The Stadium Woods debate, being considered by the Hokie powers that be as I type, can have profound impact beyond the building of the new Beamer field house.
If the Hokies do move to the SEC, they face numerous obstacles, including the differential in size and ability at the offensive and defensive line positions and recruiting. But, the biggest obstacle is financial. While the SEC teams will equally split up the huge pot of television revenues, each dime one team makes over another is reinvested in recruiting, infrastructure, keeping a coaching staff intact, and all the other elements which keep a program as a top power. Stadium seating puts the Hokies at a distinct disadvantage right off the bat in the SEC East. Without a major expansion of Lane Stadium, the Hokies can not compete long term with those schools simply because those schools have more resources than the Hokies.
Let's do a very quick simplified example. A move to the SEC East puts the Hokies head to head against Tennessee every year. Tennessee right now is a middling SEC program despite vast resources and a passionate fan base. Every home game, Tennessee averages 100,000 fans. Using $50 a ticket as an average (which is probably low), every Vols home game produces $5,000,000 in gross revenue. Meanwhile, the Hokies sell out Lane Stadium at 66,000 fans at $50 a pop, they make $3.3 million in gross ticket sale revenue. That means, every time the Hokies and Vols play a home game, the Vols have a minimum of $1.7 million additional revenue over the Hokies that can be reinvested into the football program or the athletic department. Over the course of a season, that figures to be almost an extra game and a half's worth of gross revenue WITHOUT having the additional costs that come with hosting the extra games. That disparity would exist with every team in the SEC East except for Vanderbilt, and perhaps Kentucky.
I may be even be lowballing the potential discrepancy. Ultimately, if all other things are equal, that money results in investment which will grow the talent gap. The only way that VT can lower the gap without pricing out their fan base is stadium expansion, and any such expansion would threaten the woods. I am not an engineer and I don't know what the best method would be to make Lane Stadium a bowl or to make the north end zone larger, but it is only a matter of time before the Hokies must do it to win in big boy football.
Comments
FYI
The CT just reported that the committee has recommended the tennis court area instead of stadium woods for the practice facility.
Tennis Courts
I think a big practice facility where the tennis courts are would look extremely awkward. Where are they planning on moving the tennis courts to?
I'd look at the master plan for that
Basically every single thing they want to do (like large scale stuff: new CRC expansion, airport expansion, new buildings, etc)
http://www.facilities.vt.edu/documents/oup/masterplan/2009_land_use.pdf
Rec sports would get new facilities by Oak Lane and/or the Chicken Hill lot.
see also: http://www.facilities.vt.edu/documents/oup/masterplan/VATech_2006-2016_M... and http://www.facilities.vt.edu/oup/
when the debates about expanding oak lane came around, they told us that the plan was to basically create a huge rec complex out there, similar to what is at south rec right now.
Andy Bitter said on Twitter that they don't want a 6 story building on campus that would be that tall, so they might have to sink it into the ground, which could increase the cost. I could see that working with the big hill back there I guess.
Well, there you go. That doesn't rule out using the space for stadium expansion. As I have noted in previous comments, I don't think the Hokies are going to the SEC, but if they do, they have to find a way to have an 80K capacity stadium.
I could draw up awesome plans for 80K, goes like this....
1. Double up the metal bleachers in the North End Zone, adding about 7K seats. Just build a single, taller/wider structure.* Move a bunch of the students from the east stand over there. Now, think about this... enter sandman comes on and 2x and many crazy, fired up students are jumping up and down on metal bleachers. Do you know how loud that would be?
2. In the gaps between the South End Zone seats and East and West Stands, put in "Towers". Make the base Hokie stone and then design in steep stands that add about 3-4K seats on either side. Sell these to new Hokie club members at a discount to start. It will capture the recent grads and those folks that maybe want in but don't have the ability to "buy in" at silver right now. Again, it will be super rowdy and loud. It will cater to our blue collar fan base and be like the raiders "black hole" (only I would expect some Hokie Respect and some stadium enforcement to make sure loud and rowdy doesn't turn in WVU)
Boom- 14-15K seats added. And added awesomely.
