Maybe we need to look at the model of Wake Forest. They are only slightly larger than TU in terms of UG enrollment, similar academic rigidness. The only real difference is Wake Forest got lucky and was included in the ACC because of its geographic location and is now enjoying the benefit of being in a conference with Florida State, Miami (FL), Clemson, UNC, NCState and Virginia (I'd say Duke but Duke doesn't move the needle in football) and the fan bases and TV sets those schools bring with them
Montgomery Era
- Thread starter ey1294
- Start date
Wake:
Undergrads 5,000
Total 8,000
Tulsa:
Undergrads:3300
Total: 4400
They're the closest and still double. They will also be looking at 3x the amount of revnue from media as Tulsa. We are looking at 8-12 and they will make 30ish million after the ACC channel launches.
Just for comparision go look at Rice who actually is pretty close to Tulsa and who has been a conference peer for us. That's the future Tulsa can have if we aren't careful. The leadership at Tulsa has done remarkably well placing us in this position to start. Some of this is residual of plans executed in the 1960s or earlier. Tulsa has got what it does by hard work and dedication. It will survive with good leadership and those two qualities.
We are unique which can be good or bad, depending on how you package it.
Undergrads 5,000
Total 8,000
Tulsa:
Undergrads:3300
Total: 4400
They're the closest and still double. They will also be looking at 3x the amount of revnue from media as Tulsa. We are looking at 8-12 and they will make 30ish million after the ACC channel launches.
Just for comparision go look at Rice who actually is pretty close to Tulsa and who has been a conference peer for us. That's the future Tulsa can have if we aren't careful. The leadership at Tulsa has done remarkably well placing us in this position to start. Some of this is residual of plans executed in the 1960s or earlier. Tulsa has got what it does by hard work and dedication. It will survive with good leadership and those two qualities.
We are unique which can be good or bad, depending on how you package it.
All I know is we need an AD who can raise money for: IPF, Workout Room/Facility upgrades for Football and Basketball, Expand the stadium to about 40,000 (not bc we're selling out games, BUT bc...), and get better home NC games (the bigger stadium helps this drastically).
I think we're going to need to start thinking about remodling the Reynolds Center to some degree within the next decade or so. I love it. But it's starting to look more and more dated by the year. (Mostly talking about the concourse)
Last edited:
Agree, but I think that's the bottom of the list under the other stuff. The things I listed are areas that most big high schools have and we don't. If we want better recruiting and better opponents, we need to get all those things done FAST. The new TV deal will hopefully increase the odds of that stuff getting built in the off season after next year... But I don't think so if have the same AD. Even if he's wanting these things, he clearly isn't selling the importance of it to the board. Just my 2 cents.
Most of our conference is 35,000ish for their stadiums. Temple has plans for one that size on campus they are trying to work through approval by the city. The economics work for that and it could easily fit in the footprint. Bowling in the end zone and towards the case building would probably get us that. 40,000 means some big time changes as I'm pretty sure we did not design with future expansion in mind (thanks to bubba).
We do need an ipf. We have just done upgrades on both sets of lockerooms as well as some other stuff.
The Reynolds center is fine for now but yes an update in the next decade will probably be required. Hopefully Haith starts to really get things rolling and that becomes an easy sale.
40'000 for us would probably end up looking a lot like Vanderbuilt Stadium. Bowling in the South endzone + putting another lengthwise section of seating behind what we currently have on the East side. That would probably take our stadium to spitting distance of the Reynolds Center though.... Maybe we could merge them somehow.
Expand the stadium to 40k min. Rename it for Glenn Dobbs, the father of the forward pass.
Expand Reynolds to 12k if possible. Should have been built that way.
Expand Reynolds to 12k if possible. Should have been built that way.
I was thinking of them bowling both ends in and then have the option to bookend the press box/ box seats later on. I have no idea how many seats that would add so that's why I came up with the 40kish. And I know they upgraded the locker rooms but thought it would be better to have a full dedicated work out facility or maybe a larger ipf with that included. Just think we should keep with the Joneses...
40k? Shouldn’t we at least average 20k butts in the stadium before we expand to 40k? Nothing more inspiring than playing in a more than half empty stadium.
It seems to be a chicken and egg thing... while I don’t think we’d ever average 40k, would we see an increase in attendance if we were able to bring in bigger name non-conference opponents?
Last time we had a P5 opponent here (other than OSU or OU) was Iowa State in 2013 and we had 20,137 in attendance. Those are the types of schools we might attract in home and home series with a 40k capacity. I think we have other issues more relavent to our attendance issues than stadium size.
