The truth is is that fewer people are attending games. Make it a more comfortable more enjoyable experience and perhaps we can reverse or at least slow down the trend.
While lower attendance (not just at UF) certainly makes it easier to justify lowering capacity, I think making the seats bigger/better would be done anyway. Schools can make a whole lot more money charging a premium for a better experience than they can by adding capacity.
What psychological advantage does a 1990s Era stadium give us? Modernizing it helps with recruiting as noted by others. If anything though, I am sure on the field, in the trenches, Alabama players mock our linemen for playing in an old worn out stadium. Think of how we trash FSU's erector set stadium. They put bricks around it, but it is still an erector set.
80,000? Not sure I like that, we already have one of the smaller stadiums in the SEC. 1 – Texas A&M's Kyle Field, 102,733 2 – Tennessee's Neyland Stadium, 102,455 3 – LSU's Tiger Stadium, 102,321 4 – Alabama's Bryant-Denny Stadium, 101,821 5 – Georgia's Sanford Stadium, 92,746 6 – Florida's Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, 88,548 7 – Auburn's Jordan-Hare Stadium, 87,451 8 – South Carolina's Williams-Brice Stadium, 80,250 9 – Arkansas' Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium, 76,000 10 – Ole Miss' Vaught-Hemingway Stadium, 64,038 11 – Missouri's Faurot Field at Memorial Stadium, 62,621 12 – Mississippi State's Davis Wade Stadium, 61,337 13 – Kentucky's Kroger Field, 61,000 14 – Vanderbilt Stadium, 40,350 https://www.ncaa.com/news/football/article/2018-07-30/25-biggest-college-football-stadiums-country
I haven't been to a live game since the 2008 NC season with my kids. I am older now and can't sit on benches, or stand up the whole game. Prices for season tickets are just not worth it anymore.... I will stay at home and watch games on the 70 inch TV, in ac, with a toilet 30 feet away! I hate feeling this way, but age wins out. I will let the next younger, louder, generation have the seats. Old people should just stay home if they are just going to sit all game.
True, but I suspect pretty much every major school is going to do similar renovations in the next decade and for the same reasons. I also don't think expect this to be done all at one time.
In just a few years the Swamp will be 100 years old (at least the original below street level part. The thing will keep evolving as it always has. It would be cost prohibitive to replace the entire thing, either on site or elsewhere. Will we have a state of the art symmetrical oval shaped stadium with luxury boxes all the way around, chairbacks throughout, and an unbroken fancy light bar line around the perimeter? No, but we can still modernize the place we call home.
I’ve been attending Gator football games since 1958 and have lived through more than one upgrade. Only change I have never been able to accept is calling our great venue anything other than Florida Field. It will always be that to me.
I love what we have at Florida Field. A REAL home field advantage. Case in point....this year, September 3, Saturday night in Gator Country, Utah, we are underdogs, steam rising, we got the IT FACTOR, we are hungry....you can just tell it in the crowd. And we won the game in large part because of all that that night.... I hope you were there. I love walking up Gale Lemerand with that glorious heat, humidity, sun and rain and entering our hallowed home. No people movers, just the cement inclines. Those beautiful metal bleachers. The love for The University of Florida. I take it all in and love that it just stays the same. Our shrine. THIS IS....GATOR COUNTRY. It means something. I may not speak for all, but I don't give a damn what they do at FSU. It ain't nothin' to me.
I got it, but we got to be careful and NOT get all new schooly soft and comfy. We don't want to look like that crap in Miami. Look how they ruined themselves when they left the old school Orange Bowl. The Canes had a real home field advantage in the Orange Bowl. I don't give a damn about what they do in Coral Gables, but it is an example of what can happen.
Was that really their choice? They were just tenants at the old orange bowl and that stadium was demolished, right? When the dolphins got their new stadium, it was inevitable that the cocanes would be there shortly after. They don’t own anything and doubt they have had much say in how either of those stadiums were built, renovated, or destroyed.
I sadly agree... one thing I love about college games is the massive crowds. I hate that we are going to fall back in the seating capacity area, but am curious to see what they do improve. I just hope they don't hurt the intimidation and noise factors by cutting too many seats.
