Bobby Dodd Renovation in the NE Stands

[GT flunkout]

I still don't understand folks aversion to the chairbacks. We just had our best season in a decade and had attendances of 38k, 48k, 45k, 51k, 52k, and 52k. The previous season we were 40k, 32k, 37k, 47k, 34k. If the team starts out 0-2 or 2-2 or whatever, a lot of the folks who came to our games last season will likely drop off. Looking at the Upper North or Upper East and just seeing rows upon rows of empty bleachers is such a vibe killer. I can tell you this: the most raucous environment I've been to in years was an at-capacity 4,792 KSU Convocation Center. I have been to plenty of 4,792 attendee games at McCamish Pavilion recently and this experience blew McCamish out of the water. Drop capacity to 40k-42k and every game will be bouncing like Pitt last season. This will be a blood-pumping ticket the whole city is fighting and scratching for.

"We need to drop capacity for our eventual losing streak"

"dropping capacity will make every game the same blood pumping ticket like pitt where we had all our seats"

Math doesn't math

Any thoughts on stadium capacity should be contingent on consistent winning. I don't mean undefeated seasons or national championships, I mean consistent winning, competing for conference championships consistently. Planning for anything different isn't planning at all. Shrinking the stadium without winning doesn't make anyone's blood pump.

This also reduces seating in our highest demand areas, every bit as much as the cheap seats. Is someone sitting on the 40 in the lower west going to pay the same prices when they are shoved down to the 10? I'm sure they've done the revenue maximization formulas on that, but I'm not sure I buy it.

 

[matt0]

"We need to drop capacity for our eventual losing streak"

"dropping capacity will make every game the same blood pumping ticket like pitt where we had all our seats"

Math doesn't math

Any thoughts on stadium capacity should be contingent on consistent winning. I don't mean undefeated seasons or national championships, I mean consistent winning, competing for conference championships consistently. Planning for anything different isn't planning at all. Shrinking the stadium without winning doesn't make anyone's blood pump

Yea. I understand there may be valid reasons preventing it, but I personally think 50k is a good target capacity if possible. 40k seems way too conservative when its proven they can average over 7k more than that during a good season.

 

[stinger78]

Yea. I understand there may be valid reasons preventing it, but I personally think 50k is a good target capacity if possible. 40k seems way too conservative when its proven they can average over 7k more than that during a good season.

We don't need to go below 50K, IMPO. No, we may not fill that up for Wake or GSU, but we will for Clem and VPI and Miami, and a bunch of others. That's all the more revenue for those games. As much as it galls me to see BDS 50%+ mutt fans when they play there, that's money in the bank. Their money spends just like ours.

I think the best money a stadium can make is club seats and luxury boxes. My understanding is that these will be more abundant after the reset. But what about the guys who get pushed from the 30 to the 10-yard line over this? Will they pay more for that chairback seat? Many likely won't.

 

[roadkill]

Still trying to understand the cognitive dissonance between “We need to expand the stadium, not shrink it,” and “The debt from the last stadium expansion is an albatross around our neck.” Can someone explain?

 

[bobongo]

Still trying to understand the cognitive dissonance between “We need to expand the stadium, not shrink it,” and “The debt from the last stadium expansion is an albatross around our neck.” Can someone explain?

What we actually need to do is leave it alone.

 

[awbuzz]

What we actually need to do is leave it alone.

I could live with that.

If you're going to renovate, do something with the East stands.

 

[bobongo]

I could live with that.

If you're going to renovate, do something with the East stands.

Wouldn't want to touch the upper east. Maybe hang an awning over it. Nothing expensive. The way I look at it, it ain't broke, so don't fix it.

 

[AUFC]

Wouldn't want to touch the upper east. Maybe hang an awning over it. Nothing expensive. The way I look at it, it ain't broke, so don't fix it.

Disclaimer: I have not sat in Upper East in a hot minute, but I would not oppose an awning on the Upper East if they can pull it off without disrupting the Midtown skyline view from the other 3 sides. The Upper East gets more direct sun and heat than anywhere else in the stadium and it would probably make the stadium even louder/add to our homefield advantage.

 

[bobongo]

Disclaimer: I have not sat in Upper East in a hot minute, but I would not oppose an awning on the Upper East if they can pull it off without disrupting the Midtown skyline view from the other 3 sides. The Upper East gets more direct sun and heat than anywhere else in the stadium and it would probably make the stadium even louder/add to our homefield advantage.

Yeah, couldn't be done without messing up the skyline view. Scotch that idea. Maybe just leave it alone. Best seats in football, bar none, college or NFL.

 

[Lil G]

I’d be genuinely interested in letting Buffalo Wild Wings build a restaurant on top of the Fanning center if BWW covered the cost of building a terraced seated wing bar

It can stay open all year to students who want to eat over BDS, and then have tables sold on Saturdays for relatively big bucks. BWW keeps 80% of revenue, 20% goes towards GTAA

As part of the deal, in 10-15 years the restaurant space is auctioned off to the next restaurant for another X years and X revenue split percentage deal - with the contract being the restaurant Tech wants the most and that is willing to share the most profits with Tech

No loans. No costs. Students get to build their love for BDS. More pricey seats for those who like special Saturdays (there’s currently a waitlist for box seating if I’m not mistaken)
Despite some minimally permitted branding, it could probably would look pretty cool with awnings and tiered seating
And above all else pour more money into the program

I would propose the exact same concept for the Southeast corner as well

 

[Steverc]

Wouldn't want to touch the upper east. Maybe hang an awning over it. Nothing expensive. The way I look at it, it ain't broke, so don't fix it.