Of course there are more pressing issues. But in regard to drawing appealing opponents, I think bringing in regional p5 teams would go further than the Iowa states of the world. KU, K state, Texas tech, Baylor, TCU, Missouri, and so on. But all that is way down the line on the priority list at this point.
Sorry to derail the bubba love train but wasn’t he the one who gave Wojick the 7 year contract based on barely more than nothing because he loved Doug?
1. Fun Fact: Wake Forest was originally called "Wake Forest Manual Labor Institute."
2. Expand the stadium? I hate to be a jerk, but come on. If we have 15k butts in the seat for USF it will probably be a lie on the stat sheet. There is nothing about this program, scheduling, or our history of attendance that indicates expanding the stadium makes any sense. I'm not being Debby Downer, just cold hard truth.
2002 we hosted Kansas and had 18k reported.
2005 we hosted Big 10 Minnesota for a home opener, and had 33k reported.
2008 we hosted ECU for the conference championship game in a time when we had great teams, the #1 offense, and put up video game #s - we had 22k reported.
2011 we hosted Oklahoma State, and our stated attendance was 24k (the 3am game)
2012 Another conference Championship game, hosted UCF to win the championship in front of an abysmal 17k fans.
2013 we hosted Iowa State, a year after a Liberty Bowl victory over them, and had 20k attendance
In the same ten years we can pull games with Sam Houston State or Minor Directional State U College, and they drew hit or miss as well as the Big 12 or Big 10 teams. There simply isn't support for the "if we play them, they will come" theory. I want a solid schedule too, and I do think it helps attendance... but not to the degree many think. What regional schools are we going to get play in Tulsa and pack the house with fans wearing blue and gold?
The only time in the last 15 years we have needed 40k seats is to accommodate Oklahoma fans shouting BOOMER SOONER once ever 6 years or so. It wasn't that long ago that we had 40k seats, and we took them out because playing in a mostly empty stadium is sadder than just admitting our fan base isn't going to fill out the stadium anytime soon. Our 5 year rolling average is 19k, *if* you believe the reported attendance figures.
2003 - 22k
2005 - 22.8k
2007 - 24.5k
2009 - 22.5k
2011 - 22.5k
2013 - 19.7k
2015 - 19.6k
2017 - 18.5k
2019 - EXPAND THE STADIUM TO 40K!!1!!1
Go forth and pull our reported attendance numbers:
http://www.ncaa.org/championships/statistics/ncaa-football-attendance
Saying we should spend $25million+ to add 10k seats because it will attract P5 schools to come and play is erroneous and irrelevant, even when we host them we don't fill the stadium. The "if we build it they will come" mantra has been disproved by team after team, including right here at Tulsa. And spending money to play in an empty stadium because we want to say we play in a 40k seat stadium? It just doesn't make any sense.
3. Should we do the basketball arena?
First, it is very unlikely that we need a bigger arena to attract quality opponents. Generally, that isn't a criteria in college basketball and hasn't been an issue previously. Plus, 8,355+ is a very decent number for a college arena (average attendance nationwide is 4633). Attracting opponents to keep our SOS up hasn't been our issue for years anyway and when we do have a quality opponent, we don't fill the arena.
If we want to or need to play in a big arena we have one ~2 miles away. UMKC, Bradley, Providence, Nebraska, Siena, Marquette, Memphis, Creighton, Seton Hall, NC State, St. John, Georgetown, Louisville, and Kentucky all make that work. I'd prefer to pack the house we have, but if we just wanted big... we have that option.
As far as the need for better facilities... The list of schools regularly getting wins in the NCAA Tournament with a smaller and lesser arena than Tulsa is lengthy. Add in those schools that don't even have their own arena. It's too big to bother to list here. Facilities are not our primary problem in basketball (for recruiting purposes, scheduling, or revenue).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NCAA_Division_I_basketball_arenas
Then lets talk about announced attendance, I'm going to do every other year because it tells the story just fine:
1999 - 7867
2001 - 7846
2003 - 7735
2005 - 5942
2007 - 5425
2009 - 5925
2011 - 5783
2013 - 5676
2015 - 4580
2017 - 4325
2019 - EXPAND THE ARENA TO 10K!!111!!11
We list 41 sellouts and 2 of those times we oversold the area (2002 and 2006, Kansas and Oklahoma, respectively). Want to guess how many of those sellouts are in the last 5 years (1)? The last 10 years (3)? In ten years, we have needed more seating 3 times out of ~160 men's basketball games. Adding seats makes no sense.
http://www.ncaa.org/championships/statistics/ncaa-mens-basketball-attendance
http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools...isc_non_event/2013-14TUMBBRecord-FactBook.pdf
I would LOVE to be in a position to discuss building bigger arenas. At the moment, I'd love to get past the 50% capacity mark for actual butts in the seats on the arenas we currently have. If we inverted those charts and were selling out most basketball games... then we start to think about a discussion on expanding the arena.
