Cost of upgrade at Unitas

[JoshuaTU]

The thread on the forums has me curious as to what the cost associated with adding 5k seats or so as another layer on the student side. This is in no way meant to be a discussion on whether moving up is a good idea or if a stadium change is needed. Im just curious as to what the costs associated with a modest addition would be. Would it be small enough to use a small increase in student fees to pay for or would it have to be a larger overtaking? 15k undergrad full time students(I know its more) would be $67 per student to raise a million.

[tiger84]

I assume we will go with 4,000 portable bleacher seats first plus standing room only which would add 4,500 to 5,000 more seats.
My bet is in the 2013 season we will have 3 or more sellouts which will really create the need for more seating.

I'm thinking permanent seating would likely be a state project like Tiger Arena but would need to include some fundraising also.

The thread on the forums has me curious as to what the cost associated with adding 5k seats or so as another layer on the student side. This is in no way meant to be a discussion on whether moving up is a good idea or if a stadium change is needed. Im just curious as to what the costs associated with a modest addition would be. Would it be small enough to use a small increase in student fees to pay for or would it have to be a larger overtaking? 15k undergrad full time students(I know its more) would be $67 per student to raise a million.

[andy7171]

We should focus on selling out games and having over capacity crowds in the standing room only areas for a couple years before any talk of expanding. If I remember correctly, phase three is endzone seating being in the 6-7K range.

[tiger84]

I agree. I'm thinking in the 2013 and 2014 season we will have 4 or more games a year in the 10,000-14,000(Madison/Delaware) range. Standing room would be fine for 1-2 years.

I would like to see Towson spend some money on emergency exits from the stadium so we do not have to worry about fire marshall issues.

We should focus on selling out games and having over capacity crowds in the standing room only areas for a couple years before any talk of expanding. If I remember correctly, phase three is endzone seating being in the 6-7K range.

[cyounes]

I don't think we should be talking about upgrading more seats just yet. WE need to prove we can sellout the games consisently! I think it will happen with RA at the helm. Having replaced the field turf again, I feel like if anything does get upgraded should be the "hill" we need to do something there in terms of cleaning it up. When I was at TU I advocated to get all the shrubs taken out and spell out Towson University Tigers (or something similar) across the giant hill with flowers around them and even offered to donate this whole thing from a family friend. The old adminstration went to President Caret with the idea and it was shot down (cost free). I think before we add seating that will probably cost a couple million something should be done with that area.

Looking at what MW and his staff has done to get the scoreboards, upgrade the field turf, upgrade the food, i think before we look to expand we should look to fix the hill. If we expand too fast the demand for tixs will go down. If we keep our capacity as is then the adminstration would be able to increase ticket prices and increase profits which could help to raise money towards an expansion.

I've talked to MW about possibly still donating that hill as of last fall but it was decided to put that on hold as other projects seemed at a higher priority. I'm hoping that this can be completed before Tiger Arena is openned.

[TowsonKon]

Here's what our AD had to say on it earlier in the year:

Since you sold out Johnny Unitas® Stadium for the NCAA playoff game, is there any talk about expanding the stadium?

MW: The atmosphere for our home NCAA playoff game was fantastic and is something that we will build upon for 2012 and beyond.

Before anything is done with expansion at Unitas Stadium, we need to have a steady sellout issue, which I certainly believe can happen. We are exploring standing room only issues with the Baltimore County Fire Marshal and will review expansion options as part of our Master Athletics Facilities Plan.

With that being said, we have a lot of facility needs with athletics that would come before expanding Unitas Stadium. We would have to identify a major private funding source to push a project of that magnitude – one that would most certainly run in the tens of millions of dollars. We have the opportunity to play future NCAA Playoff games at M&T Bank Stadium and may look at playing a BCS opponent downtown in the future if we can get the right opponent.

To justify playing a game downtown, we would have to have an opponent that would help sell the game and there are not too many of those opponents out there who would be willing to play an FCS opponent on the road or at a neutral site.

Our goal is to have a full stadium at "The U" for every home game and to maximize the number of season tickets that we can sell as that will end up helping not only the game atmosphere for football, but it will also help our other sports with a much needed revenue stream.

[tiger84]

Before anything is done with expansion at Unitas Stadium, we need to have a steady sellout issue, which I certainly believe can happen. We are exploring standing room only issues with the Baltimore County Fire Marshal and will review expansion options as part of our Master Athletics Facilities Plan.


I would like to see the 72 hour rule changed in the above to 48 hours.

Here's what our AD had to say on it earlier in the year:

Since you sold out Johnny Unitas® Stadium for the NCAA playoff game, is there any talk about expanding the stadium?

MW: The atmosphere for our home NCAA playoff game was fantastic and is something that we will build upon for 2012 and beyond.

Before anything is done with expansion at Unitas Stadium, we need to have a steady sellout issue, which I certainly believe can happen. We are exploring standing room only issues with the Baltimore County Fire Marshal and will review expansion options as part of our Master Athletics Facilities Plan.

With that being said, we have a lot of facility needs with athletics that would come before expanding Unitas Stadium. We would have to identify a major private funding source to push a project of that magnitude – one that would most certainly run in the tens of millions of dollars. We have the opportunity to play future NCAA Playoff games at M&T Bank Stadium and may look at playing a BCS opponent downtown in the future if we can get the right opponent.

To justify playing a game downtown, we would have to have an opponent that would help sell the game and there are not too many of those opponents out there who would be willing to play an FCS opponent on the road or at a neutral site.

Our goal is to have a full stadium at "The U" for every home game and to maximize the number of season tickets that we can sell as that will end up helping not only the game atmosphere for football, but it will also help our other sports with a much needed revenue stream.