million...

[Triple B]

Regarding the grandfathering, your seat selection is grandfathered in.  When we bumped up to GJ level a couple of years ago, we were sitting next to people who have had seats since the beginning and donate $100/year.

The difference is that the $1K donation (and up) gets you access to the Club Level.  The other people did not have that access even though their seats were next to ours.

Ricky, are you in a Green Jacket section?

Yes.  Sorry about that.  I was assuming.  We were put in a Green Jacket section which had just become a GJ section the year we joined.  Have since moved to 237 which is also currently a GJ section.  Pretty sure there are still grandfathered people in there.

That's what I was curious about ... if there were people sitting in current $1000 sections but only paying $100. That just doesn't seem right to me and I hope the only ones doing that, if any, are ones who honestly can's afford to pony up any more money.

It is their right to stay in the seats at whatever level they first bought them.  These people had been there since the first game.  So I can understand that.  Should they ever want to change, or add, seats they would have to bump up to whatever the current level is for that section.

Not sure if it's a "right" or not but it is a good PR move for Athletics at this point in time. As we, hopefully, grow as a program and demand for tickets grow stronger, something will need to be done about those situations IF there is a good amount of them, which there may not be. That's $900 a year the program is "losing" ... A few accounts like that, okay, but a large number .... and especially if there are more in even higher donation levels... I wonder if there is somewhere with the history of donation levels/sections from the beginning of RayJay ..... Come on, K_L, we know you're stalking over here. You got anything in your massive USF database?

[bull2saintleo]

If the decision were up to me, I would use Stanford Stadium in California as a guidemark for any USF stadium.  It's got a capacity of 50,000 with room to grow, and only cost $90 mil, rather than the excessive $288.5 mil that Minnesota's TCF Bank Stadium cost.

TCF Bank Stadium must have some crazy amenties, otherwise I don't know what they spent the money on.

Standford stadium was built in 1921...

The difference between the prices is time... maybe the expansion or renovation cost $90 Million...

True, but this is what it used to look like...pretty much a brand new stadium.

[Triple B]

If the decision were up to me, I would use Stanford Stadium in California as a guidemark for any USF stadium.  It's got a capacity of 50,000 with room to grow, and only cost $90 mil, rather than the excessive $288.5 mil that Minnesota's TCF Bank Stadium cost.

TCF Bank Stadium must have some crazy amenties, otherwise I don't know what they spent the money on.

Standford stadium was built in 1921...

The difference between the prices is time... maybe the expansion or renovation cost $90 Million...

True, but this is what it used to look like...pretty much a brand new stadium.

Interesting that it has a more "pro" look to it now than it did .... and individual seats between the 15 yd lines.