The discussion now, for either facility, makes as little sense as putting President in for a wildcat run up the middle on a 3rd and 8 (see, I circled the thread back to football at the end! Clever, huh?).
2. Expand the stadium? I hate to be a jerk, but come on. If we have 15k butts in the seat for USF it will probably be a lie on the stat sheet. There is nothing about this program, scheduling, or our history of attendance that indicates expanding the stadium makes any sense. I'm not being Debby Downer, just cold hard truth.
2002 we hosted Kansas and had 18k reported.
2005 we hosted Big 10 Minnesota for a home opener, and had 33k reported.
2008 we hosted ECU for the conference championship game in a time when we had great teams, the #1 offense, and put up video game #s - we had 22k reported.
2011 we hosted Oklahoma State, and our stated attendance was 24k (the 3am game)
2012 Another conference Championship game, hosted UCF to win the championship in front of an abysmal 17k fans.
2013 we hosted Iowa State, a year after a Liberty Bowl victory over them, and had 20k attendance
In the same ten years we can pull games with Sam Houston State or Minor Directional State U College, and they drew hit or miss as well as the Big 12 or Big 10 teams. There simply isn't support for the "if we play them, they will come" theory. I want a solid schedule too, and I do think it helps attendance... but not to the degree many think. What regional schools are we going to get play in Tulsa and pack the house with fans wearing blue and gold?
The only time in the last 15 years we have needed 40k seats is to accommodate Oklahoma fans shouting BOOMER SOONER once ever 6 years or so. It wasn't that long ago that we had 40k seats, and we took them out because playing in a mostly empty stadium is sadder than just admitting our fan base isn't going to fill out the stadium anytime soon. Our 5 year rolling average is 19k, *if* you believe the reported attendance figures.
2003 - 22k
2005 - 22.8k
2007 - 24.5k
2009 - 22.5k
2011 - 22.5k
2013 - 19.7k
2015 - 19.6k
2017 - 18.5k
2019 - EXPAND THE STADIUM TO 40K!!1!!1
Go forth and pull our reported attendance numbers:
http://www.ncaa.org/championships/statistics/ncaa-football-attendance
Saying we should spend $25million+ to add 10k seats because it will attract P5 schools to come and play is erroneous and irrelevant, even when we host them we don't fill the stadium. The "if we build it they will come" mantra has been disproved by team after team, including right here at Tulsa. And spending money to play in an empty stadium because we want to say we play in a 40k seat stadium? It just doesn't make any sense.
3. Should we do the basketball arena?
First, it is very unlikely that we need a bigger arena to attract quality opponents. Generally, that isn't a criteria in college basketball and hasn't been an issue previously. Plus, 8,355+ is a very decent number for a college arena (average attendance nationwide is 4633). Attracting opponents to keep our SOS up hasn't been our issue for years anyway and when we do have a quality opponent, we don't fill the arena.
If we want to or need to play in a big arena we have one ~2 miles away. UMKC, Bradley, Providence, Nebraska, Siena, Marquette, Memphis, Creighton, Seton Hall, NC State, St. John, Georgetown, Louisville, and Kentucky all make that work. I'd prefer to pack the house we have, but if we just wanted big... we have that option.
As far as the need for better facilities... The list of schools regularly getting wins in the NCAA Tournament with a smaller and lesser arena than Tulsa is lengthy. Add in those schools that don't even have their own arena. It's too big to bother to list here. Facilities are not our primary problem in basketball (for recruiting purposes, scheduling, or revenue).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NCAA_Division_I_basketball_arenas
Then lets talk about announced attendance, I'm going to do every other year because it tells the story just fine:
1999 - 7867
2001 - 7846
2003 - 7735
2005 - 5942
2007 - 5425
2009 - 5925
2011 - 5783
2013 - 5676
2015 - 4580
2017 - 4325
2019 - EXPAND THE ARENA TO 10K!!111!!11
We list 41 sellouts and 2 of those times we oversold the area (2002 and 2006, Kansas and Oklahoma, respectively). Want to guess how many of those sellouts are in the last 5 years (1)? The last 10 years (3)? In ten years, we have needed more seating 3 times out of ~160 men's basketball games. Adding seats makes no sense.
http://www.ncaa.org/championships/statistics/ncaa-mens-basketball-attendance
http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools...isc_non_event/2013-14TUMBBRecord-FactBook.pdf
I would LOVE to be in a position to discuss building bigger arenas. At the moment, I'd love to get past the 50% capacity mark for actual butts in the seats on the arenas we currently have. If we inverted those charts and were selling out most basketball games... then we start to think about a discussion on expanding the arena.