An awning may provide shade at noon, but not at 1 p.m.

 

[LT 1967]

We don't need to go below 50K, IMPO. No, we may not fill that up for Wake or GSU, but we will for Clem and VPI and Miami, and a bunch of others. That's all the more revenue for those games. As much as it galls me to see BDS 50%+ mutt fans when they play there, that's money in the bank. Their money spends just like ours.

I think the best money a stadium can make is club seats and luxury boxes. My understanding is that these will be more abundant after the reset. But what about the guys who get pushed from the 30 to the 10-yard line over this? Will they pay more for that chairback seat? Many likely won't.

Definitely agree. Georgia Tech does not need to make any move that makes GT look more like a G6 team rather than a P4 team. A reduction in stadium size reflects deemphasis and is not the way to go at this
critical point in conference realignment and NIL uncertainty. I don't think a school with a 44K stadium capacity will be that attractive to the B1G. I remember 1984-85 when we dropped the capacity and all the negative media attention we received!

 

[stinger 1957]

Our attractiveness to BIG IMO will be how well we draw on TV and the size of our media mkt first and then stadium crowd size will come in. I saw somewhere back that it is projected each BIG team will eventually make over 100 mil per school from TV alone. I'm guessing attendance revenue will be less than half that for each BIG school on average.

 

[bobongo]

Our attractiveness to BIG IMO will be how well we draw on TV and the size of our media mkt first and then stadium crowd size will come in. I saw somewhere back that it is projected each BIG team will eventually make over 100 mil per school from TV alone. I'm guessing attendance revenue will be less than half that for each BIG school on average.

I don't disagree, but as you acknowledge, seating capacity and crowd size do matter. People want to watch a team that can fill at least a reasonably sized stadium, and I think there is some correlation to the size of its TV viewership. In this regard, it cannot help us and can only hurt to downsize Grant Field. After the downsize, our stadium will be smaller than that of East Carolina.

 

[bobongo]

Definitely agree. Georgia Tech does not need to make any move that makes GT look more like a G6 team rather than a P4 team. A reduction in stadium size reflects deemphasis and is not the way to go at this
critical point in conference realignment and NIL uncertainty. I don't think a school with a 44K stadium capacity will be that attractive to the B1G. I remember 1984-85 when we dropped the capacity and all the negative media attention we received!

Is 44,000 the proposed capacity? Even worse than I thought. I was thinking it was 47,000.

 

[apatriot1776]

I don't disagree, but as you acknowledge, seating capacity and crowd size do matter. People want to watch a team that can fill at least a reasonably sized stadium, and I think there is some correlation to the size of its TV viewership. In this regard, it cannot help us and can only hurt to downsize Grant Field. After the downsize, our stadium will be smaller than that of East Carolina.

Our stadium is already smaller than that of UTSA, Purdue, Cal, UCLA, Rice. Who gives a single crap about the stadium size if you can't fill it? And no, giving 20% of the stadium away doesn't count as filling it

Might as well play down the street at MBS if capacity is all y'all think recruits look at

I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong and there's all these dormant GT fans from the 1970s who will suddenly start showing up to games 50 years later. Maybe GT will buck the trend of the entirety of pro and college sports and attract a casual fan that has been steadily moving toward couch + TV for the past 25 years. I just think it's a bad idea to bank on it, and a better idea to follow the trend of the NFL, CFB at large, NASCAR, MLB to size the stadium appropriately for the number of fans that pay to see the game.

 

[Ramble1885]

I see the hindsight clearly, but I'm looking forward. What I see in the future is a rising team with a shrinking stadium that will (I believe) need to be expanded once again down the road. Would that we had just left it alone and put all the wasted money to better use. And yes, the current idea is to shrink the stadium in order to increase ticket prices. Ugh.

depends on how much the stadium shrinks. I think 45-50k is the ideal capacity we need to have. I'd love 50-55k but Tech fans' attendance is determined by how the team is doing. If there's a down year, we won't fill 55k.

 

[bobongo]

depends on how much the stadium shrinks. I think 45-50k is the ideal capacity we need to have. I'd love 50-55k but Tech fans' attendance is determined by how the team is doing. If there's a down year, we won't fill 55k.

I hear this line of thinking a lot. What if we're down, what if we lose, what if we're mediocre? It seems we're planning for mediocrity. I'd rather plan for success.

What boggles my mind is that we are going to pay ten figures to downsize. Why not just leave the stadium alone, put the money to better use, and see what happens? We might be pleasantly surprised.
If we downsize, what's the best that can happen? We start winning more and gain fans, prompting another stadium addition. Then here we go, pouring money back into the stadium to increase capacity back to where it was. Since the mid 80s, we've gone from 60,000 down to 42,000, then back up to 55,000, and now we're planning to go back down to the mid 40s. It's the world's most expensive yo-yo.

 

[Oakland]

Our stadium size will be fine; it's the television eyes that are important nowadays.

 

[bobongo]

Our stadium size will be fine; it's the television eyes that are important nowadays.

If it will be fine, why not leave it alone and save the money? I mean, since TV is the only thing that matters, what's the use in blowing a gob of money on the stadium?