*This also means replacing the scorebaord. Which has to be done anyway.
Ticket revenue gap
I'm not saying there isn't a revenue gap in ticket sales between VT and Tenn, but your inclusion of just ticket sales may be an inaccurate calculation. You need to include athletic club donations (eg: Hokie Club dues) to get a fairer representation of ticket revenue.
Now, the disparity might be worse if you do that, but it might not be. My point is that I spend way more than $50/ticket per game if you include my Hokie Club donation. Also, I don't see us expanding Lane anytime soon. My sense is that we're at the perfect capacity right now. If we added more seats, we'd incur a large amount of debt but get little return out of it because your average Hokie Club donation would decrease.
it also leaves out seat license fees and luxury seat revenue.
agreed, but we have to assume that given how difficult it is to get tickets for those schools, their booster fees and added costs are similar per head. I think that would make the gap even larger, but since I don't think any of us has the numbers on a Florida, Georgia, or Tennessee season ticket package, it would be difficult to estimate.
Tennessee $100 per ticket (including booster fees) x 100,000 = $10,000,000
Virginia Tech $100 per ticket x 66,000 = $6,600,000
Now we have a $3.4 million gap per game. That is tough to overcome long term. Ask Mississippi State, Ole Miss, Arkansas, and Kentucky. Each has had moments of success, followed by long periods of mediocrity (even with Ole Miss and Arkansas, which both have great traditions and I am pretty sure each has won or played for a national title.)
it can't be done.
lane stadium can't be made into a bowl--the west and east side stands are at different heights. this came up when they built the south end zone, hence why it is "free-standing" and contains two tiers, which effectively negates the possibility of connecting in the future. they made the decision to build the east stands up to that height in the late 70's--for the decade prior, they were the same height as the west side. the expansion added over 10K seats and had they not done this, you would've likely seen lane become a horseshoe when they built out the south to permanent bleachers.
http://www.techsideline.com/lane/pics/history/Lane1980_01.jpg
also, there is this from five years ago: http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/131092
I would think they'd do something similar to the North End Zone
Like they did in the South.
probably, it seems to be the only option they would really have if they wanted to do anything, but the logistics would be complicated for the reasons cited in the article.
however.
anything could theoretically be done if they threw enough money at it, but it would be more practical to just build a new stadium at that point.
New Stadium
I agree on New Stadium point. Best path is to model it after Scott Stadium -- more than enough capacity to accomodate all of home team's fans, plus plenty of room for visitors.
I agree 100% Let's just get
I agree 100%
Let's just get rid of the north end zone and create a hill. It would be louder to beat on the ground anyways.
DON"T EVER
Say that we should imitate anything that the hoos have done, are doing, or will do!
Guess you didn't catch the sarcasm:
"louder to beat on the ground"
..louder than our stands? pfft
and from his post above:
"more than enough capacity to accomodate all of home team's fans, plus plenty of room for visitors"
Their stadium is smaller than ours, but since nobody from UVA goes to their games, we can fill their stadium - hence the "plenty of room for visitors."
ok, this is what happens
when I read this blog quickly at work over lunch with phone calls interrupting.
Here's the presentation they gave today to the BoV
http://www.bov.vt.edu/documents/Status_of_the_Athletic_Practice_Facility...
What about parking?
Already a tough issue. Try adding another 20K fans. A major capital investment for sure. If you can't build horizontal you have to go vertical. Parking garages?
Weaver raised some good points about demand and debt. The reason LSU, Michigan, Notre Dame, OSU, et al have big stadiums is deep pockets and a huge fan base. Stadium expansion is a risk without different cash flow and donations. If current debt load could be reduced quickly expansion might make more sense.