The discussion now, for either facility, makes as little sense as putting President in for a wildcat run up the middle on a 3rd and 8 (see, I circled the thread back to football at the end! Clever, huh?).
Good points and accurate as well... I just wish we had the support and following that many other “city” universities enjoy.
Be nice if we could get somebody to rent Chapman for extra income....maybe an XFL team. Dumb to have a venue in a city our size and only use it 8 times a year. Same with the Reynolds center....start having more events especially now that you can have beer sales at them.
I agree on the Reynolds Center. That arena is the perfect size for some moderately sized bands and they hardly ever use it for that.
Adding 10k seats to the stadium wouldn't be terrible. It really wouldn't look any emptier than it already does. And it would look like an FBS stadium. I think that's the biggest knock, it just looks small time. it's beautiful and the renovation really captures the spirit of TU's campus, but it just doesn't scream P6.
Expanding the Reynold's Center is a major engineering feat...and not needed. Until we start selling out 60% of our games (i.e. all conference games) and make it a must see product, then why? The demand isn't there so there's no reason to increase supply. Simple economics.
At one time we did.
At some point the university moved away from its surroundings and became more enlightened than the people around it.
Three questions on the football stadium expansion:
1) How would doubling the average number of empty seats not make it look more empty?
2) Rice, UAB, UTSA, and Temple play in large empty stadiums. Do those stadiums scream P6 when you see 20,000+ empty seats on TV?
3) Until we start selling out 60% of our games and make it a must see product, then why? The demand isn't there so there's no reason to increase the supply. Simple economics.
QUOTE="JesseTU, post: 230649, member: 536"]Three questions on the football stadium expansion:
1) How would doubling the average number of empty seats not make it look more empty?
2) Rice, UAB, UTSA, and Temple play in large empty stadiums. Do those stadiums scream P6 when you see 20,000+ empty seats on TV?
3) Until we start selling out 60% of our games and make it a must see product, then why? The demand isn't there so there's no reason to increase the supply. Simple economics.[/QUOTE]
I agree that it is hard to expand the stadium seating capacity when we can't come close to filling it now unless OSU or OU come to town and sell 50% of the tickets to people wearing orange or red. However, I think the smallish nature of the stadium makes it hard to get some of those P5 games against teams like Kansas, Iowa State, Illinois. I've been screaming for years that we should be trying to set up home and homes with schools like Duke, Wake Forest, and Vanderbilt in football. Instead, we're so hard up for cash, our AD is eager to take on the sacrificial lamb role for giant state schools with seemingly infinite resources.
1) How would doubling the average number of empty seats not make it look more empty?
2) Rice, UAB, UTSA, and Temple play in large empty stadiums. Do those stadiums scream P6 when you see 20,000+ empty seats on TV?
3) Until we start selling out 60% of our games and make it a must see product, then why? The demand isn't there so there's no reason to increase the supply. Simple economics.[/QUOTE]
I agree that it is hard to expand the stadium seating capacity when we can't come close to filling it now unless OSU or OU come to town and sell 50% of the tickets to people wearing orange or red. However, I think the smallish nature of the stadium makes it hard to get some of those P5 games against teams like Kansas, Iowa State, Illinois. I've been screaming for years that we should be trying to set up home and homes with schools like Duke, Wake Forest, and Vanderbilt in football. Instead, we're so hard up for cash, our AD is eager to take on the sacrificial lamb role for giant state schools with seemingly infinite resources.
What you get with 40k+ vs 30k stadium. Better home schedule.
Maybe Ark instead of ark st. Iowa instead of iowa st. Missouri instead of missouri st.
Bigger draw.
Winning also helps fill the stadium.
Maybe Ark instead of ark st. Iowa instead of iowa st. Missouri instead of missouri st.
Bigger draw.
Winning also helps fill the stadium.
Leave Arkansas out until they get a better mindset. I would take either Iowa or Iowa State. And we used to have a home and home with Mizzou. Honestly, we should be pushing for more lower level P5 home and homes. Iowa, Iowa State, Mizzou, Kansas (my god that should be an easy game to schedule), KState, Illinois, and the private schools I mentioned.
I wonder if SRO options have ever been considered. Make the corners of the end zone more fab friendly (like you see at some nfl stadiums or even downtown at oneok field). And sell the tickets for $10. It may not make any difference, but I know a lot of people who do that at drillers and rough necks games. Also the Dallas cowboys always have a huge demand for those tickets even though they’re in the end zone.
Just block off the whole campus and make it SRO...charge $10 bucks to get in unless you already have a ticket and let people go in and out of the stadium....then you can announce a bs attendance number...
I'd be more willing to make any ticket sold as a walk-up on game day a General Admission ticket and let them sit in any unused seat after the first quarter. If they want to stand at the ends and watch, so be it. They want to sit in one of the loge boxes that no one is in, so be it. They already sell GA tickets for specific sections on the ends of the east side...do it one better and just let people sit in open seats, especially on the east side.
I don't think that's true. I think you'd have the same number of season tickets bought because people like their seats. I also think you would have groups of people buying tickets up front to guarantee they could sit together.
Think about it...you walk up 3 hours before the game, buy your GA tickets and have the opportunity to sit in a seat back seat on the 50 if the seat is empty. Now you have 3 hours to burn before the game to go hang out at Chapman Commons and enjoy the pregame festivities.
Maybe General Admission is a better term. It was just a thought... attendance doesn’t change much whether we win or not at this point.
I'm not sure at this ;point why the majority of the seating on the east side isn't GA. Reserve the seats between the 30s and have the rest as GA. We could always change the policy for any marquee opponents.
With our attendance right now, I don't think a group of 50 people would have a problem finding a place to sit together in about half the stadium.
Like this a lot. Assigning bleacher seating seems dumb to me lol. Assigning the actual chaired spots is obvious but unless it's a huge game and / or you love your seats it's really not important.
We currently have two sections that our GA and it seems the sales are doing well.
Stadium expansion is a moot point right now. Bubba screwed that pooch and we are a bit stuck at the moment. I can go back and explain our attendance problems in depth but it comes in three basic parts.
The connection between University and the community atrophied with poor efforts from the school.
We have not consitantly won. Even in the middle of our best run we had a 5-7 season. Therefore we have never built momentum to recapture what we lost in the 1990s.
Our home schedule, which is stadium related but not stadium exclusive.
Dr. Gragg is aware. He was on 1430 yesterday and discussed it some. Pointed out the league wanted two p5 games a year and one at home. Also pointed out it's just not call people and sign a deal. He was networking at a AD event in Phoenix I think.
Just looking at our future schedule it is paper thin. Wyoming and New Mexico appear to be the best teams we have signed with under Dr. Gragg In fact it looks as though the only scheduling Dr Gragg has done is those two games along with Arkansas St.
Our other games are buy games and fcs teams.
Meanwhile Coastal Carolina with a 20,000 seat stadium just had KU come play there. Arkansas just went to Colorado St. Memphis has had home and home with UCLA and Memphis. Tulane has northwestern coming up and Vandy I think. Tulane has had Georgia Tech, Duke, and Wake.
Hell at least get Army and BYU both Independents who have had games vs us and our conference. Boise St has signed home and home with us. Pretty sure Air Force would, etc.
These are all secondary problems right now. The program needs to figure out how win the games they do have scheduled.
Stadium expansion is a moot point right now. Bubba screwed that pooch and we are a bit stuck at the moment. I can go back and explain our attendance problems in depth but it comes in three basic parts.
The connection between University and the community atrophied with poor efforts from the school.
We have not consitantly won. Even in the middle of our best run we had a 5-7 season. Therefore we have never built momentum to recapture what we lost in the 1990s.
Our home schedule, which is stadium related but not stadium exclusive.
Dr. Gragg is aware. He was on 1430 yesterday and discussed it some. Pointed out the league wanted two p5 games a year and one at home. Also pointed out it's just not call people and sign a deal. He was networking at a AD event in Phoenix I think.
Just looking at our future schedule it is paper thin. Wyoming and New Mexico appear to be the best teams we have signed with under Dr. Gragg In fact it looks as though the only scheduling Dr Gragg has done is those two games along with Arkansas St.
Our other games are buy games and fcs teams.
Meanwhile Coastal Carolina with a 20,000 seat stadium just had KU come play there. Arkansas just went to Colorado St. Memphis has had home and home with UCLA and Memphis. Tulane has northwestern coming up and Vandy I think. Tulane has had Georgia Tech, Duke, and Wake.
Hell at least get Army and BYU both Independents who have had games vs us and our conference. Boise St has signed home and home with us. Pretty sure Air Force would, etc.
These are all secondary problems right now. The program needs to figure out how win the games they do have scheduled.
For scheduling...your options to get P5 is going to be slim....our best bet is to go after Big 10 schools who want to play in Oklahoma for recruiting....the likes of Indiana, Purdue, Northwestern, etc....
